“I have no clue.” Cheyenne stared at him until he cast her an uncomfortable sideways glance. “And I thought your guys were more professional than that.”
Rhynehart swallowed and stared straight ahead at the portal ridge and Bianca’s rigid form. “They are, and you know it. But this whole thing, whatever you’re cooking up, goes way beyond professional, halfling.”
“Deal with it.” To prove her point, Cheyenne laid back on the grass and clasped her hands behind her head. “No one’s going anywhere until L’zar comes up with an answer.”
“To what?”
“Huh. I don’t know, Rhynehart. I wonder why we’re all sitting around in my mother’s backyard.” She closed her eyes. He smells pissed off. Good. “If you stay professional, your agents will have to suck it up.”
Rhynehart grunted and studied the meditating L’zar. “What’s he doing over there?”
“Meditating,” Cheyenne and Ember said together, then the fae laughed.
Cheyenne grinned. “Only time he’s not insane. You should try it sometime. How’s your blood pressure?”
The agent looked down at her with a frown, but Cheyenne didn’t open her eyes. “A hell of a lot lower than your housekeeper’s, I can tell you that much.”
“Shit.” Opening her eyes, Cheyenne pushed herself up and looked at Ember. “She’s in there all by herself. I need to go talk to her.”
“I’ll come with you.” In a flash of violet light, Ember rose in one fluid movement to hover above the grass.
Rhynehart forgot all about the halfling rising to her feet as he stared at the inch of space between Ember’s shoes and the ground. “What the hell is that?”
“Magic, man.” Ember spread her arms and raised an eyebrow. “What else?”
His mouth opened silently but he didn’t reply, and the fae turned to float after Cheyenne as the halfling stalked across the lawn toward the house.
“Hey.” Lumil watched them leave and nudged Byrd again with the toe of her boot. “Deadly duo on the move.”
“Huh?” The goblin man shot up off the grass and looked after Cheyenne and Ember. “You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?”
“Man, I wouldn’t step into your head for a lifetime supply of grog. A lifetime.”
“Yeah, me too.” Byrd scrambled to his feet, and the goblins took off after the halfling and her Nós Aní.
When Cheyenne reached the base of the flagstone steps that led up the hillside, she stopped and turned around. “What are you doing?”
The goblins froze six feet away. Byrd’s shoulders sagged. “Aw, come on.”
“We want a peek inside, halfling.” Lumil nodded at the sweeping veranda jutting from the back of the house. “Place like that? I bet it looks even bigger when you’re standing at those windows, am I right?”
Cheyenne rolled her eyes and followed Ember up the stairs. The goblins exchanged glances, then hurried toward the first step. A crackling sphere of black drow energy shot from Cheyenne’s hand and struck the ground in front of them in a burst of dirt and grass. “Don’t even think about it.”
Lumil hissed at the hole.
Byrd rubbed his bald head. “Tough nut to crack, huh?”
“Yeah, like you even have any.”
“What the hell?”
The goblin woman nodded at the house again. “What d’you think she’s hiding up there?”
“Pshh. Everything.”
“Yeah.” Lumil squinted up the stairs as Cheyenne and Ember disappeared around the bushes lining the side of the house. “That’s what I thought.”
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Before she even opened the front door of her mom’s house, Cheyenne heard the sobs. “Oh, jeez.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Eleanor’s finally had a chance to let it all sink in.” The halfling opened the door and stepped inside. “Eleanor?”
A rising wail echoed beneath the high, vaulted ceilings.
Cheyenne and her friend exchanged knowing glances, and as she headed around the massive staircase rising up the center of the house, Ember flicked her fingers at the front door and gently shut it in a flash of violet light.
“It’s Ember and me,” Cheyenne called. “Wanted to make sure you’re doing okay.”
She turned behind the jutting rise of the stairwell and found the housekeeper in front of the wet bar beneath the stairs. Eleanor was sprawled on the polished hardwood floor, her forehead pressed against her arm as her body heaved with sobs. The glass cabinet beneath the bar was open, and an empty highball glass rested on the tray up top.
“What happened?” Ember asked.
Eleanor wailed again and shook her head. “I reached for the vodka first. For myself. Just like she always used to. It was her favorite.”
Another sob escaped her, followed by a shuddering breath and a long, low moan.
“Whoa, okay.” Cheyenne stepped toward the housekeeper and squatted beside her. “She didn’t die, Eleanor.”
“Oh, God!” The woman lifted her head just long enough for another keening cry before she doubled over in sobs again.
“Wrong thing to say, apparently.”
Ember pressed her lips together and watched the housekeeper losing it.
“Okay, Eleanor. Come on.” Cheyenne helped the woman up as gently as she could. The woman didn’t fight the help, her face scrunched in distress. Her chest heaved, and she couldn’t decide whether to breathe out or in.
Together, the halfling and the fae half-walked, half-carried Eleanor across the spacious dining room and deposited the woman on the chaise longue across from the sofa. Eleanor slumped onto the cushion and buried her face in her hands for more sobbing.
“You still want vodka?”
The housekeeper wailed.
Ember leaned toward Cheyenne and muttered, “Maybe stop talking ‘til she’s had at least one, huh?”
“What? None of that was insensitive.”
“No, but I think she needs something stronger than words at this point.” With a raised eyebrow, Ember returned to the wet bar and made Bianca’s housekeeper a stiff vodka tonic with a freshly cut lime wedge on the rim of the glass. She floated smoothly back to Eleanor and bent in front of the woman. “Here you go. Focus on this for a second, huh?”
Sniffling, Eleanor looked up at the offered glass and wiped the tears from her cheeks. She froze when she saw Ember’s hands, unnaturally pink for anyone but a fae. The woman slowly lifted her head and gazed at Ember’s new
