“So.” Ember cleared her throat and stared at the puzzle box in her lap. “That guy back there who showed up out of nowhere.”
“Never seen a nightstalker before, huh?”
The fae’s eyes widened. “That was Corian?”
“That was Corian.” The halfling let out a long, slow breath. “His timing’s bad about fifty percent of the time. He’s basically saving my ass the other half.”
“And he brought you this box?”
“Yep. Said the breakfast room smelled like fae, too, so now he knows who you are.”
“Oh, jeeze.” Ember rolled her eyes. “It’s always the smell.”
“Hey, for me, it was the ears.” Cheyenne flicked her High Voltage Raven Black-dyed hair and shook her head. “Glad I don’t have to worry about that anymore.”
“Not when you’re wearing that thing, huh?” The fae nodded at the Heart of Midnight pendant around Cheyenne’s neck, the thin silver chain studded with retied knots.
“Oh, that. I was thinking more along the lines of having a lot more control over what I look like these days, but yeah. This thing’s about worn out anyway.”
“I’ve got plenty of chains if you need a new one.”
“No, I meant the pendant. Apparently, it has a shelf life. But I’m pretty sure—” The buzzing phone in her back pocket cut her off, and she shifted to pull it out before glaring at the screen. “Brace yourself. This might get weird.”
“Who is it?”
“Sir himself.” Cheyenne rolled her eyes and accepted the call.
“Where the fuck is he, halfling?”
She pulled the phone emitting the shouting voice away from her ear and shot a quick glance at it. “If you mean Rhynehart, he’s still at my mom’s. Where you ordered him to be.”
“Rhynehart? I’m not talking about Rhynehart!” Sir barely turned away from his phone to let out a stream of profanities. Ember looked at Cheyenne with raised brows, and the halfling shrugged. “I got a call from Chateau D’rahl this morning. L’zar Verdys pulled his second disappearing act in the last twenty-two years. Know anything about it?”
Shit. She scowled at the road. “No, I don’t know anything about it. I’m not his keeper.”
“You’re his goddamn daughter, Cheyenne. I want to know where that lunatic drow is. Besides the guards on Alpha Block with cat shit for brains, you’re the last person who talked to him.”
“I have no idea where he is. Remember that giant opening that showed up out of nowhere at my mom’s house? That’s where my focus has been lately.”
“Well, re-focus!” Sir let out a deep growl. “I want to see your number on my screen the first time you catch a reeking whiff of that sonofabitch. You hear me?”
“Kinda hard not to when you’re shouting.”
“Figure it out.” There was a loud slam and a click, then the line went dead.
Cheyenne pressed her lips together and tossed her phone into the cubby under the dashboard.
Ember eyed her warily. “I’d ask what that was about, but I heard the whole thing.”
“Yeah, the dude’s got serious anger issues. L’zar’s out.”
“Why?” The fae cocked her head in consideration. “I mean, besides the obvious part about not wanting to spend any more time behind bars, but wasn’t he supposed to be protecting you from something by staying in the prison?”
“That’s what I thought.” Cheyenne swallowed. “But I passed the drow trials. That means I’m not another dead drow kid he’s trying to groom for his rebellion, so the prophecy’s been blasted to smithereens.”
A dark-gray blur streaked with white darted down the road toward them. It passed so close to the Panamera that it knocked the back end sideways.
“Shit!” The car fishtailed on the narrow frontage road, and Cheyenne jerked her foot off the pedal, rocking the steering wheel back and forth to correct the swerve. She got the thing straightened out in seconds and glanced into the rearview mirror. “What the hell’s going on?”
“Woah.” Ember pushed down on the seat with one hand and braced herself against the window with the other.
“You okay?”
The fae had gone white, and she heaved a shaky breath. “We almost went off the road.”
“But we didn’t.”
The streaking blur backtracked and whizzed past Cheyenne’s window before stopping two yards in front of the car. The halfling slammed on the brakes in a spray of gravel and fine dust, rocking her and Ember forward against their seatbelts. The second she recognized L’zar Verdys standing in the middle of the road, his white hair strewn wildly around his grinning face, Cheyenne slammed her palm on the horn and counted to five.
He didn’t flinch.
She dropped her hand into her lap and shifted into park. “What the fuck?”
Ember’s mouth worked silently until she found her voice. “Who’s that?”
“Our escaped convict.”
The fae whipped her head toward Cheyenne and whispered, “That’s L’zar?”
The drow in question tossed his hair out of his eyes and stepped calmly toward the driver’s side window. Cheyenne glared at him until he rapped gently on the glass with the back of his hand, then slowly rolled the window down. “What are you doing?”
L’zar ducked his head to peer at his daughter and her friend in the passenger seat. “Looking for you. That’s fairly obvious. It took me forever to track you down, Cheyenne. Take off that damn pendant, will you?”
Can’t argue with an order straight from the top, can I?
Without breaking her father’s gaze, the halfling jerked the chain around her neck, which broke as easily as ever, and tossed the whole thing into the cubby with her phone. “Why were you tracking me?”
The drow sniffed the air delicately and peered around his daughter at Ember. “Your car smells like fae.”
“L’zar!”
“Oh, come on. Aren’t you going to introduce us?”
“No. You’re standing outside my car in a prison uniform looking like a full-on drow for everyone to see. What are you doing?”
“I came to help you. Which you’re
