The scrolling code blinked an error message when she focused on the line of his magic soldering through the box. She leaned closer and pointed at it. “I’d move a centimeter to the right. You’re gonna cut through something important in there.”
The orange light bursting from the skaxen’s finger sputtered out, and he lowered his hand with the box to the counter before glaring at her in disgust. “Piss off.”
“Yeah.” Cheyenne laughed and lifted her hands. “Yeah, I’ll do that.”
She turned in a daze and headed toward the open door. Persh’al hurried after her and grabbed her arm as they stepped outside. “If that thing’s gonna make you walk around all day like you ate a bunch of magic mushrooms, the psychedelic kind, I’m gonna tell you to take it off.”
Cheyenne gently brushed his fingers off her arm and nodded. The courtyard lit up in a whole new way now, streaming all the information she could possibly want to know about every gadget, system, and magically synced piece of gear on each passing magical and built into the metal walls. “I’m good.”
“You sure? I’m not gonna lie, kid. You look like you’re trippin’ balls.”
The halfling pulled her gaze away from the wealth of O’gúleesh information and smiled at him. “Come on, Persh’al. Don’t tell me the first time you used one of these, it wasn’t a total trip for you.”
He tried to stare her down, but the humor in her glowing golden eyes was infectious. The troll chuckled and scratched the wind-blown fluff his mohawk had become. “All right, you got me there. But get used to it quick, huh? A blissed-out drow drooling all over the streets is gonna bring the kind of attention we don’t want.”
“I’m not drooling.”
“If you say so.” He grinned and nodded for her to follow him into the throng of magicals going about their business in the lower marketplace of Hangivol. “And don’t get too attached to having that around. It’s only temporary. This is the kinda tech that doesn’t make it across the Border, so as soon as we go Earthside again, you’re back to being illiterate.”
“Fine. But I’m keeping it on ‘til we go back.”
Chapter Forty-Two
In the first five minutes of their trek through the crowded streets of the lower marketplace, Cheyenne figured out how to turn down the background noise with the activator so her enhanced drow hearing didn’t give her an enhanced drow headache.
Durg’s niece was right; an activator does all the heavy lifting. No spells and no studying. No wonder magicals don’t wanna leave the city.
Now it was a lot easier to follow Persh’al without being distracted by every unknown sound. He led her through a second series of alleys and passages until they came to another market courtyard, more or less. This one sold food, clothing, potions, and one scrappy yellow magical had a stack of cages full of squawking birds—striped chickens with two heads and lionlike tails instead of tailfeathers.
“Okay, what are those?” Cheyenne asked, staring at the yellow-skinned magical hawking caged birds.
“Hmm?” Persh’al followed her gaze and wrinkled his nose. “O’gúleesh chickens, basically. They taste like shit in comparison, honestly.”
“No, I meant the guy selling them.”
“Oh.” Persh’al chuckled and pulled her away when the magical caught sight of her staring and gave her a cold sneer in response. “That’s a gremlin, kid. A tamer one than the raider, for sure. They’re pretty harmless for the most part, until you cross their arbitrary line in the sand and flip their switch into total nutjob. I stay away from them if I can. Ticking timebomb of rage, those guys.”
“Uh-huh.” Cheyenne sneered back at the gremlin, whose attention was quickly diverted by a new potential customer.
Persh’al leaned toward her and lowered his voice. “I’d cut it out with the staring from now on, yeah? Maybe you’ve noticed an odd reaction or two in Peridosh when magicals see a drow down there schmoozing with the rest of us. Same holds true in Hangivol but magnified.”
“I thought this was drow city.” Cheyenne glanced into an open storefront and thought immediately of Gúrdu the raug Oracle. The setup inside was exactly the same, low tables and heaps of cushions scattered around the floor, hookahs on every table, flickering lanterns in every color, suspended magically below the low ceiling. But this room was full, littered with magicals sprawling across the cushions and taking huge pulls from the hoses, staring at each other with vapid eyes and dull, washed-out smiles.
“It is drow city. Hey, I said, quit staring.” Persh’al grabbed her upper arm and pulled her forward. “You keep standing in front of the wrong places like that, and someone’s gonna draw you in. L’zar will rip my head off if I let you stop for a magical ride in a nectar barn.”
She shot him a questioning frown, and he released her arm before nodding in the direction they were headed.
“Think Earthside opium den, kid. That shit’ll drug you up until you’re nothing but drow-headed goo. Got it?”
Cheyenne raised an eyebrow and skirted around a group of old troll women huddled around an outdoor stove controlled by magical tech to maintain the perfect heat, their scarlet braids a washed-out pink and their violet skin nearly gray. “As long as you get it that you’re not letting me do anything.”
“Fine, Cheyenne. I’m not gonna argue semantics with you, because the outcome’s the same. All I can do is strongly advise against something, yeah? And it’s my ass on the line if you decide to do the complete opposite.”
Fighting back a laugh, she nodded slowly and forced herself not to stare at the pair of huge orange eyes peering out of the pitch-black alleyway beside them. “I trust you, troll, so advise away.”
He snorted. “Yeah, okay.”
The streets grew narrower and darker the
