Cha looked around at the Moonstone night, which still looked like day to her.So confusing.“Can’t be helped, I suppose.”
“Agreed.The alternative isn’t one.Bandit, there’s no room forscrewing around.You have to—”
“I have to be there soonest.Will do,” Cha interrupted and tapped off.
“It’s fascinating to watch you lie,” Azul commented.“It’s a kind of human magic we can’t match.”
“First of all, I wasn’tlying, exactly,” she protested.“I didn’t want to air the details on the path-box, so I talked around it.”
“No,Iwould’ve talked around it.You said you weren’t when you were.Magic.”
“It’s not magic,” she retorted.
“Lying again.”He laughed musically and with real delight.“No wonder I adore you, Arantxa.”
Her mood surprisingly light, she gave him the middle finger, listening to the music of his laughter as she coaxed Katu into a bit more speed.
~40~
A Perfect World
Cha sighed withrelief when they burst through the big Moonstone wall and into sunny Obsidian daylight.She shook her head, refocusing her eyes.“It truly isn’t nighttime here.How does that even work?”
Azul shrugged.“I’ve tried to explain this to you already.”
“Yeah, yeah—time moves differently, blah blah blah.”Still, it sucked that it seemed to be well into the morning here in Obsidian, the golden light more like her normal world, the sound of birdsong more comforting than she’d have guessed.Never would she have predicted that the surreal, twisted landscape of Obsidian would feel familiar.Almost like coming home.A sign of trauma right there, when a fae realm seemed like home.
But then—she glanced over at Azul, who was fiddling thoughtfully with the Moonruby wand, caught her looking, and gave her a warm smile—when your boyfriend was fae, maybe that wasn’t such a long shot.She caught herself, tripping on the thought.Azul is decidedly not your boyfriend,she told herself firmly.You had a great interlude, but that’s it.You’re both moving on, so no matter how bone-melting he is in bed, he’s still just a guy whowasa lover, past tense emphasized.
She was excused from wrestling herself further by their arrival at the designated rendezvous, basically a wide spot on a side ley, surrounded by trees.It looked empty, but that should be Dy shrouding them in illusion.Still, she wanted to proceed cautiously.“I don’t see them,” she confided to Azul quietly, “but—”
“But they’re right there,” he interrupted, pointing.
“How can you see through my illusion?”Dy demanded.Actually, it looked to Cha like a bush asked the question in Dy’s voice, but it quickly morphed into the petite blonde.Big Betty shimmered into view behind her, giving a muted trumpet of greeting, while Warg spilled halfway and haphazardly out the window of the cab, warbling happily, a single line of drool spilling from his jaw to the ground.
Azul squared off with Dy, looking slightly taller to Cha’s eye than he had a moment ago.“Your sorcery is very good,” he told her in his usual nonchalant style, which meant he sounded arrogant as a…well, as a fae prince.“It is not, however, better than mine.”
Dy’s corkscrew curls practically unscrewed themselves as she puffed up in righteous fury, poking Azul in the chest.“Listen, you.I don’t know who in the seven hells you are, but I do know you’ve been a nearly fatal distraction for my best friend and if you think you can just seduce her, ruin our gig, and stiff her the coin you owe, then—”
“Dymphna,” Cha said, interrupting and interposing her body between them.Azul took the opportunity to surreptitiously palm her ass, so she elbowed him in the ribs, eliciting a satisfying grunt from him.“He saved my life.”
Azul made a tsking sound and Dy’s eyes widened into pale blue halos around suspicious black pits.“You shouldn’t say that aloud, Cha.”
“No, she shouldn’t,” Azul agreed.They exchanged a look of surprise, reminding Cha of her unexpected synchrony with Phinny.
Dy soon returned her furious scrutiny to Cha.“And this outfit?It positively reeks of Amethyst magic.Do I even want to know where these clothes came from and what happened to your old ones?”
Cha barely resisted looking at Azul.“It really is such a long story and I promise to tell you all of it when we are safe.Let me just say that I spent some time in Moonstone jail.”
“What?”Dy’s sweet face whitened to a mask of tight horror.“Oh Cha.No.Did you go after Monat then?What did you—”
“Monat is dead,” she told Dy without preamble, figuring it was best to rip the bandage off.“I’m sorry, but she died in Moonstone.I found evidence.”
“What evidence?”Dy asked in that even tone she used when she was fighting not to melt down, her big blue eyes swimming with tears that Cha viciously hoped Dy wouldn’t shed.If Dy started crying, then she would, too, and that would wreak at least a first hell on her badass reputation.
Cha fished out the nose ring and laid it in Dy’s palm.“I found this in the washroom for humans.You know she’d have only removed it for one reason.”
“To leave a clue,” Dy said, wrapping her fingers around the ring, her voice watery.“How did she die?”
