L’zar appeared with them in enhanced speed and scowled at the creeping blight. “Honestly, I did not see this coming.”
“We have to move the others. Now.” Maleshi headed over to Persh’al and lifted him under one arm like he was a cardboard cutout before running with him toward the hillside and the estate house.
“Go.” Corian nodded at L’zar and pointed at the FRoE agents, Lumil, and Byrd, who were suspended in regular time.
“I’m not carrying anyone, Corian.”
“Well, do you have a better idea? Because if you can’t keep this shit from spreading, the least you can do is not be completely useless!”
Snarling, L’zar ran after Corian toward the other magicals to start the agonizingly slow process of moving them all in enhanced speed.
Cheyenne jogged across the lawn as Maleshi headed over to her again, trying not to jostle Bianca too much. I don’t even know if I can hurt her running around with her like this. “What’s next, open a portal when everyone’s far enough away? Eleanor and Ember are still in the house!”
“Just keep moving. We’ll figure it out, but we can’t waste time talking.”
Blazing purple light flashed on the veranda, and even with the drow and nightstalkers in enhanced speed, the light moved remarkably quickly above their heads. Cheyenne looked up at the source of the light bursting across the lawn and saw Ember standing on the balcony, both arms stretched toward the exploding Border portal and the blight spilling through from the other side.
“Whoa.”
Ember’s magic hit the creeping blight with an even brighter flare of light, sending up black smoke and sparks and a hiss like water splattering a hot frying pan. Corian, Maleshi, and L’zar raced across the lawn with FRoE agents, Lumil, and Byrd in their arms. Cheyenne set her mom down again and went to help Corian with Jamal because it took both of them to move the hulking agent more than a foot.
Ember floated over the veranda’s balcony and sailed in a weirdly graceful arc toward the lawn. When the drow and the nightstalkers had gotten everyone to the grass beneath the jutting veranda, Cheyenne slipped out of drow speed and saw Ember dropping over the side of the veranda in a barely controlled descent. The fae screamed as she floated toward the portal ridge, then stopped. The place where her magic met the black sludge and withered trails of grass erupted in violet light and high-pitched ringing.
Cheyenne clenched her eyes shut and clapped both hands over her ears, doubling over beneath the aching pressure in her head. Then the light and the awful sound disappeared, and she only heard her heaving breath.
“Holy shit.” Byrd scrambled to his feet. “I mean, thanks for the lift to safety, whoever it was, but a little warning next time would’ve been—”
Tate shouted in surprise and struggled to get to his feet, his head whipping from side to side as he tried to figure out how he’d gotten across the backyard in two seconds. Jamal grunted and looked down at his huge bicep. “Someone pinched me.”
“Might’ve been me.” Corian shot him a quick glance and shrugged. “Sorry.”
Cheyenne removed her hands from over her ears and looked at Ember. The fae’s hands dropped to her sides, her shoulders hunched, and her head drooped to her chest. “Ember. Whoa, whoa, whoa.” She darted toward her Nós Aní and skidded to a stop in front of her. “Hey. You okay?”
Ember’s eyelids fluttered, and she heaved a sigh. “I’m guessing my magic is stronger than my body. The floating spell’s still up, or I’d be on the ground. Again.” Her eyes closed heavily.
“You’re not, though. You’re gonna be okay.” Cheyenne grabbed her friend’s shoulders and gave them a reassuring squeeze. How is that even possible? Healing Cazerel made her lose all her magic.
“This is certainly a curious turn of events.” L’zar stepped past them and continued toward the ruptured Border portal.
“That’s it?” Cheyenne turned to glare after him. “That’s all you have to say?”
“Hey, it’s okay.” Ember gave her a tired smile. “I didn’t do it for his recognition.”
“Yeah, I know, Em. Still not okay.” Cheyenne turned to look at Maleshi and didn’t have to tell the general to keep an eye on the still-unconscious Bianca. Maleshi nodded and squatted beside Cheyenne’s mom, studying the woman’s now much more peaceful expression. Cheyenne stalked after her father. “L’zar!”
He ignored her and kept moving toward the broken shards of glistening black rock lying in crumbled heaps across the lawn.
“Hey! Whatever you’re so interested in, you wouldn’t even be able to come look at right now if Ember hadn’t cleared up the blight.”
“I’m well aware of that, Cheyenne.” He reached the edge of the fallen debris and walked slowly along it, hands clasped behind his back. “I’m sure we’re all very grateful for her assistance.”
“No, we owe her our lives. That wasn’t just assistance.”
“No, and this wasn’t just a malfunctioning portal.” L’zar stopped, looked slowly at his daughter, and grinned. “This was intentional.”
“You mean because those things kept trying to grab my mother?”
“That’s part of it, yes.” L’zar squatted in front of a small pile of rubble and pointed at the shattered pieces. “And then there’s this.”
Cheyenne rolled her eyes. “Just tell me already. I’m really not in the mood for your guessing games.”
“Come see for yourself.”
She approached him and stepped to his right to look at the debris in front of him. “A mirror.”
“A broken mirror.” He looked up at her with raised eyebrows. “And that leaf.”
Cheyenne’s gaze settled on the glowing leaf she recognized from the last Nimlothar tree in the center of Hangivol. A leaf and a broken mirror. “Ba’rael sent those through, didn’t she?”
L’zar chuckled, grabbed the leaf pulsing with faint purple light, and pocketed it as he stood. “Very good.”
“I don’t see how that’s funny.”
“It’s not,
