Chapter 20
In a Jam
Time to get serious—and talk Dy down from her current tree. “Goldilocks, this is Bandit. What’s your status?”
No reply. Well, shit. Dy had just been on there. Had things gone that bad that fast? “Goldilocks, repeat, this is Bandit. Come back.”
Still no reply.
“That’s bad, right?” Azul asked. “I swear I didn’t mess up the mechanism.”
“No, she was just there.” She switched back to the gold channel. “Heya riders. Bandit here. Anyone got eyes on Big Betty?”
“Upchuck here, Bandit. I’m drafting Big Betty on the Thirteen a couple of leagues from the big black line. She looks mighty fine to me.”
Huh. What then? Cha thanked Upchuck absentmindedly, then thumbed back to marcasite. “Goldilocks, drop a clue. Pretty please, with sugar on top.”
“Do I want to know why he’s called ‘Upchuck’?” Azul asked in a pained voice during the long pause that ensued.
“He earned the handle fair and square,” Cha answered, frowning at the silent path-box, then glanced at Azul. “No, you probably don’t want to know.”
The box crackled and Cha’s heart jumped in relief at the sound of Dy’s voice. “I’m here. I’m just not speaking to you.”
“Aw, honey. Don’t be like that. I am responsibly right behind you and will hold your hand for BX. What kind of heat have you got?”
“If you were off eating candy, Bandit, I swear I’ll sic Mama Bear on you and you’ll be toothless.”
“I swear I wasn’t, was I, Charming?” She threw him an expectant look, pointing at the box.
He cleared his throat. “If that means what I think it means, then no. I remain unconsumed and intend to stay that way,” he added with offended dignity.
“I was deaf for other reasons. Good ones,” Cha said. “I’ll explain face to face.”
She wove through the slower traffic, ignoring the slight sting of Azul’s dismissal.
She didn’t expect every man to want her.
Sometimes the sparkle was sadly one-sided.
Besides he was too fancy for the likes of her.
And there was the fact that he had more fae blood than a person running around in human lands should have.
Though the things she’d heard about fae lovers…
Well, just say that there’s a reason so many humans succumbed to fae seduction despite all the very good reasons not to.
Like losing all memory of yourself and disappearing forever into the fae lands, dancing yourself to death or losing your humanity altogether.
Or worse. She needed to keep those consequences firmly in mind.
Even though the prince wasn’t actually fae.
She was pretty sure. Just to verify, she sneaked a glance at his ears.
No points protruding through his curling, deep blue hair.
There was an iridescence to the color though, dark as a deep ocean with glints of indigo magic.
It looked like the color emanated from the inside, the curls almost coiling of their own accord…
Nah. It was just a really good dye job. Still, the color served to highlight his pale skin, his profile as delicately etched as a sculpture, made sensually alive by that full pouting mouth.
She could imagine all sorts of things that mouth could—
“What?” he demanded, turning abruptly so that he caught and held her eyes, his as intense and full of secrets as that magically deep ocean she’d fancied.
“Just making sure you hadn’t fallen out,” she returned lightly as she wrenched her gaze away.
Definitely not blushing, because she wasn’t some inexperienced schoolgirl with a crush on the wealthy, unobtainable and noble, pretty boy.
No, she was the Bandit. Hardcore and hard assed, with her pick of willing lovers.
On a life-changing smuggling run fraught with danger.
Now that was the kind of fraught-ness she thrived on.
“Arantxa,” Azul began, a troublingly serious note in his voice.
To her relief, she caught the familiar buzz of Big Betty on the ley line ahead. That had been quick. “Aha!” she exclaimed, pretending she hadn’t heard him, and hitting the path-box. “Good news, Goldi, I’m just about caught up.” Dy didn’t reply. Still pissed then.
Cha poured on the speed, weaving around the considerable convoy drafting Big Betty, all of them going awfully slow for that. A number of them sent up greetings as she passed.
“Do you know all of these… people?” the prince asked.
“What can I say? I’m a popular gal.”
“Apparently,” he noted drily.
She ignored the subtext he loaded into that observation. Traffic was slowing to a halt, a logjam of rumbling carriages filling the black width of the Thirteen. “What is going on?” she muttered.
“The traffic has stopped moving,” Azul said helpfully.
“Thanks ever so, but I did observe that for myself,” she returned acidly.
“You asked.” The thin smile he produced positively reeked of false innocence.
She flipped back to the gold channel, as Katu purred to a halt, mentally unsheathing impatient claws. “Bandit here. On the Thirteen near the big black line—what’s the hold up?”
Several voices chimed in with the unhelpful information that traffic had stopped moving.
Azul gave her a smug smile. “We don’t have time for this,” she muttered, glancing at the timekeeper.
It was one thing for her to fall behind, but Big Betty had to be on schedule if they were to make their payday.
Cha stood in the driver’s seat, shading her eyes in an attempt to see ahead. Big Betty’s bulk obscured a great deal, but it was obvious traffic was stopped ahead of her. No doubt this was what had Dy so riled.
“Sit tight,” she told Azul. “I’ll be right back.”
“You’ll what? But what if—”
“Katu knows what to do if traffic starts moving.” She left him eyeing Katu’s dash with decided suspicion, leapt to the safe margin, and made her way on foot past the stopped carriages, waving absently as ley riders called out to her.
Reaching the passenger side of Big Betty, she hopped up and climbed in.
Warg tried to lick her face with his big, decidedly slimy tongue, and she ducked with the agility of long practice. “Ugh, no,” she told him.
Dy gave her a long, cool look. “Well, look what the cat dragged in.” She tapped the timer, showing them now less than two hours ahead of schedule. “We’re losing our margin.”
“Like that’s my fault?”
“I don’t know,” Dy answered, sounding just like when she caught one of the kids screwing up and was just waiting for them to fess up. “Is it?”
Cha leashed her temper. Dy had a right to be annoyed with her.
Jerking her head outside, she said, “Step into my office.” She hopped out again and walked over to a tree with leaves a normal green on one side and all black facing the Obsidian side.
Dy followed a moment later, folding her arms and tapping a foot expectantly.
“I’m sorry I was radio silent,” Cha said. “Prince Charming agreed to answer my questions if no one could overhear. He put a whammy on the path-box so it wouldn’t send or receive.”
Her eyes widening, Dy canted her head as if trying to hear better. “He’s a sorcerer?”
“Apparently, and with a big dollop of fae blood, too.” She wanted to tell Dy more, but thought better of it.
If it so happened to be the case that her hitchhiker was full fae, however impossible that might be, then Dy would not take that news well.
She would call a halt to Cha’s association with Prince Charming, probably enforcing her edict with sorcery.
It did occur to Cha that keeping her suspicions secret and going against what she knew would be her best friend’s better judgment might not be the wisest course, but she felt oddly protective of Azul.
Probably all of this pointed to bad decisions on Cha’s part, but—hey—she’d never been known for her good ones, especially where pretty boys were concerned.
Dy pursed her lips in a soundless whistle at the news of fae blood. “Are you sure it was a good idea to go back for this guy?” Dy looked Cha over, radiating maternal concern. “Especially as you apparently suffered a fair amount of damage in the process—are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” Cha waved that off. “He healed me,” she added with a lift of her brows.
Dy didn’t like that at all. She stared bleakly ahead at the stopped traffic. “Cha, sweetheart, this sounds like another of your—”
“Did you know that fae-realm magic could be blended?” Cha interrupted. “Giant Jo gave me a magic wand—it’s pink—and Prince Charming says it’s a combination of Moonstone and Ruby magic.”
“I’ve read some treatises theorizing that was possible, but…” Dy shook her head. “That’s beside the point. How did Giant Jo happen to have something like that?”
“Dunno. I didn’t really have time to ask a lot of questions. There was an iron demon and—”
“What?” Dy broke in, aghast.
“I tell you, I’ve been through a lot,” Cha said mournfully, not above milking it for sympathy.
Dy wasn’t moved—or fooled in the least. “This is all going south already and we haven’t even crossed into Obsidian. I don’t like the omens on this.”
Okay, this wasn’t going the direction Cha wanted. “They’re good omens,” she insisted. “Giant Jo gave me a powerful magic artifact and I defeated an iron demon and a bevy of fell wolves!” She had no idea how many counted as a bevy, so that seemed like a reasonable vague number to pick.
“Cha, have you looked around you?” Dy shot an impatient finger ahead. “The border to Obsidian is closed. We’re dead in the water before we’ve even begun.”
“A small obstacle, easily overcome.”
“What if someone knows what we’re trying to pull off? They could have been listening in on the path channels, like you heard was possible.”
“This situation is exactly why we have bribes,” Cha pointed out.
“Do you want to go back to Phin and the kids and tell them we have to give the coin back? That we gave up before we even crossed into Obsidian, a realm we’ve been in and out of hundreds of times?
That people take their kids to for holidays and to play fairy?
” When Dy’s brow wrinkled into uncertainty, Cha pressed on ruthlessly.
“Will you look into Phin Jr’s face and tell him you hit a little traffic jam and bailed?
Tell Zazu you got scared? Leave the twins to eat mud the rest of their lives? ”
“You might be fancy free, but that family you’re trying to use as leverage against me are people who love and depend on me.
” Dy retorted and Cha winced, knowing she’d pressed it too far.
And she’d been doing so well, too. Dy raked her blonde curls back from her forehead, glaring at the traffic.
“I will be missed if I don’t return,” she added so pointedly that it was clear they both knew no one but the crowds would notice if the Bandit disappeared, and they’d quickly forget her for the next racer.
What was this, pile on Cha for being an asshole day? “There are people who’d miss me,” she said, sounding a little too defensive.
Dy glanced at her distractedly, then seemed to realize what she’d said.
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that how it sounded.
It’s just been so long since I’ve done this and every league this job puts between me, Phin, and the babies is gutting me.
Maybe I am too rusty, not cut out for the bandit life anymore. ”
This was even worse than Cha had feared. “Out of practice, maybe, but never rusty. This is a bump and it’s natural for you to miss your family.”
Dy gazed at Cha, her lovely blue eyes watery. “I do miss them. And I’m lonely. I thought this would be about you and me again—not you cutting contact and canoodling with some guy you picked up.”
Ouch. And fair. “I’ll ditch him now,” she promised recklessly. “You matter far more to me than anyone else. I don’t care how useful Prince Charming might be in the fae realms ahead,” she added, not above reminding Dy of that salient bit of information, just in case.
Dy laughed, shaking her head, but at least no longer so upset. “You never change.”
“Is that a good thing?” Cha asked hopefully.
“Promise me this,” Dy said seriously, instead of answering. “Promise me you won’t let this Prince Charming distract you. That you’ll put me and this job first.”
“I so swear.” Cha seized Dy’s hand, turned their joined hands to the side, and spit into the space between their palms, clutching tight so Dy couldn’t immediately pull away.
Dy shrieked and extracted her hand with a small buzz of magic. “I can’t believe you did that!”
“Think of it as Warg slime,” Cha replied with an easy grin, “only cleaner.”
“I hate you,” Dy grumbled.
“Back at ’cha, babe. Get ready to fly. Those border fae won’t know what hit them.”