“You don’t want to know.No,” Cha said firmly when Dy opened her mouth to argue.“I will not tell you, but it nearly happened to me.Would have if Az—” At his hiss of warning, she hastily corrected, “if Prince Charming here hadn’t gotten me out.”
Dy closed her mouth.Nodded to Azul.“Fine.”
“Fine,” he echoed grinning at her cheekily.
She turned back to Cha, visibly gathering her poise.“What happened at the Moonstone meet?You were right behind me and—”
“Do we have time?”Cha asked.“No, we don’t,” she said firmly when Dy looked mutinous.“I promise to tell you everything later.On the porch at your place, over ale and Phin’s rosemary twists.”
“Fine,” Dy agreed, then added, not too grudgingly, to Azul.“You’re invited, too.”
The fae prince looked puzzled and taken aback.Cha had half expected him to refuse with his characteristic hauteur.She had to admit, she really couldn’t picture the elegant man chilling his ass on Dy and Phin’s rustic porch, the kids screaming and flinging mud and fish slime.
“I would like that,” he said slowly, as if the words felt strange in his mouth.The truth, of course, as he couldn’t say anything else, but flavored with the regret of knowing it would never happen.He met Cha’s gaze over Dy’s head and nodded minutely in mutual understanding.
She was the first to look away, clapping her hands together briskly.“Let’s get the parade moving.Were you able to juice up?”she asked Dy, tipping her head at Big Betty.
“Yes, but have you?”
Unable to repress a smile at how very well she and Katu had both been replenished, she nodded, catching the pleased glitter in Azul’s eyes.
Dy made a sound of exasperation.“It’s like being caught in a heat ray standing between you two.Were Phin and I this bad?”
Cha nearly answered yes, then realized Dy’s implication.“Not the same thing at all,” she answered crisply, wrenching her gaze from Azul’s compelling one.“Ready to do the thing?”
“Ready,” Dy said, looking between them with a quiet somberness Cha didn’t care to explore.Dy fastened her gaze on Azul.“Since your sorcery is so much better than mine, Prince Charming, can you assist with hiding us if I falter?”
He bent in a sweeping bow that gave Cha an absurd wave of pleasure, including a surge of pussy sparkle that would never again be satisfied, curse it.“I would be honored, Goldilocks.”
“For coin, glory, and thrills!”Cha pumped her fist in the air, wishing she felt it more.
“Let’s haul ass and get home already,” Dy agreed, with a similar air of deflated resolve.
It wasn’t quite their old rallying cry, but it came close.Rest in peace, Monat.
*
“What happens now?”Azul asked as they slid into their seats in Katu.
“Ideally, in a perfect world, Dy will easily establish her workaround ley, we’ll hop on it, loop around the depot undetected, come out the other side and blend with the normal import/export traffic.Then we cross the border back into Gypsum with no trouble, hightail it to whatever fence Phinny will find for us, hand off the Obsidian dust and the astra inside, which you still haven’t told me what it is…” She trailed off hopefully.
“It’s better off in the human realms is what it is,” he replied in clipped tone.
“So you’re not going to tell me—or is this a geas thing?”
He gave her a long, serious look.“I don’t actually know what the astra is.That’s a generic term for something quite politically tricky within the fae realms and you are better off knowing less than more.Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
“Well, if that’s your way of warning me off, it won’t work.I’m going to have to find out what it is to sell it.”
He smiled thinly, unhappily.“Just…go carefully, Arantxa.Don’t mix with things beyond your ken.”
“I’m a pro,” she assured him breezily.“This is totally my ken.”
“Keep my words in mind.Promise me you will.”
“You know promises aren’t binding to humans.”
“They are to you.Promise me anyway.”
