by Kim Harrison
I thought of Ceri and the girls, what the loss of Trent would mean to them. My pulse thundered. I wanted to believe him, I wanted to be someone who wasn’t afraid. His eyes were on my bracelet, and I hid it under my other hand. “Trent. I’ve got nothing to keep me on this side of the lines. He knows my summoning name, so even holy ground won’t work this time. I don’t care what you’ve done, what charms or spells you’ve made, but there is nothing on God’s green earth that is going to stop that demon from taking me.”
“So you made a hole in the ever-after,” he said, and I threw my hand in the air—he still didn’t get it. “You’ll find a way to fix it. Al is broke, but only if you’re dead, which you aren’t. He’s going to be angry you hid out from him for five months, but that was your choice—deal with it. You saved the elven species, but you also have the cure for the demons’ infertility. What more do you need?”
“No, I don’t,” I said quickly. “I am not going to be a demon broodmare.”
He touched his chin in thought. “Perhaps I should have said I have the cure for their infertility. If I can fix you, I can fix them. All they have to do is trust me.”
Like that will ever happen. But my clenched jaw eased. “You’d do that? I thought you were at war with them.”
Trent’s toe scuffed the floor. “No one can remember why the war started,” he said. “Maybe it’s time to end it. It’s what my father wanted. Yours too.”
I looked at my bracelet, my heart hammering. The memory of being helpless rose up, not of simply being in a cage and watching Winona being tortured and knowing I might have been able to stop it if I hadn’t been afraid. No, it was the feeling of helplessness I’d known all my life, of being too weak, betrayed by my own body. And then the helplessness because of a lack of skill until I learned what I could do. The helplessness brought on by my own people when they shunned me, then being afraid of what I was and of what I had done. I wasn’t going to be afraid anymore. I could fix Winona. I owed her her life back.
Swallowing, I turned to Trent, but my next words died as the door opened and Quen came in, Jenks riding the ladder he was toting. My face was hot, and I knew I had a panicked look on it. Trent had something they wanted. Something they wanted so badly I might be able to bargain with Al for my continued freedom. Trent could help me, I thought. And this time I believed it. If we could hold Al off long enough for him to listen.
The clatter of the ladder being set up was harsh, and both Jenks and Quen looked up when neither Trent nor I said anything. “In the meantime,” Trent said to fill the breach, “Winona is welcome to stay. We don’t have a nanny, and the girls seem to like her.”
Jenks’s wings buzzed, and even Quen accepted that at face value, but I dropped my head, trying to lower my pulse before Jenks sensed it racing. I had to talk to Trent. I didn’t want to be afraid anymore. I didn’t want Winona living her life as a monster. I didn’t want anyone killing for me when I could use my magic and avoid bloodshed altogether. And if someone had to die, then . . . Oh God, I didn’t know if I could do that.
But I wasn’t going to be afraid anymore, and it was the scariest thing I’d ever decided. With a single-minded purpose, I hobbled forward, my hand reaching for the ladder in support.
“What the Tink-blasted hell do you think you’re doing?” Jenks said, and I started, shocked. How did he know?
“You’re not getting on the ladder,” Quen said dryly. “I can tell if the light has been disturbed.”
Oh! I took my hand off the ladder, flustered. Still leaning against the counter, Trent watched me pull back as if stung. Our eyes met over the length of the room, and when he saw my frightened, lost expression, his entire demeanor shifted. His lips parted and he pushed from the counter. Eyebrows high, he smiled faintly, a new excitement making his motions sharp. He knew. I was an open book to him. It had begun, my terrifying, I’m-not-afraid world.
“Um, I have to go,” I said, and Jenks’s wings clattered in sudden mistrust.
“What did you say to her, Trent?” the pixy demanded as Trent came forward and took my elbow, helping me to the door. “Where are you going? We just got the ladder. Don’t you want to know if this is how they got in?”
Oh shit. I was going to take the bracelet off. My heart pounded, and I felt dizzy.
Trent’s grip on my elbow tightened and he slipped his mutilated hand around my waist. “Now?” Trent murmured. The scent of wine and cinnamon filled me, and I closed my eyes, trying to stand upright, but it only made me dizzier. “Let me know what you find,” he said loudly, his voice calm under a lifetime of business dealings, but I don’t think he was fooling Quen. “Rachel has been on her feet too long. I can get her to her chair okay. Ceri will skin me alive if she passes out. I’m going to take her upstairs. Quen, a full report of what you find, on my desk ASAP.”
“I’m fine,” I said breathily, but I wasn’t. I couldn’t meet Jenks’s eyes as I shuffled out, but he was more excited about helping Quen with the light than anything else. I didn’t want him around when Al showed up. At least it was daylight. I’d have a few hours to make a new scrying mirror and try to explain before it all hit the fan.
Unless he jumps me to the ever-after, that is.
“Us,” Trent said as the door shut behind us and I looked up in the cool emptiness of the hall. “Unless he jumps us to the ever-after. Get it right, Rachel. I said I would help.”
“H-how . . .” I stammered, but he just smiled, his grip on my elbow never changing as he helped me to my chair.
Chapter Nineteen
My leg hurt, and I sat in my rolling chair, as I had done for much of the first part of my life, numb as someone else moved me around. Saying nothing, Trent smoothly pushed me through the downstairs labs until we were rising up to the first floors through a different elevator than we’d come down in. The humming, chill silence of the basement labs was replaced by the warmth of neutral carpet and soft conversation as he wove me through the front offices, skillfully evading or redirecting comments or requests from curious employees.
Almost without notice, the noise muted, then vanished. The warmth of the sun spilled in over my feet, and still I sat, doing nothing as the chair halted. I felt Trent slip around from behind me as he took a tray from someone coming in, then his beautiful voice rising and falling reassuringly as he ushered whoever it was out and shut the door with a soft and certain thump.
Then there was silence. Slowly the wonderful scent of coffee slipped into me.
My breath went in and out, and I looked up to see that we were in Trent’s office. The fake sun was coming in the huge video screen showing this year’s foals standing to take in the last of the warming rays, but it felt warm on my feet and looked real enough to me. Trent was sitting behind his desk, his feet up on his daily planner, his fingers steepled as he watched me, a curious tilt to his head, his fair hair almost in his eyes. Between us on a wooden tray was a pot of what had to be coffee and two empty cups with the Kalamack logo ghosted in silver.
“Are you okay? You kind of spaced out.” He put his feet on the floor and leaned over the desk, an excitement I’d never seen before sparking in his eyes, making them almost . . . mischievous? “I’ve never said that before. Spaced out. But that’s exactly what you did.”
Still feeling numb, I looked at the carafe of coffee, then my silver bracelet, the Möbius strip with Latin etched into it wrapped around me, shining in the sun. “Did I?”
My voice trailed off as he got to his feet and came around to the front of the desk, his motions still having a quick edge. “You started to go into shock. I thought my office would be better than a roomful of helpful Ceri.” He hesitated. “Unless you want her in on this, too?”
Having her here would be like asking someone else to take my bullet. No. I was done with that, and I shook my head as he poured two cups and offered me the first. It wasn’t the shock of injury, but the realization that the bracelet was going to come off, that everything was going to change. I was going
to be a demon for real, the power, the responsibility . . . If people were going to die from my decisions, it would no longer be because I was too afraid to act. But to kill someone . . . I didn’t know if I could do that. I desperately didn’t want to be that person.
The sound of the coffee chattering into the second cup was loud as I brought mine to my lips, my hands shaking. The mug was warm in my fingers, and the coffee slipped into me, both bitter and rich, shocking me awake. “Thank you,” I said softly as he sat back on the edge of his desk with his own cup.
He inclined his head slightly, looking as fabulous as ever, more appealing than before because I had no idea what he was going to do, what he was capable of.
“Don’t do that,” I said, my gaze going everywhere but to him.
“Do what?” He sipped from his mug, one long leg draping to the floor, the other pulled up slightly.
“Sit on your desk and look sexy.”
Trent hesitated. Clearing his throat, he slipped from the desk, fidgeting as he looked at his chair, behind his desk. It was obvious he didn’t want to sit there, and looking somewhat sheepish, he used his foot to shift one of the leather chairs in front of his desk so that it faced me more fully. “I’ve never sat in one of my own chairs before,” he said as he eased back into it, slowly, as if testing it out. His eyes roved over his desk, taking it in from a new point of view. He might not have any idea what it meant to me—that he wasn’t behind his desk and in a position of power—but then again, he probably did.
More nervous yet, I held my coffee with two hands and sipped, afraid of what was coming.
“You’re ready?” Trent said, and I flicked a glance at him.
Crap, he looked even sexier now, more relaxed, more accessible—more off-limits. I swallowed my coffee and rested the cup against me, warming my middle. “Yes.” My voice didn’t even quaver, but I was a wreck inside. Al was going to take me. He was going to take me and stick me in a little box. And that was if I was lucky. This was a dumb idea.
“Mmm.” His foot was twitching, and he stilled it as he saw me notice. “I have a room set up. Lots of circles, protection. We should break the charm now before the sun goes down so we have a chance to prepare for him popping over.”
My breath came fast. If we waited, Ceri would get involved. “No.”
“No?” I felt his eyes land on me, his almost subliminal fidgeting stop as he probably weighed his chances of changing my mind. Sighing, he stretched for his phone. “Give me a moment, then. I’ll get some charms sent up that might contain him for a few moments—”
Alarm was a wash of adrenaline, waking me up almost more than the coffee. I might never see Ivy or Jenks again . . . “We’re not going to trap him when he shows.”
“You’re joking.”
We, I thought, my pulse quickening. I had said “we,” and it had sounded right. Scooting my rolling chair back, I looked up at him, breathless. Trent had a ley line running through his office. I’d used it once to find the resting site of a murder victim in his stables. I could see and talk to Al through a ley line even if the sun was up—and duck out of it if he tried to abduct me. “Am I in it?” I asked him, knowing he understood when his frown turned severe.
“No. Rachel—”
“How about now?” I said, shifting backward. I could feel nothing from the line, and I suddenly wanted the bracelet off, knowing it for the manacle it was. How had I allowed this? Was I so thoroughly ruled by fear? Oh God. My mom . . .
“No.” Trent stood, and I rocked him to a halt with a raised hand.
“I promised Al . . .” I said, my voice catching when it rose. Taking a steadying breath, I tried again. “I promised Al that I wouldn’t ever summon him into a circle,” I said, my voice low to keep it from breaking. “Trust is going to keep him calm long enough to listen.”
Almost laughing in disbelief, Trent put all his weight on one foot. “I thought you were going to be smart about this,” he said, calm but mocking as he stood before me in his thousand-dollar suit. “Nothing is going to keep him calm. He’s a demon. You can’t trust him.”
“You’re asking their entire species to trust you to give them a cure, not a death sentence,” I said, then glanced at the closed door and the knock that Trent ignored. “I won’t let you offer them a cure in a way that prevents them from accepting it.” Trent was scowling, and I shrugged. “Look, I understand if you want to leave the room and let me handle it.”
“I’m not chickening out,” he said, affronted as he just about read my mind. “I’m pointing out that a little preparation will make the difference in walking or limping away from this. Why are you making this difficult?”
I extended my coffee to him, and he took the half-empty mug as if unsure of what it meant. “Even with the promise of a cure, you’ve grossly overestimated our chances,” I said matter-of-factly, shaking inside. “I’d prefer to contact Al immediately after taking the charm off, but if you can take it off for me right now, I’ll wait and call him when I get home. He’ll probably sense me and be waiting for me in the line by then.” I’m never going to make this work. Never.
Trent set both our mugs on the tray with twin sharp taps, his motions abrupt. My pulse pounded as he said nothing, moving behind me and, in swift motions, shifted my chair two feet back. My hair swung as he jerked the chair to a halt. “Now you’re in the line,” he said darkly.
“Thank you.” I clenched my hands to hide their shaking.
Trent grumbled something I didn’t hear, his head down as he went behind his desk and crouched. I heard a drawer open and close, and when he stood, he had a mirror in his hand. It was my scrying mirror. I could tell from here.
“Where did you get that?” I said, my eyes widening as I reached for it. “I thought it was lost in the quake!” My scrying mirror would make everything easier. How had he gotten it?
Trent shrugged, his eyes not meeting mine as he handed it over. “I asked the coven for it. I knew you were going to want it eventually.”
The glass felt cold on my fingers, empty. The etched mirror still threw back the world in a wine-tinted wash, but it was pale and two-dimensional—dead. God, what have I done to myself? I suddenly realized Trent was standing over me, inches away, the scent of a green woods coming from him to ease my headache.
“Tell me how you plan on staying alive long enough to bargain with him if you don’t use what I’ve prepared,” he asked, his tone telling me he thought I was being stupid.
I looked up, feeling sick. “I don’t really have a plan, but hiding in a spell-proof room surrounded by an arsenal isn’t going to help. He’s got my summoning name.”
His brow furrowed. “So do I,” he said as he went to his desk.
True. My breath slipped from me in a long exhale. I was not going to be their dog toy. I’d seen dog toys, and they were eventually broken and covered in slobber, left in the rain to be forgotten. My faint smile faded as I saw Trent’s worry, his concern . . . his fear under his professional veneer. He would do this with me, and he knew the danger.
Rummaging now in his top drawer, Trent said, “Can’t I just—”
“Defense only. Promise me,” I demanded. He hesitated, his eyes never shifting from mine. “Damn it, Trent, promise me,” I said, not wanting him to lie to me. “You’re all about my taking responsibility, well, this is my decision. I have to do it my way.”
Grimacing, he slammed the drawer shut, a bit of colorful silk in his hand. “It’s not that I don’t trust you,” he said as he straightened, stressing it.
I shifted the heavy glass on my knees. It used to be alive, but now it felt dead. Or was I the one who was dead? “Trust me?” I mocked. “He might kill you. I’m not saying he won’t. But if you raise one charm in anything other than defense, I will spell you down myself.” I waited while he frowned at me, his desk between us. “Sure you want to stay?”
His grumble was enough for me, and I looked behind him at the door, feeling like two kids behind the barn playing sho
w-and-tell. Ivy and Jenks were going to be mad. Ceri would be ticked that I didn’t ask for her help. Quen would say I was foolish for not asking for his assistance. But I didn’t want to endanger them. Ivy and Jenks were moving on without me, and that was good. Ceri had her life with her children before her, and I wouldn’t risk that. Quen was a dragon, ready to swoop in and save me, but leaving me still afraid. Trent . . . Trent was good enough to help, and bad enough to not be a crutch. Perhaps more important, I wanted to do this on my own. Trent could help because I needed it and he’d gotten me into this. He was damn well going to be there when I got out.
Goose bumps tingled up my arms when I recognized the cap and ribbon in his hand. “Thank you,” I whispered, remembering the vengeance of the lines running through me with no aura between me and the energy of creation. “Is it going to hurt?”
“No.” His word crisp and short, he put his cap on with a quickness that dared me to say he looked funny. He seemed so different, I didn’t know what to think anymore. The ribbon went around his neck, over his collar and down his front. It swung as he dragged his chair into the line to face me squarely. I should have been able to feel the line, see the ever-after with my second sight, but I was dead inside.
“Why am I even here if you won’t let me do anything?” he grumbled as he settled himself, his knees inches from mine.
I was starting to shake hard enough for him to notice, but I couldn’t stop, and I should be shaking. Why was he here? Because he was strong enough to watch my back, and weak enough that it would be me solving this, not him. But I couldn’t tell him that.
“Give me your hands,” he said, and my eyes jerked to his. His need to do this shone in them. He was itching to give something back to Al for his missing fingers, itching to prove to the demon that he wasn’t a doormat, a familiar, a commodity, but someone the demon needed to take seriously. God, I knew how that felt. How was I going to keep him alive?
My fingers slipped into his, and we clasped hands, my knuckles resting on the cool glass of my scrying mirror. His hands were cool, mine were shaking, and he gave me a little squeeze, jerking my attention back up.