“It’s just him? All on his own?” Ember shrugged with a sheepish grimace. “I mean, I at least figured Sir would’ve had something to do with it.”
“I don’t have anything on Major Guy Carson.” Cheyenne shook her head and let out a wry chuckle. “And I don’t really give a shit about the major right now. At the very least, Les Thomas has been tracking me using old-school tech from the other side, or he was until I came back from Ambar’ogúl with my very own activator that isn’t supposed to work over here.”
“Damn.” Ember lifted the remote and turned off her show before tossing the thing back onto the coffee table. “What, he just stopped keeping tabs on you now that you have the activator over here?”
“That’s what it looks like, yeah. Nothing from the Crown, though. I don’t know what I’d do if a human was dealing with Ba’rael Verdys from the other side.”
“Ugh.” Ember shuddered.
“But everything the FRoE has on me in their stupid system was fed to the Bull’s Head. Locations. Assignments. Shit, even my mom and her address are in here.”
“Okay, that’s a reason to blow shit up.”
“Yeah, but I have something even better, Em.” Cheyenne tapped her monitor and grinned. “Looks like Colonel Thomas set up an emergency meeting with those assholes this morning. Ha. It’s on Sunday.”
“Whoa.” Ember clenched her eyes shut and took a deep breath. “So, we have four days to figure out how we wanna deal with this human traitor batting for the wrong team.”
“More than enough time. We still have a little over a week to put everything together for the Crown before we make the crossing again. We need to lay low until Sunday, crash the colonel’s private party with those idiots who don’t even know Ba’rael’s on her way out, then skip on over into a different world and overthrow a drow monarch. We’re golden.”
“Oh, yeah. Sure.” Ember rolled her eyes and chuckled. “Piece of cake.”
Cheyenne shrugged. “I mean, really, though.”
“Actually, that does sound a lot simpler and easier than most of the weird crap we’ve done in the last week.”
“Exactly, Em.” Removing the activator from behind her ear, Cheyenne dumped all the stolen files back into the Bunker to keep them hidden and powered Glen down. Don’t want our nosy neighbor getting too nosy with my IP address and a phone call or two from his uncle about a Goth chick in his apartment building.
Ember rose from the couch and floated into the kitchen. “I’m kinda feeling it right now, but I should double-check just in case. This is totally something worth celebrating a little, right?”
“For sure.” The halfling hurried down the stairs, her black Vans clanging on the metal grates. “I mean, not as celebration-worthy as finally wiping out the Bull’s Head and getting Colonel Les Thomas off my back, but this is good, Em. Like, we’re finally figuring stuff out before we go and level the playing field.”
Ember snorted. “More like turn the whole playing field into a massive smoking crater, but I get it.”
“Very funny.” Cheyenne joined her friend in the kitchen. “You were saying something about celebrating?”
“Basically, I’m saying screw takeout.” Ember opened the fridge and pulled out two pints of ice cream. “Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough or Double Fudge Mint?”
Cheyenne barked a laugh. “And I thought choosing someone to take my place as the next O’gúl Crown was hard.”
“Laugh it up, smartass.” Ember flicked her hand at the cabinet. The door swung open in a burst of purple light, and a large glass mixing bowl sailed into the fae’s outstretched hand. “Then I’ll choose for you. We’re going half-and-half.”
“Very nice.”
With another flick of Ember’s hand, both lids popped off the pints of ice cream. Two spoons flew from the suddenly open drawer, and the fae snatched one of them out of the air without looking. The other dug into the pint of cookie dough ice cream, and Ember pointed the spoon at her friend. “And I’m not afraid to use it.”
“So, I’m gonna have to get used to things flying all over the apartment now, huh?”
“Only if you want ice cream for dinner.”
“I think I can deal with it.” Chuckling, Cheyenne watched her friend scoop heaping spoonfuls of mint ice cream into the bowl first, her tongue poking between her pink-tinted lips. “What are the chances of you teaching me your flying-spoon spells?”
“Zero, halfling.” Ember dropped her spoon in the bowl and got to work scooping out half the other pint on top of it. “You said it yourself. We both know how much you like blowing shit up, and I’m not sure flying spoons are worth the trouble.”
“You drive a hard bargain, Healer.”
Ember snorted and slid the bowl of mixed ice cream across the kitchen island to Cheyenne. “Shut the fuck up and eat your dinner.”
With a warning glance at the halfling, she scooped up both half-full pints and took them with her to the couch.
Cheyenne ran her fingers over her lips to wipe off the smile and snatched up the bowl and the spoon. “Yes, ma’am.”
* * *
Two hours after slipping beneath the black satin sheets on her bed, Cheyenne dreamt she was in her mom’s house again, walking down the hall and passing the open French doors into Bianca’s bedroom. She stopped to peer into the room at the crisply made king-sized bed like she had two nights ago, only her mom was in the bed this time.
Bianca’s ratted, tangled hair lay scattered across her shoulders, framing her face in an unkempt halo of auburn curls. The woman was sitting up, her legs covered by the thick quilt. Her hands rested on top of the quilt beside her thighs, making her look peaceful until Cheyenne noticed the bunched fabric in her mom’s tightly clenched
