“Yeah, obviously. That’s the point of planning to break someone out of prison.” Cheyenne snorted. “The only question I can even handle right now is whether or not all of us sitting around this table are equipped to do something like that without making everything worse.”
“As in, can L’zar break back into prison?” Lumil snorted and let out a goofy chuckle.
“No, as in, do we need outside help?”
“You mean, like, call Sir and ask for his approval?” Yurik leaned back in his chair. “Just like calling us up here?”
“No.” Cheyenne pointed at him and slowly shook her head. “Sir stays out of it. If he gets back to me with an answer about Colonel Thomas before we do any of this, and I can make sure he’s not trying to fuck with me and go behind my back, then fine. Tell him whatever you want. But right now, we can’t risk any of Sir’s superiors getting wind of this, or we won’t just be breaking some has-been Crown loyalist out of Chateau D’rahl, we’ll be starting a war.” She glanced quickly at the nightstalkers and shrugged. “Another one.”
“You trust this human?” Maleshi asked, gesturing at Rhynehart. The man blinked furiously when he realized she was talking about him.
“Yeah.” Cheyenne nodded at him. “Pretty much.”
“Great. Thanks.”
“He’s the next highest in line with the FRoE? At least the ones we can get our hands on.” Maleshi nodded. “He’ll have to come with us to get this done.”
Rhynehart looked sharply at the general and pulled his head back with another fierce scowl. “Fuck. That.”
“That’s cute.” The nightstalker woman gave him a fierce grin. “You think you have a choice.”
“Hey, just because I don’t have magic and fucking whiskers, it doesn’t mean I have to do what you tell me.” Rhynehart spread his arms. “I don’t have to be here.”
“That’s for sure.” Lumil pushed to her feet and slammed her hands on the table. “If you feel like you need to get outta this, I’m sure I can find a river with ‘Human asshole strangled, drowned, and chopped into tiny pieces was here’ written all over it. Sound good?”
Rhynehart glared at the goblin woman and pointed at her. “You’re pushin’ it.”
“Yeah, pushing your fucking face into the toilet. How long can you hold your breath?”
“You know how many times I’ve been threatened and cursed at by magical thugs stepping out of line? That’s my job.” He looked her up and down and waved a dismissive hand at her before folding his arms again. “And you aren’t any different than the rest of them.”
Lumil’s chair screeched back across the floor as she leaped to her feet. “Oh, I’m a thug in your system you can’t keep in line, huh? Okay. I can be a thug.”
“Lumil,” Corian warned.
The goblin ignored him and whirled to the wet bar behind the dining table. She grabbed a huge bottle of expensive gin in one hand and the unopened bottle of vodka in the other before stalking around the table to Rhynehart. “Let’s go, little man. You wanna make this happen? I’ll bash your head in and settle my nerves at the same time.”
“Not here, Lumil.” Cheyenne pointed at her, but the goblin kept coming. “Jesus, cut it out!” The halfling sent her black lashing tendrils at Lumil’s hands, curled them around the bottles of liquor, and snatched them. The bottles shot into Cheyenne’s hands, and she slammed them onto the table with a loud thump. “You’re done. Sit down.”
Lumil glared at Cheyenne, then looked down at her empty hands and snarled. “I’ll stand right here.”
“Look.” Cheyenne met Rhynehart’s gaze. “We can do this with or without you, but it’ll be a hell of a lot less messy if it’s with you. I gave you the CliffsNotes version of what we’re trying to do on the other side of the Border, and you already know what we’re facing here. If we don’t get this done and stop Ba’rael sooner rather than later, that shit you saw spilling out of the portal right outside is gonna be everywhere, coming through every rez portal on this side. We both know there aren’t enough fae Earthside to clean up that mess on a scale that large.”
Rhynehart glowered at her but didn’t say a word.
Cheyenne slid the bottles away from her on the table so she wouldn’t have to stare at him through two thick pieces of glass. “You know I’m right, Rhynehart. And you know we have way more riding on this than you can possibly understand, no matter how many details I give you. We don’t need your help, but if we have it, you won’t need ours nearly as much after this.”
The agent’s lips parted in a grimace of frustration, then he thumped back against the chair. “If this is gonna happen, we’re not just storming into Chateau D’rahl with magic blazing.” His gaze slid slowly from Cheyenne to L’zar. “Something tells me that’s a preferred method with you people.”
“Magicals,” Maleshi corrected.
“Huh?”
“With us magicals. You have your own people, but we most certainly are not people.”
Rhynehart blinked slowly at the general. “We need a plan. That’s the only way I’ll agree to help you break out that prison’s most dangerous inmate.”
“Most dangerous?” L’zar chuckled. “Come on now. That’s hardly fair.”
“Yeah, well, you aren’t in that prison anymore, are you?”
“Touché.”
“Great.” Cheyenne slapped her hands on the table and pushed to her feet. “Now we’re all on the same page. Now everyone needs to get the hell out of this house.”
“I said, a plan,” Rhynehart grumbled.
“Sure. Let’s make a plan. Not here.” She shook her head. “I’m not turning my mom’s house into our base of operations, okay? Not while she’s lying upstairs for who knows how long. And there’s no way in hell everyone’s gonna hang out around here long enough for her to find out about it. Let’s go.”
“Well, then where else do you suggest we go?” L’zar grinned at his daughter. “I’ve heard wonderful things about your apartment.”
“Don’t
