“Yes,” Dy answered, figuring they’d already trusted their would-be accomplice with plenty of information and a titch more wouldn’t make that much difference.“We figure to load up Big Betty with agnicurna, buy black dust in Obsidian to mix it with, then dispense with it… elsewhere.”
“You think the Citrine fae are going to trade you yellow dust for agnicurna?”Nerd Girl pondered the question.“You have this deal set up?”
Cha simply grinned at her, saying nothing.Wasn’t her problem what conclusions Nerd Girl came to.“Can you help or not?”
“I want a case of yellow dust.”
Cha burst out laughing.“I thought you were a scientist, not a comedian.”
Nerd Girl glared at her.“I can give you a way to hide ten—no, twelve—cases of pure yellow.I think one of them in return for that is a fair deal.”
“AndIthink that’s highway robbery,” Cha retorted.
Nerd Girl smiled thinly.“That’s your department.”
“Ha ha.”
“That’s my deal.Take it or leave it.”Nerd Girl spun away, adjusted the dials under a bubbling flask and vented some kind of mist that smelled of magic.“But if you leave it,” she added without looking back, “you’re not going to find anyone else willing to touch this.You two are box office poison at this point.”
Dy met Cha’s gaze and shrugged ruefully.“There were extenuating circumstances.”
Nerd Girl snorted indelicately.“Yeah.The Moonstone fae, who you’re going to have to elude more successfully this time if you plan to get all the way through the Moonstone realm to Citrine, where not incidentally, no human has ever gone.At least, and lived to tell about it.”
“Aren’t you just a ray of sunshine,” Cha griped.“We have inside help.And a secret weapon,” she added.
Nerd Girl only shook her head.“I don’t need to know.I don’t want to know.I named my price.”
Cha raised her brows at Dy, who nodded.“How would we do it?”Dy asked Nerd Girl.
The scientist/sorceress spun back to bare her teeth at Dy.“You think I’m giving up my secrets for free, Goldilocks?”
“We can’t pay up until we return regardless,” Cha said with exasperation.“It’s not like I have a case of pure yellow sitting around.”Yes, humans used yellow pixie dust.Black was most common and the least powerful; white was better; and yellow was the rarest and most valuable—if you didn’t count purple, cinnabar, and ruby dust, which no human ever saw.Even so, everyone knew the dust the fae exported to human lands was the low-end shit.The fae kept the best for themselves.
“I’ll need an appropriate deposit then.”
That put up Cha’s deal antennae.Nerd Girl had been playing a little game all along, had she?“What kind of deposit?”
“Your Moonruby wand.”
“Now you’re the insane one,” Cha returned in a sugar sweet tone.“Bless your heart.”
Azul had insisted she keep that wand, even though he could wield it far more effectively, being inherently magical and a sorcerer, while Cha was neither.He’d told her to keep it, saying that she’d find it useful.When she’d complained that the thing was kind of a dud—she’d only gotten it to do anything sporadically—he’d actually rolled his eyes at her, heavily implying user error.At any rate, the wand was special and was their secret weapon, so no way was she giving it to Nerd Girl.
“I only want to examine it,” Nerd Girl retorted in disgust.“Just overnight.You’ll have to come back tomorrow anyway to get the agnicurna, which I will generously mix with enough black dust to hide it from detection, and your decoy shipment.”She tipped her chin at Dy.“You can decide then if you think it’ll work.”
Cha didn’t like it.“You want to keep this a surprise.If it doesn’t work, we’re shit out of luck.”
It had already been nearly a full day since Lenorae had shown up with her urgent message, wanting Cha to go with her right then.Cha had known that, by making the choice to take the ley lines with Dy into the fae realms, they were delaying answering Azul’s call by days.The preparation was necessary, but that didn’t mean she liked it.Internally, she chafed at every second of delay.But she did her best not to show it.She’d agreed to Dy’s terms that they do this smart and in Dy’s mind, that meant meticulously lining up every detail.
And meticulous meant slow to Dy.
Not to Cha.She liked fast.Fast cars.Fast men.And getting Azul rescued fast so she could get to work banishing him from her brain again.Not to mention that Phinny wasn’t getting any less pregnant.They needed to get there and back lest Dy miss the labor and suffer the consequences.
“If I can’t come up with a solution for you, no one can,” Nerd Girl replied solemnly.“That’s why you came to me.So lend me the wand.Give me overnight to work and come back in the morning.I think you’ll be pleased with my solution,” she added to Dy.“You and Big Betty will get the very best protections I can give you for that precious yellow.”
“And the agnicurna problem?”Cha asked, not wanting that detail to get lost.That was how they were purchasing Azul’s freedom—in trade or as extortion.She wouldn’t mind blowing up the Citrine Palace and she’d never even seen the place.
“That part is easy,” Nerd Girl answered, barely glancing Cha’s way.“I’ll have it for you.You only need to mix ten parts agnicurna to one-part black pixie dust to disguise it.”