“Well, they still owe me, like a lot. And Rhynehart’s not the one who got the mental shit kicked out of him by Bianca Summerlin.”
Ember snorted and spread out in the armchair with a grin. “I love the way that sounds.”
“Well, whoever that other man was,” Eleanor added, nodding sternly, “he was a real piece of work.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Why isn’t he here again?”
Cheyenne scrunched her face and tried to keep her amusement to a minimum. Ember’s gonna lose it. “I’m sure he’s terrified of me at this point. Pissed-off and scared don’t make for a threatening figure.”
Eleanor chuckled. “Good. He should be terrified.”
Ember grinned. “Now’s your chance to tell that story. I’ve been waiting all day.”
“The address I found was still good. It was his house.” Cheyenne started to pull her legs up onto the loveseat, stopped when Eleanor eyed her black Vans, and drew her feet up to cross her legs beneath her anyway. What Bianca doesn’t know won’t do shit. And she knows almost everything. Eleanor raised her eyebrows and looked away with a smile. “I roughed him up a little. And yes, Em, by a little, I actually do mean ‘a little.’ I slammed him against the wall a few times. We got interrupted.”
“At his house?”
“By his wife.” Cheyenne licked her lips, trying to wipe off the smile. “He told her I was one of his work associates, and she asked me to stay for drinks.”
Ember threw her head back and roared.
Eleanor didn’t seem anywhere near as amused. The woman’s face darkened as she met Cheyenne’s gaze, then she lifted her glass to her mouth and muttered, “You should’ve killed him.”
“Jeez, Eleanor.” Cheyenne laughed in surprise. “That has to be the first time you’ve said that about anyone.”
“I stand by my statement.”
Ember laughed even louder.
“I think you’re angry and don’t really mean that,” Cheyenne added, trying to keep a straight face. “So I’m gonna forget it ever came out of your mouth.”
“I think your mother would agree with me, Cheyenne.”
“Uh-huh. Okay.” The halfling rubbed her lips. “As it turns out, he might be a little more useful alive than dead, unfortunately.”
Ember twirled her hand. “Keep going.”
“I mean, showing up at his house and having drinks with his wife was blackmail enough. She has no idea what he does for a living or the kind of person he is around everyone else. He clammed up quick when he saw how famously she and I got along.”
Eleanor’s scowl loosened. “Good girl.”
“Yeah, I have Mom to thank for that. He said he’d look into Colonel Les Thomas for me. I have no idea what that means, and I can’t tell yet if he’s playing me until he can get out from under this or if he’s finally starting to fire some neurons and realizes I know what I’m talking about.”
“He wouldn’t lie to you about it, right? I mean, you know his wife.”
“I sure do,” Cheyenne said, “and I’m starting to think I know Major Guy Carson pretty well too.”
“Who’s that?” Eleanor asked.
Ember burst out laughing again. “Guy? Sir’s first name is Guy?”
“Believe it or not.”
“Oh, man. Please tell me you called him by name every chance you got.”
Cheyenne spread her arms. “You know me too well, Em.”
Eleanor smiled softly as she watched the two young women sitting with her share a good laugh over something she didn’t fully understand.
“Now I’m waiting to hear back from him.” Cheyenne leaned over her crossed legs and studied the area rug beneath the polished coffee table. “I need to get to the colonel and make sure he’s screwing around with the Bull’s Head before we can do anything about it. If he is, we need to cut him out, or the loyalists are gonna keep getting everything they need and throwing it at me.”
“Or both of us.” Ember sighed. “They got my magical signature or whatever too.”
“Right. I have a feeling they’re not gonna stop with us, either. Whatever the Crown put them up to on this side, they’ll do whatever they can to finish it.” Cheyenne stopped short and blinked. “Oh, shit.”
Eleanor snorted. “I haven’t heard you curse this much in one sitting since your mother refused to let you apply to college three years early.”
“Sorry.” Cheyenne frowned at Ember. “Those missing kids, Em. The ones the FRoE took forever to believe me about. They were part of this whole thing Earthside too—Ba’rael stealing magic. Planning to wage war across the Border.”
The fae’s eyes widened, and she swallowed. “She did that to kids?”
“Well, just the one we found in that church. As far as I know.”
“It’s still disgusting.”
“No argument there.” Cheyenne slowly shook her head. “We need to find the Bull’s Head and the rest of those machines. Tracing the machine signal didn’t work. That name Matthew gave us didn’t work. My guess is Les Thomas is a hell of a lot more on top of feeding the loyalists information than I thought. It shouldn’t be this hard to dig up a couple dozen crates of smuggled O’gúl tech parts. I mean, seriously.”
“I think the smuggling was the easy part,” Ember muttered.
“I don’t know what they’re waiting for, Em, but we can’t afford to find out. Any other time, I’d say the FRoE is equipped to handle magical issues, idiotic leadership notwithstanding, but they’ll have a hell of a time trying to tear those things apart without tech of their own. Which none of them even know about.”
Ember nodded. “Or they’ll be ordered to stay back and not bother with a war-machine attack. You know, traitor in the higher-ups and everything.”
“Yeah. It could go either way.” The sitting area fell silent, and Cheyenne shrugged. “Eleven days, Em. That’s all we have to shut down the war machines, put together those terms for Ba’rael, chose the next Crown, and get Bianca out of that curse-trap.”
Ember gave her a small, knowing grin. “I feel like you can get more done in eleven days than anyone else
