Chapter 7 A Daring Plan
A Daring Plan
Phinny exploded into motion—which, for a woman as heavily pregnant as she, was an impressive sight. “Manticores take you, Arantxa Evermore! How could you wait until now to mention that?”
“I wanted to present the information in a logical order,” Cha began, “and—”
“And you are 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? I knew better!”
“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 about me, a widow, with six children—if I survive to birth this one—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. ”
“It serves Monat,” Dy replied stubbornly. “Since when do we abandon our friends, Phin?”
That was rich, coming from Dy, who’d essentially abandoned Cha in favor of marital harmony.
Cha opened her mouth to say so, but Phinny gave her a beseeching look, clearly asking to Cha to back her up.
Unaccustomed to having that particular shoe on the other foot, and finding that it pinched something awful, Cha searched her mind for an argument that could sway Dy.
When she hit on it, she knew Phinny would never forgive her. Again. Still.
“Know who Monat was running goods for? Otto,” she answered before they could ask.
“Dy, he’s desperate to have you—the infamous Goldilocks—on this job.
You’ve got him in the palm of your hand on this one.
Tell him you’ll only do it if he’ll find a way to bail out Monat.
He’s the one with the money and fae connections to pull it off. He just needs the right incentive.”
Dy gazed at her, lips parted. Cha should’ve thought of this angle to begin with. Phinny braced her hands on the table, head bowed so her expression was hidden behind the fiery strands that had escaped her unruly knot of hair.
“Plus,” Cha added, having saved this nugget for a desperate moment like this one, “he’ll give us another ten percent down once he sees you behind the controls of Big Betty.
That’s ten gold coins you can give to Phinny right away on top of the ten in the bag I already gave you.
You won’t need to use your leave to do this gig.
You can quit that commercial slog here and now. ”
“An even split would be five and five,” Phinny said with a scowl, having always been the one to figure the finances. Part of why she’d made such an excellent fence before she went straight. “What about your cut?”
Cha waved that off. If, for some reason, they didn’t make it back from this gig, she wanted Phin and the kids to have at least that much to keep them afloat. “I’ll take my share from the final. And we split the pot three ways,” she added on impulse. “Two thirds for you two, one third for me.”
“That’s not fair,” Dy protested, though weakly.
“There’s more of you,” Cha replied, pointing out the obvious.
Phinny lifted her head and stared at Cha with a bitter chocolate gaze. “Is this a bribe, Cha?”
Reassured by the used of her nickname, Cha spread her hands. “Only in the best possible way. You can start spending this while we’re gone. I just won a big tourney and—”
“You did?” Dy smiled. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks.” Rather than being pleased, Cha experienced a familiar surge of annoyance.
Maybe it wasn’t fair of her—after all, Dy was busy with a lot of stuff—but it hurt that her old friend clearly knew nothing about Cha’s life.
“Anyway, I’ve got the funds to buy more than a replacement chicken.
I’ll underwrite the supplies we need and cover any bribes along the way. ”
“Do you have gemstones?” Phinny asked, a challenging tilt to her chin, then shook her head at Cha’s blank stare.
“You’ve been out of the game too long, Cha-cha.
They’re not going to take human coin in Moonstone.
The fae use jewels for currency. They only take coin in Obsidian because of the proximity to human lands, where they can use the stuff.
Even then you’d be better with jewels for unusual circumstances. ”
Cha waved that off. “The fae act snooty about it, but they all take human coin if you offer enough.”
Phinny shook her head. “Never what the coin’s worth. You need gems.”
“I’ll get gems,” Cha promised, wondering how in the seven hells she was going to afford those.
But she couldn’t take any of the advance now, after making such a big noble show of it and all.
Teach her to be generous and thoughtful—it always came back to bite you in the ass.
“Thank you for the sound advice, Phin. No one knows currency like you.”
Phinny glared a moment longer, shook a finger at Cha, then sighed and looked to Dy with resigned affection. “I don’t like it, but I won’t stop you from doing this.”
“I promise to be careful,” Dy said. “Thank you.”
Cha discreetly contained her happy dance as Dy and Phin embraced.
Finally, after what seemed like an unnaturally long hug, Phin released Dy.
“Here’s what we’ll do,” she said. “You two go to Otto and get that chunk of change. I’ll light up my old network and get you all the maps I can of the ley lines in and out of the fae lands.
Surely even the fae need to keep track.”
“I wouldn’t be sure of that,” Dy commented darkly.
“Does this mean Fiery Wench is back from the dead?” Cha asked.
Phinny scowled at her, but there was a hint of mischief in it. “I’m changing it up. Fiery Wench needs to stay buried. Besides, she’s not me anymore. Call me Mama Bear now.”
Dy made a sound and went to her wife, giving her a long, lingering kiss. “Mama Bear, indeed, but you’ll always be my fiery wench.”
Cha studied the portraits of the kids on the wall, arranged in order of age, giving them privacy of a fashion, again.
Releasing her wife, Dy nodded crisply. “I’ll contact the Academy of Mental Clarity and get the skinny on what they know about the law-hounds getting the codes for the underground path-channels.
They can’t have found all of the channels, or there’d be a lot more people getting picked up.
We can develop a pattern to jump channels,” Dy said to Cha.
“Switch it up so they can’t follow too closely. ”
Cha felt the anticipatory grin split her face. “And feed them false information on the ones we do know they’re monitoring.”
Dy stood. “Let’s go get that first installment. I’ll wake up Big Betty. And I’ll need Warg, of course.”
Cha goggled at her in sheer horror. “Warg is still alive?”
“Of course, he’s still alive,” Dy answered with considerable indignation. “It hasn’t been that long and he’s not that old.”
Yes, he was. Cha met Phinny’s gaze over Dy’s head, and the redhead rolled her eyes, giving a little headshake of resigned disgust. The homely creature had to be even more ancient and full of slobber than ever.
“With the gold from Otto, you could take some coin to purchase a new lodestone,” Cha suggested, a bit desperately. “Hell, I’ll buy you one from my coin. Consider it an expense to do the gig.”
“A new lodestone?” Dy was as aghast as if Cha had suggested gutting one of her children.
“Warg has been with me for years. You know that, Cha. We’re a package deal.
I can’t ground my ley-line magic without a lodestone and Warg is the best one I’ve ever worked with.
If I don’t have Warg, I risk having that ley magic crawl right back up my connection and fry my brains—and then where would you be?
No ley worker is safe without a lodestone. ”
“I’m not saying go without,” Cha protested.
She’d never suggest such a thing. Not after that smuggling job when Warg chased after a gremlin, leaving Dy high and dry during an adjustment on a high-test white ley line—not incidentally their escape route.
No longer grounded by the magically null lodestone, the white dust had surged in an uncontrolled backflow, knocking Dy unconscious.
Stranded with Big Betty carrying a full load of contraband, no ley line, and the howls of the law-hounds closing in, Cha had been sure they were bound for a nasty mutation.
Fortunately, Dy regained consciousness just as Warg returned and they all jumped onto the white ley line just before the hounds caught up to them.
Without Dy’s ability to close off the line behind them, their career would’ve been over then.
Dy absolutely needed a lodestone, especially with the high potency dust they’d be dealing with. Cha just wished she’d get rid of the stinking and tragically unreliable Warg.
“Then what are you saying?” Dy demanded with narrowed eyes.
“I’m saying…” Desperately, she tried to think of something to dig herself out of this rapidly deepening hole. “You deserve to level up,” she declared, feeling inspired. “Warg is ancient, incontinent, and prone to chase gremlins.”
“Oh, he’s not that bad.” Dy folded her arms and glared. “You can’t possibly be suggesting I take on a mission of this magnitude with an untested, completely new-to-me lodestone!”
“No.” Cha sighed for the inevitability. “Get Warg and let’s transform Big Betty. The sooner we get the next installment of Otto’s gold, the happier I’ll be.”