Cheyenne watched her friend’s fingers swipe across the control panel and waited for the machine to wobble back into balance. “You good to drive that thing to the gates?”
“What? Totally.” Ember gestured at the door and leaned forward. “By all means, Aranél, lead the way.”
“You don’t have to keep it up with the stupid title, okay?”
“I think it kinda suits you.”
Cheyenne snorted and pulled open the huge door. “Cool. Then I’ll call you ‘Healer’ from now on too.”
Ember rolled her eyes and drove the crawler in an awkward, slightly sideways scramble through the doorway after Cheyenne. The O’gúl machine had a knack for smacking into walls just when she thought she’d gotten the steering down.
They wound their way through the wide stone halls, and the halfling paused when they reached Maleshi’s quarters from the night before. I’d clear this room pretty damn fast too if I were her. I can still smell her. And Corian.
Cheyenne wrinkled her nose and took a final glance around the empty room.
“What’s wrong?” Ember asked as she slowed the crawler, the pointed ends of its mechanical legs plinking on the stone floor.
Cheyenne leaned away from the open door and headed down the hall again. “You picked up on the whole nightstalker situation back there, right?”
“You mean, the one where they showed up before dawn, wearing each other’s clothes?”
The halfling snickered.
“Yeah, kinda hard not to notice, honestly.”
“Well, that’s it.” Cheyenne shrugged and turned left down a wide, uneven stone staircase toward the city’s outer streets. “Nothing wrong with it as long as L’zar doesn’t start thinking there’s something going on, apparently.”
“What?” Ember gently moved her fingers over the control panel to steer the crawler into a slow, bumpy descent down the staircase one metal leg at a time. “Why would he care? I thought the nightstalkers were already a thing.”
“They were, I’m pretty sure.” Cheyenne stopped at the bottom of the stairs to wait for Ember and adjusted the straps of her backpack. “I mean, there’s no way all these O’gúleesh have been cracking jokes about those two from the very beginning if there wasn’t something there. And it would definitely explain how excited they were to battle each other in the fighting pit.”
The fae girl snorted, staring with unblinking eyes at the control panel and navigating the crawler as gently as she could until it reached the bottom of the stairs. For two seconds, the entire metal body leaned dangerously sideways, three of its legs still propped awkwardly on the second-to-last stair. Cheyenne opened her mouth to offer a suggestion, but Ember jabbed a finger at her friend without looking away from the panel.
“Don’t. If I’m gonna be on this side of the Border, I need to figure out how to do this on my own.”
Cheyenne smiled. “We need to get you a better activator.”
“There’s nothing wrong with the activator.” Ember’s finger hovered over the panel, then she swiped up. The crawler skittered sideways, still leaning dangerously forward and to the side. Ember braced herself against walls of the depression where she sat and gritted her teeth. “What I need is to get my damn magic back. Can’t move without it, and apparently, I can’t use this stupid, creepy machine the way I’m supposed to, either.”
A second before the crawler would have crashed into the wall of the stairwell, Ember smacked her palm down onto the control panel and turned her hand two inches clockwise. The machine groaned, shuddered, jerked away from the wall, and brought the rest of its eight legs down to the ground floor. When it stopped, the sharp point of its closest foot clicked on the stone half an inch from the toe of Cheyenne’s black Van.
Ember slowly looked up at the halfling. “But I guess using it at all is a plus. Barely.”
Cheyenne turned away from the machine with a small smile and headed down the hall again. “You’ll get it down.”
“I’ve had this thing for twelve hours, Cheyenne. At the very least, I should be able to keep it from slamming into walls. That wasn’t an issue with the levitation spell.”
“Well, your magic and a piece of super-old-school tech are two totally different things. I’m honestly hesitant to check how out-of-date that activator is.”
“You wouldn’t have any problem with it.” Ember released her frustration and split her focus between keeping the crawler on a course toward the building’s main doors and holding a less-aggravated conversation. “Persh’al gave you an outdated activator the first time, didn’t he? You used it to do stuff he didn’t even know was possible.”
Cheyenne shot her friend a sidelong glance. “How do you know that?”
“Come on.” Ember returned the glance and smiled. “I’m part of this whole crazy-ass band of magical rebels now. When you’re off fighting a Sorren Gán or skipping through Hangivol with your mad ol’ dad, people talk.”
“About Persh’al and how much he hates what I can do with O’gúl tech?”
“Well, mostly about you.” Ember tried to keep a straight face, but a chuckle escaped her. “Persh’al might’ve mentioned it a few times before we made the crossing. A few being five, I think.”
Cheyenne ran a hand through her bone-white hair and shook her head. “I wouldn’t start comparing your ability to use the magitech with mine, Em.”
“Oooh. Magitech. I like it.”
The halfling playfully rolled her eyes. “Sounds good, yeah. But seriously. I highly doubt I’m the standard for what anyone can do with the activators and their magic synced up with the weird machines in this world. Or on Earth, apparently.”
“I’m not comparing myself to you.” Ember gave her friend an exaggeratedly formal bow of the head when Cheyenne pushed the heavy wooden door open and held it for her. One of the activator’s legs knocked against the doorway before correcting itself, and both girls held back stifled laughter.
