Nerd Girl really had tried to make the handbook “idiot proof,” with drawings, helpful arrows, and labels on each page.Cha started with the beginning.
Lesson One: Know Your Wand
The accompanying illustration had circles and arrows and labels and an explanatory paragraph.Way more circles, arrows, labels, and explanation than seemed necessary for a wand that was basically a handle with a pink-sparkle-covered star on the end.As these were clearly overly complicated names and descriptions for stuff she already knew, she flipped the page.
Only to be confronted with a fucking pop quiz.An enchanted pop quiz, that wouldn’t allow her to further turn the page until she completed it.Nerd Girl had outfoxed her.
With a sigh—and feeling like she was in one of those dreams where you got sent back to school to start over because you somehow failed kindergarten—Cha turned back to Lesson One and, head already aching, set herself to memorizing.
~8~
An Unwarranted Arrest
Cha stowed theevil book away again—she’d been unable to go past the pop quiz until she scored perfectly, which had tempted her to throw it out the window—when they rejoined the Thirteen one rest stop short of the Obsidian border.Despite the slow and decrepit ley line Dy had dragged them down, they hit the big commercial ley line several hours faster than the loop-de-do route.In a snazzy side-benefit, there was now very little traffic on the Thirteen.The Lordgay traffic stop backed up the downstream commercial traffic and the agonizingly slow loop-de-do, now even slower with the increased volume, had delayed the rest of the poor sods plodding along it.There wasn’t even a line at the customs gates.
The border between the human realms and Obsidian was defined by a wall—a black one, of course—towering to the sky and running as far as the eye could see in either direction.Obsidian gargoyles perched at regular intervals along the top, miniscule in the distance, but in truth about the size of a horse.If anyone tried to run the border, the gargoyles would drop on them like a fanged farmhouse falling from the sky.
The Thirteen ley line forked a short distance before the wall, the inbound leys leading to a series of gated arches.The fae loved dramatic architecture and they’d gone all out here.The gates had been made to look like a spiked portcullis that lowered from above, as in a gothic tale, with overwrought iron twisting and twining like menacing black vines bristling with thorns and roses.Obsidian fae guards, equally spiky and gothic, stood sentry at regular intervals.
Trailing behind Big Betty, Cha kept an eye on her partners as they drove right up the oversized cargo lane, to one of the border agents sitting in their glass cubicles.It looked to be smooth sailing so far, but she’d be ready to jump in and help if shit went down.Normally she’d hang back in a longer line to make sure Dy and Betty cleared customs before she took Katu through.This time, though, with a rare no-waiting event, she couldn’t do that without looking conspicuous.
Attracting notice wasnotwhat they wanted.
So, she pulled up to the nearest booth, acting nonchalant.An Obsidian fae woman barely glanced at her.“Papers,” she said tonelessly, neither a question nor a command.
Tempted to quip something about how papers did indeed exist in the world, Cha put a lock on her smart mouth and handed them over.The packet included Katu’s official registration and breeding center information, along with Cha’s proof of humanity—she’d have to remember to pull that out the next time Azul tried to give her shit for being heartless—and citizenship.The fae scrutinized the paperwork with all the interest she failed to give Cha.
Meanwhile, a labrador van driven by exhausted-looking parents pulled up at the next booth.It was the sort of vehicle sold to non-magical human families that essentially drove itself on the ley lines.Always in the slowest lanes and only to an assortment of preprogrammed destinations.Shrieking children hung out the windows waving.Cha shook her head to herself even as she gave them a little wave back.They were no doubt bound for a “family vacation” in Santa’s Village.It was beyond her why human parents thought taking their vulnerable youngsters, who were delicious to the palate of many fae monsters, into fae territory was not only not a terrible idea, but an actual fun one.She didn’t find the concept funny at all, but she produced a smile for the kids.Not their fault their parents were idiots.
“Your purpose in Obsidian?”
The bored question brought her attention back to the Obsidian civil servant.Cha didn’t hold anything against this fae.The staffers in these kinds of low-level jobs worked long hours for shit pay.They’d have to be crazy to find it interesting.
“Little shopping trip to Santa’s Village,” Cha chirped in answer, inspired by the noisy children.“Picking up some real fae toys for the niblings.Wings and wands.”She was tempted to wave the Moonruby wand, but that would be stupid.“Maybe some of those dancing sugared plums, if they’re not too pricey,” she added, the shudder-inducing image of their Moonstone fae contact, Sugar Plum, slithering into her mind, along with the ensuing torture.Stop jabbering,she reminded herself.That was how amateurs got caught in lies, by embroidering on their stories and yammering on too long.
The fae, dramatic in appearance as they all were, dregs of fae society or not, tossed back her platinum hair that glimmered like moonlight and rolled her glass-black eyes in contempt.Her objectively beautiful face still looked like a fist, giving new dimensions to the expression resting bitch face.“Humans are fools,” she commented, eyes—having completed their circuit—now on whatever magical device certified the papers.
“Can’t argue there,” Cha replied cheerfully and promptly shut her mouth.She was a prime example, wasn’t she?A lovelorn human idiot chasing after the fae lover who’d rejected her.What could she even do in Citrine that he couldn’t?She might as well go buy some dancing sugar plums for the nieces and nephews and go home.
“Arantxa Evermore…” the fae drawled Cha’s legal name with far more interest than she’d so far shown.The warning hairs went up on the back of Cha’s neck.Katu growled quietly and she petted the dash.The last thing she needed was for the jaguar to get upset.
“That’s me,” she said.
There was no getting around having real names on the official papers and she hadn’t wanted to pull out any of her false identities this early in the game.Maybe that had been a critical error in judgment.She tried to appear casual as she checked out her position and prospects for escape.The portcullis ahead of her remained down.No flimsy barrier for the fae.They didn’t fuck around with security.Behind her, a rhino-carriage waited, neatly boxing her in.She couldn’t escape, not without leaving Katu behind, which she would never do, even if she could elude the fae authorities on foot, which she couldn’t.They were trapped.
Not ideal.
The fae leveled a gleeful smile on Cha, a particularly unpleasant expression on the otherwise dourly gorgeous face, like frozen mud cracking open to reveal putrid ooze beneath.Yes, Cha had grown up on a farm and you haven’t truly lived until you’ve mucked out a pig pen in winter.
“Are you aware, Arantxa Evermore,” the fae crooned, “that there is a warrant out for your arrest?”
Well shit.And not the frozen kind.The steaming hot, stinky, incredibly inconvenient kind.Cha bit back the observation that she’d hardly be prancing about in the open, handing over her legal paperwork instead of a false identity if she’d known that.Now she longed to wind back time and grab just one of those several false identities from the secret compartment in Katu—one that conveniently disappeared when he reverted to animal form.Using her fake papers was complicated by having to falsify Katu’s identity and licensing, too, and since that was originally encoded by the fae, that was a tricky maneuver.Not impossible, but best avoided—again—unless absolutely necessary.Which this occasion would have called for, if she’d had the wit to realize their recent shenanigans had prompted the usually fairly lazy fae law to go to the trouble.
Wanting to scream in frustration, Cha instead plastered on an expression of innocent surprise.“Me?”she squeaked, hoping to fake being intimidated although the fear was real all right.
In her peripheral vision, Big Betty pulled through the gates, slowly accelerating, then gaining speed on the higher quality Obsidian Thorofare.At least Dy had passed inspection and hadn’t been tagged for arrest.That was both good and bad news.Dy was clear to continue, and would, which meant Cha could catch up eventually—ifshe could slip free of this unfortunate trap.
The bad news was the fact that this warrant was all about Cha and only Cha meant it probably came from the Moonstone fae.Probably something to do with breaking out of their jail, although she’d really thought Azul’s Amethystier-than thou intimidation tactics had put the kibosh on retaliation or pursuit.Although, come to think of it, she was no longer under Azul’s purple cloak of protection, so… She was probably fucked.