Crowley swallowed, cleared his throat, and glanced at Cheyenne and the disguised magicals again. “No, I don’t need to call him.”
“Good. Wanna get back to your post, or should I stick one of the new guys in there instead?”
Crowley shook his head and turned to the door leading back to his desk. “Guess it’d be too much to ask you to sign ‘em in.”
Rhynehart snorted and folded his arms. “Yeah, genius.” He stalked to his waiting party and the guards at the metal detector. “Damn know-it-all, wasting my time. You know, I’m used to being in a shitty mood when I leave this place, not when I get here.”
“Tell me about it.” Mack slid a container across the table to Rhynehart, who emptied his keys, wallet, and phone from his pocket.
Rhynehart walked through the metal detector toward the guard on the other side and shrugged. “Fucking Wednesdays.”
The guard standing there with his arms folded raised his eyebrows. “Nothing happy about Hump Day, I’ll tell you that much.”
The agent snorted and turned to stand beside the guard as his fake rookies dumped their pockets into the security bins and stepped through the metal detector. L’zar and Corian passed through no problem. Bhandi had to go back once and fish deep in her pocket for a dime she’d missed the first time. Yurik practically skipped through, grinning and nodding at the guards as he retrieved his things.
Tate pointed at the stack of plastic bins on the far side of the table. “I’m probably gonna need two or three of those.”
Mack looked him up and down. “Just empty your pockets, and we’ll go from there.”
“I mean, not just my pockets, but that’s cool.” Just like Rhynehart, Yurik, and Bhandi, Tate removed his fell pistol from its holster and stuck that in the container. Then he lifted his black BDU shirt, untucking it from the waistband of his pants, and grinned at the guard. “This one’s on here fairly good. Gotta keep the toys close, right?”
Mack’s eyes widened when Tate removed an entire ammo belt from around his waist over his black undershirt. The thing was studded with small, round black disks that clinked together in the tray on top of his firearm.
Cheyenne folded her arms and stifled a laugh. He brought a whole belt of fell grenades into the goddamn prison. I might have a new favorite troll.
Tate started to walk through the metal detector, then chuckled and backed up. “Oh, yeah. Almost forgot.”
He leaned down to remove a small knife from the inside of each of his black boots. Only one of them fit in the plastic container, and Mack had to pull another out of the stack for the second knife. Another fell grenade came from Tate’s left boot, then he shoved his hands in his pockets and deposited a fistful of loose change, an extra magazine, a keyring, and a Bluetooth headset. Snickering, he removed the silver watch from his wrist, dropped it into the second bin, and raised both hands before stepping through the metal detector. Fortunately, it didn’t go off.
Rhynehart raised his eyebrow. “You carry that on you all the time?”
“Hey. Couple years out in the field, and now I’m movin’ on up to prison guard. Old habits, I guess.”
“Yeah, well, leave that shit at home next time you come in, huh?” Rhynehart shook his head, looked Tate up and down, then shrugged at Cheyenne. “You comin’ or what, halfling?”
She smiled at Tate, who was retrieving all his items on the other side of the metal detector. “Yeah.”
When she stepped through, like she knew it would, the metal detector set off a harsh, beeping alarm and flashed a red light. Cheyenne turned to look at Mack. “Okay, I swear I’m not carrying a belt full of bombs like this guy.”
“Yeah, I know.” Mack stacked the bins and slid them aside. “We don’t have to go through all that again. I know who you are. Good luck tracking down that shithole of a drow.”
“Thanks.” She pointed at him. “I like that description.”
“Yeah, well, feel free to use it.” Rolling his eyes, Mack gestured at the other side of the lobby, and Rhynehart turned around with a grunt and led the way.
“All right, rookies, listen up. And no, there won’t be a Q&A afterward, so pay attention. I’m assuming most of you have seen magicals before and have probably popped a few scumbags in their otherworld faces, so if anybody shits their pants after what you’re about to see, that’s on you.”
Bhandi snorted. “Literally.”
Rhynehart glared at her, shook his head, and pulled his access badge out of his pocket to press it to the lock panel by the door. The mechanism buzzed, he slammed the handle down, and then he disappeared down the first corridor into the west wing of Chateau D’rahl.
L’zar slowed down as they moved through the hallway and fell in line beside his daughter. “You hate L’zar Verdys’ guts, huh?”
She shrugged. “Hey, just trying to keep it realistic.”
“I’m well aware of the intention behind it, Cheyenne. And impressed by your ability to lie so convincingly.”
Cheyenne looked up at her father’s borrowed blue eyes and gave him the sweetest, most innocent smile she could muster. “Who said I was lying?”
“No one.”
Chapter Seventy-Three
L’zar chuckled when they passed the doors into an inmate block. He paused beside a window with reinforced bulletproof glass on either side of fell-powered dampening mesh. “Cell Block Alpha. Hard to believe I was just here.”
“And now you’re here again,” Rhynehart called from up ahead. “Move on. This isn’t Memory Lane.”
Still peering through the window, L’zar looked up at the guard station in Alpha tower above the glowing red light that stayed on twenty-four-hours in this particular cell block. The guard jerked his chin at L’zar’s human-looking form and lifted a plastic mug in greeting. The drow thief raised his hand in a curt wave, then headed after the rest of their group. “This is fantastic.”
“Enjoying yourself?” Corian muttered as
