“But why bother?”Cha complained.At Dy’s sideways glance, she added.“We’re not even supposed to be here.Why implement a huge glamour?”
“Glamour works on other fae, too,” Dy explained with some exasperation.“Honestly, did you attendanyof the classes on fae magic and their internecine politics?”
“I’m sure I attendedsome,” Cha allowed, shifting in her seat.She knew she’d had to because if she hadn’t put in minimum attendance, she’d have been expelled and where would she have lived then?Not back on the farm, that was for sure.But attending class and paying attention were two different things.Back then, all she’d cared about was what she needed to know to ride the ley lines.In sober retrospect, she could have used some of that information on the internecine politics—whatever that meant.“So,” she said, trying to sound casual and knowledgeable, “internecine is another kind of magic?”
Dy turned and stared at Cha in full disgusted disbelief.“Seriously?”
Dy didn’t need to be looking at the ley line to navigate it.Big Betty knew what she was doing and Dy possessed the ability to sense the course of the ley and any obstacles, but Cha couldn’t help glancing nervously ahead.They were going really fast.Faster than she’d ever experienced.Probably she’d be much happier if she were driving.
“Internecine means involving conflict within a group, usually marked by slaughter,” Dy informed her bitingly.
“Okay, okay.”Cha held up her hands in surrender.“Forgive me for not having your vocabulary.I don’t know how you memorize all that shit anyway.”
Dy took a deep breath, clearly gathering her patience.“The point is not your vocabulary.The point is that you’ve involved yourself in faeinternecinepolitics with the same careless breeziness you approach every damn thing.”
She wasn’t wrong, but… “Knowing an obscure vocabulary word and understanding what I’m walking into with rescuing Prince Charming are two very different skill sets.I excel at thinking on my feet—or on the ley line—and I can and have extracted myself and others, including you, from any number of dicey situations.This will be fine.”
“Will it?”Dy continued to glare at her balefully.
“It’s a little late to second guess,” Cha pointed out.And pointed to the onrushing glaringly bright fairytale palace.
Dy turned her baleful glare on the palace, which was frankly a relief.“Fuck me,” she muttered, slowing Big Betty to one of the outside leys, which was still about three times as fast as Obsidian fast black.“Do you have any idea how we’re handling this?”
Cha eyed the structure.“Play it the way we planned.Let me and Katu out and we’ll escort you in.Pretend that we were hired to bring this valuable shipment here.We allow them to sell them the agnicurna for yellow dust.You take the cargo home.Meanwhile, I’ll find Prince Charming, extract him from whatever sticky web he landed in, and we’ll be right behind you in Katu.”
Dy slowed them even more.“You and Katu will have to exit on the fly.I can’t drop to a full stop until we’re there, it seems.”
Alas for that.“Katu can handle it, can’t you baby cat?”
Katu sawed in happy agreement, as eager as she to get back on the ley, to be the bosses of their own destinies again, instead of passive passengers.
“Just… be careful,” Dy cautioned.
“Yes, Mom.”Cha was already climbing back through the compartment door, Katu squirming past her and leaving her with a face-full of fur.
“I’m serious.”Dy smacked her thigh and Cha wiggled her butt in Dy’s face in retaliation, making her partner laugh.“This high yellow is unlike anything I’ve ever encountered.It’sfastfast.”
“Understood,” Cha replied, trying to sound sober and responsible while her insides danced in sheer glee.
“Cha.”Dy grabbed her booted ankle just before she finished squeaking back through.“I mean it.”
Cha shook her foot vigorously, dislodging the grip of caution.“I’m always careful.”
“You are never careful!”Dy’s voice followed her through as the door closed behind her.
“What fun is careful, right, baby cat?”
Katu answered with a disdainful tail swish.
If she was the careful type she’d never have become a ley rider in the first place.Never become a smuggler, or taken that rotten job that landed her in Moonstone jail.Never picked up the delicious man-candy of a hitchhiker who turned out to be a fae prince in hiding, nor would she be in Citrine at that very moment, staging an improbable rescue.
She wouldn’t be about to ride pure high yellow.Katu transformed, rear to the back of Big Betty, ready to play.Cha vaulted into the driver’s seat, blood pumping with excitement.The next best thing to sex.
Big Betty’s back door lowered.Dy had them on the slowest side ley possible and the countryside still blurred past in a yellow streak.Cha gave the signal and Big Betty suddenly accelerated, sending them flying down the ramp and into the whirlwind.
~14~
Open Says Me!