“We can do both,” Dy answered sweetly.“And even though I am as proficient as ever—I defy you to find another sorceress who can do what I can with a ley line, in human or fae lands—having no idea how the lines lie once we cross the border is a major problem.Not stopping at all isn’t an option.Even I need to get out and get a feel for the lay of the land once in a while.I’ll especially need to in Moonstone, with white dust everywhere.”
“That’s why I’ll be driving diversion for you,” Cha pointed out calmly.“You need to stop, I’ll distract any locals, law and otherwise, until you can move again.”
“You won’t know the ley lines either,” Dy cautioned.“They won’t feel the same to you.Riding them won’t be like anything you’ve done before.”
Cha shrugged that off.“Never met a ley line I couldn’t ride.”She could just imagine the speeds they’d get on pure Moonstone white, the native stuff, not the contaminated shit they exported for human use.Made her all tingly just to contemplate it.Better than sex.Okay, not really, but in the same general neighborhood.“Besides, if I get in trouble, I can call you for assist.”
“True,” Dy mused.“There’s always the underground path-channels, at least for the part of the gig on this side of the Moonstone border.We know they work through Obsidian.Any human locals will be listening, so we could hit them up to find ambrosia sources and pit stops on the far side of the depot.”
Cha cleared her throat.“About that…”
Phinny gave her a sharp glance and swore.“What are you not telling us?I justknewthere was something more.”
“There’s a small possibility the law-hounds have found the codes to listen to the underground path-channels,” Cha admitted, and braced herself.
~7~
A Daring Plan
Phinny exploded intomotion—which, for a woman as heavily pregnant as she, was an impressive sight.“Manticores take you, Arantxa Evermore!How could you wait untilnowto mention that?”
“I wanted to present the information in a logical order,” Cha began, “and—”
“Andyouare a scammer and always have been,” Phinny declared pointing an accusing finger at Cha.“Your so-called logical order was all a subterfuge to sucker us into this hairbrained scheme, dazzling us with tales of piles of gold coin and riches, and now—” A sob burst out of her.“Oh, why did I let you over the threshold?Iknewbetter!”
“Now, sweetheart,” Dy said, rising and approaching her wife with wary concern, “try not to upset yourself.Think of the baby.”
Phinny threw off Dy’s reaching hands, batting them away like biting insects.“Don’t you think-of-the-baby me, Dymphna Lockhart!Think aboutme, a widow, with six children—if I survive to birththisone—and no one to help me care for them.We’ll end up working the silver mines while you disappear into Moonstone forever.”
“It won’t happen,” Dy promised her, “because I’m not going.”She held up a hand at Cha’s protest.“It’s not worth it.Nothing you can say will make me want to go.”
Cha sighed and drew her trump card.“Remember Monat?”
“She was at our wedding, so yes,” Dy replied tersely.“Just spit it out.”
Cha scraped her fingers through her short bob.She’d just known this would be the hardest part.She’d have told Dy anyway.It just kind of sucked to use the information as a lever.“Well, it so happens that she got arrested.”
“Arrested,” Phinny echoed, paling.“When?Where?”
There wasn’t any getting around it.“Returning from a Moonstone gig.She’s in jail somewhere between here and there, rumor has it.”
Phinny’s mouth worked, with no sound coming out.A blessing in the moment, but Phinny’s wrath postponed was doom intensified exponentially.
“How did they get her?”Dy asked, the dread awareness already in her expression.
Cha winced, feeling vaguely guilty.Surely that was the uncomfortable emotion pricking her, unfamiliar though it might be.“You know as much as I do now.”
Dy looked to Phinny.“We have to rescue Monat.”
“No, we don’t,” Cha and Phinny said at the same time, pausing uncomfortably at the unprecedented occurrence of being on the same side of an argument.This had not been Cha’s intention in mentioning Monat’s disappearance.Maybe she hadn’t thought it through—wouldn’t be the first time—but Cha had thought more of a “do it in Monat’s memory” kind of reaction.
“She would do it for us,” Dy argued.
“No, she wouldn’t,” Phinny and Cha said together, once again.
Dy looked back and forth between them.“How can you two possibly agree on this?You never agree on anything.”
“You’re thinking with your heart, honey, not your head,” Phinny said coaxingly.Cha let her field this one.That was the thing about Dy—and one of the reasons she needed Cha, and Phinny, too—she did have a soft heart.Too soft.If Dy could save all the world, she would.“It’s one thing to go to Moonstone to earn money for the family, but staging a jailbreak to snag a prisoner from under the noses of the fae is not only wildly dangerous, it serves no one any good.”
