She’d been born a scruffy mortal, a problem child with a shitty moral compass and she didn’t aim for higher company than that.She was no Lenorae.
In the next room, Big Betty idled.Dy, with Warg draped over her shoulder so he drooled gleefully on the floor, seemed to be in deep conversation with Phin and a third person.A crew of disreputable humans in protective gear carried out the crates of Obsidian dust.
“We’re observing protocol,” Igor said in a scratchy voice, scraping back the hood of their cloak.“No one wants an accidental mutation.”
Cha eyed the sharp, piss-green ridge of spines protruding from Igor’s backbone.“No, I wouldn’t think so.”
Igor jerked their head at the spines.“Not accidental, obviously, but mine to keep, whether I want to or not.”
“I’m sorry,” Cha said with all sincerity, knowing them to be empty words.
“Eh, don’t waste good sympathy on me,” Igor replied, shrugging philosophically, which sent the spines rippling musically.“At least I made it out alive.I heard that Monat didn’t.”
It was almost a question, so Cha confirmed it.“I wish I could say otherwise, but I’m sure of it—and I nearly met the same fate, so I feel you on being glad to be alive.”
“And yet you made it out intact,” Igor observed, so neutrally—and hoarsely—that Cha couldn’t determine if they resented her for it.“Did you really go to Moonstone jail?”
The memory of that beautifully lethal, horrifying place hit Cha hard and she shook the memory away, then nodded when Igor looked puzzled.“Yeah,” she answered.“I was there.”A real non-answer, but she found she really hated to say anything more, or even think about the place.Or about how Azul had rescued her.Or those last words of his.No one.
“What’s Moonstone like?”Igor persisted.
Cha was already shaking her head.“I can’t really describe it.”
With a disgusted snort, Igor looked away.“That’s what Goldilocks said.”
Dy looked up then and waved Cha over, giving her a quick hug when Cha walked up, holding onto her shoulders and searching her face.“Everything go okay with Prince Charming?”Dy asked.
“Right as rain,” Cha answered cheerfully, turning away from Dy’s dubious frown, and holding out a hand to Phin.“Hi there Mama Bear.”
Phin surprised her by yanking her into a fierce hug.“I know you sacrificed yourself to save her and I’m grateful to you for the rest of my life,” she whispered in Cha’s ear.
Cha nearly squirmed in discomfort.“Remember that when I tell you how I lost all of your bribery gems.”
“What?”Phin screeched—right in Cha’s ear.She jerked back, but Phinny held on.“Arantxa Evermore, how in the seven hells did you use up thatentire boxof gems?”
Dy flashed Cha a look of sympathy.Clearly there hadn’t been time to tell the whole story.“I’ll tell you over ale and a basket of rosemary twists,” Cha told Phin, pinching her on the cheek.
The fence, who’d gone to check with the cargo supervisor, returned right then.“Lucky Ducky,” he said by way of introduction, holding out a hand to Cha to shake.“An honor to meet and fence for you, Bandit.”He dipped a chin at Dy.“The tale of you and Goldilocks getting to Moonstone and back is making the rounds.If you weren’t famous before this, you would be now—and you’d have no trouble getting high-end gigs, even with Otto blacklisting you.”
That was news.Dy rolled her eyes at Cha’s questioning look.“Yeah, somehow Otto got wind of us heading back and has vanished, but not before putting out the word thatwefuckedhim.”
“The nerve,” Cha commented.
Lucky Ducky cackled.“Best advertisement he could put out there.Everyone knows Otto got Monat done for and the fact that he ran rather than pay you or take you to task for supposedly screwing up his shipment speaks volumes.At any rate, you two will be able to pick and choose, because guess what was hidden in those crates you picked up in Obsidian?”
“Which crate?”Cha asked, privately betting it was one in the very back.
“All of them,” Lucky answered.
“All?”Dy echoed.“But we saw dozens cracked open in Moonstone and the fae never found a thing.”
“They didn’t know what they were looking at.Come on, we’ll show you.”Lucky gestured for them to follow.
The four of them trooped over to where a group of workers clustered around an opened crate, and accepted ventilation masks from one very short gal who grinned manically.“I’m Nerd Girl,” she said, “scientist and sorceress.Lucky Ducky brought me in to analyze your cargo.”She waved a hand at the crate on a draped table.
As opposed to the puttoes’ wanton destruction back in Moonstone, this operation had been conducted with surgical precision, the lid delicately pried open and the seething, living pixie dust within exposed.
“What are we looking at?”Cha asked, perfectly willing to be the ignorant one of the bunch.“I see a bunch of Obsidian pixie dust, which we already knew was there.”
