by Kim Harrison
The cookie snapped between my teeth. “Might be a good thing,” I said, chewing.
Wing clatter dropping in pitch, Jenks slowly dusted the plant. It was nerves: he gardened, I ate. “I didn’t think about that,” he said.
“This isn’t only about the demons,” I said, making a face when I washed the cookie down with a swallow of that awful tea. It was tepid, and it sucked dishwater. “Having no magic would piss off the vampires, the Weres, and the witches. We’d all survive, but can you imagine? Everyone would be at a disadvantage. Everyone except the humans.”
Jenks darted back to the table. “Yeah? There was magic before the ever-after.”
I took another one of Trent’s fancy cookies that smelled like almonds. “The ley lines in the Arizona desert are dead. The demons killed them when they made the ever-after.”
Jenks looked into the canopy when someone hissed. Hearing it, he hunkered down, trying to look meek in a butch sort of way. I snapped through my cookie, recalling how the dead lines in the Arizona desert had been unusually close together, overlapping like pickup sticks. Maybe they’d been forced together in order to make a hole in reality, ergo making the ever-after. There was something here. I just didn’t have the time to think about it.
“Maybe you’re right,” Jenks said, as if it pained him to say it. “I still say we’d be better off without demons.”
I wasn’t so sure. Demons were mean, cruel, untrustworthy, and just plain nasty. But the memory of Al sitting in front of his fireplace trying to remember what he originally looked like only made me pity them. The elves had cursed them for trying to kill their entire species, and the demons had returned fire. I wondered if either side remembered what the original insult had been. Hadn’t five thousand years of war been enough?
There was a lesson here, too. I didn’t have time to think about this one, either.
Impatient, I ate another gingersnap, rubbing the crumbs between my fingers before I leaned back and closed my eyes. Jenks’s wings buzzed as he flitted from flower to flower like a hummingbird. “If it stays warm, we’re moving back in the garden this week,” he said out of the blue. “All of us.”
“Great! That’s great,” I said, not opening my eyes. “Are you still in the garden wall?”
“Belle is . . .” he started, and I opened my eyes when he hesitated. Finding him at a nearby orchid, I saw him shrug. “Belle is going to move into the wall, too,” he said quickly, his wings turning red and his dust evaporating before it could hit the plant. “She can have the spare room. We’d just be sharing a front door is all, like you and Ivy.”
Ahh, I thought as I sat up. “That’s good, Jenks.”
“She gets cold fast,” he said as if I had protested her moving in with him, but maybe he was really talking to her sisters in the foliage. “It would be easier to just have one fire.”
Chair scraping, I moved the plate of cookies farther away from me so I’d stop eating them. “I’m proud of you, Jenks,” I said, and he flushed, his wings going full tilt.
“Yeah, well, she’s not cooking for me.”
My smile was faint but sincere. “I’m still proud of you.”
Jenks flew to the table, looking tall next to the tiny cups Trent was using. “She’s okay, I guess. By the way, that gargoyle that showed up last night is still there.”
Frowning, I put my elbows on the table and rested my chin on the back of my hands. I would’ve thought that it was the same one from the ever-after, but there hadn’t been enough scars. “The one that looks older than the basilica?”
Nodding, Jenks speared one of the gingersnaps, holding it over his head like an umbrella as he twirled it. “I don’t like it, Rache. Bis wouldn’t tell me what they were talking about.”
“And you didn’t just spy on them?”
“You don’t think I tried?” Jenks angled his sword until the cookie was at his face. His expression thoughtful, he nibbled a corner off the cookie, looking like Willy Wonka eating an umbrella. “The little turd kept spitting on me. All the way across the Tink-blasted garden. They have better hearing than even Jrixibell.”
I squinted up at the glass ceiling, bored. “I’ll ask him tonight when he wakes up.” I hadn’t wanted to interfere, but if he was still there . . .
“I think they’re spying on us.” Wiping his mouth, Jenks put the nibbled cookie back over his head, resting his sword on his shoulder.
“They have a right to be concerned.” Where in hell are Trent and Ellasbeth? My foot began to bob. “Bis went ape when Al cut off his contact with the ley lines. Can you imagine what might happen if they collapse?” Foot slowing, I thought about that. Maybe I could ask for their help. They might know something the demons didn’t, something that wasn’t written down.
Spinning on a heel, Jenks took a breath to say something, then hesitated when the cookie sailed off the tip of his sword and smack-pattered into the surrounding greenery. There was a rustle and hiss of delight, and I wondered if he’d done it intentionally, tasting it first so they wouldn’t think it was treachery.
“Piss on my daisies, we have to save the demons!” he said, his eyebrows high when my attention came back to him. “I’m not going to let Bis go crazy.”
Ignoring his foul mouth, I set three cookies on the retaining wall. Seriously, how did my life get so screwed up that I was giving cookies to fairies and busting my ass to save the demons?
The faint tap-tap of shoes coming down the path caught my attention, and I sat up. “It’s about bloody time,” I whispered, moving back to my chair before they could round the corner. But it was only Trent, and I watched as his somber silhouette moved slowly through the greenery, his fingers reaching out but not touching the plants in passing like they were old friends. I don’t think he even knew he was doing it. His stance was upright, and he managed a faint, worried smile. Something was different.
“Where’s Ellasbeth?”
“Waiting for coffee,” he said, his green eyes meeting mine for a bare instant. “She doesn’t like Earl Grey.” His fixed smile grew even more stiff. “I’d have rather looked at the book out here, but do you mind coming in?” He looked at Jenks. “Both of you?”
Immediately I stood. “Sure. No problem.”
His smile was a shade forced, and he shook his head when I reached for the tray. “You can leave it.” His focus came to me, and he took a cookie before he turned back up the path. “Is that a new outfit? It looks nice on you.”
Startled, I looked down at my black slacks and linen top. I’d spent almost an hour in my closet, trying to find something professional and casual that Ellasbeth couldn’t label “hooker.”
“Ah, no, but thank you.”
Still smiling, he gestured for me to go with him. “Ellasbeth woke up Ray when she came in, and now she won’t go down. She’s usually such a docile, biddable little girl, but she’s been fussy since . . . her sister is away.” He took a bite of cookie, mood introspective. “I never realized how she depended on Lucy to make her wishes known. She’s had to speak up more. I suppose that’s good.”
The cookie I’d just eaten went tasteless. “Trent—”
His head dropped, and my words cut off at his sudden stillness. “Ellasbeth has been very cooperative. Dropped her petition for Lucy. I think she wants to try to make this work again.”
I froze, almost choking. Why is he telling me this? “Ah, that’s great!” I said, not looking at him as I spun to find my shoulder bag. “If you two get back together, then there won’t be any issues with Lucy at all, right?”
Jenks took to the air, a sickening green dust sparkling from him. “What a little cat scrotum!” he said, and both Trent and I stared. From the bushes, three hissing laughs sounded and were shushed.
“Jenks!” I admonished him, and he hovered, his hands on his hips and a disgusted expression on his face. “What is your problem?”
“Nothin’.” Wings clattering, he flew between Trent and me, headed for the door, a bright silver sparkle fallin
g to show his path.
Okay, my first reaction had been not far from that of Jenks, but honestly, there was nothing between Trent and me, and never would be. If he could make it work with Ellasbeth, it wouldn’t be simply the girls who benefited, but an entire demographic of politically motivated elves. “Sorry,” I said as I fell into place beside Trent, our feet hitting the cobbles at the same time. “He just doesn’t like her.”
Trent was silent, and I looked at him questioningly. “Right,” he said quickly, then ate that cookie he’d taken, but I wasn’t sure what was going through his mind, and that bothered me. Jenks had told me little of what happened when he and Trent stole Lucy from Ellasbeth, saying it was privileged information, but Trent clearly hadn’t appreciated having to steal his own child.
“This is good, isn’t it?” I said, glancing back at the unappealing cold tea to see the fairies descending on it.
Trent looked sideways at me. “Yes, of course it is. It would make everyone’s lives much easier.”
Damn it, I couldn’t read the smile he was giving me, and the nerves suddenly started. What if that book was useless? What if Ellasbeth had brought it all this way, and I couldn’t figure it out? What if . . .
We paused at the door and Trent punched in a code on the pad. It was too fast for me, but I was sure Jenks caught it. There was a heavy thunk of a lock shifting, and Trent nodded, easily moving the huge, perfectly balanced door. “I’m anxious to see what you make of the book she brought,” he said, and Jenks buzzed in ahead of us, ever curious. “I remember looking at the pictures when I was about ten. I don’t know where my mother got it. Probably stole it from Ellasbeth’s mom, seeing as she willed it back to her.”
He chuckled, but I thought he might be serious as I followed him inside. The hallway was brightly lit and sported beautiful close-ups of orchids in the morning dew, but the air smelled stale after the rich scents of the garden.
“You’re going to have to look at it in the girls’ closet,” he said as we started down the carpeted hallway, heading back to the great room.
“A closet?” I said, trying to keep up with him. “You keep your magic books in a closet?”
“You keep your splat gun in a mixing bowl.”
True.
Jenks flew ahead as we entered the lower level of Trent’s great room. To my right was the huge three-story window ward that Lee had made, letting in light and sound but little else. Beyond its faint shimmer was the highly landscaped outside living area with a grill/kitchen and swimming pool. At the far end of the gigantic room was a fireplace large enough to roast an entire elephant in. In between was the grand staircase up to Trent’s apartments.
“Since learning my father’s vault downstairs was not secure, we moved everything to the girls’ closet,” Trent was saying as he headed for the stairway. “Ceri put some kind of demon ward on all the upstairs rooms. They aren’t holy, but it has the same effect. There’s no way in or out but the door, which only Ceri, Quen, and I have access to. If you ask me, it’s safer than my father’s vault. But the reason Ellasbeth insists you look at it there is because it’s temperature and humidity controlled and the book is ancient.”
That Ceri had warded the girls’ rooms sounded about right, and I touched the smooth finish of a couch as we passed. The ground floor here was basically a big party room. Past the stairway was a dark and silent bar area, and behind that the kitchen and underground parking. I knew, because I’d run through it more than once. Damn it, what was I doing having tea and cookies with Ellasbeth while Ceri suffered all that Ku’Sox was capable of?
Jenks dropped from the ceiling, an excited silver dust trailing from him. “Rache!” he exclaimed as he landed on my shoulder, his wings never slowing as they drafted my hair back. “You’ll never guess who’s here!”
“Who?” I asked, almost afraid.
From the third-story apartments, I heard Quen’s distinctive gravelly voice say, “I’ll speak to the chef immediately, Miss Withon.”
“See that you do,” said an imperialistic feminine voice, and I stopped short at the foot of the stairs.
Quen? He was okay? He was back!
Chapter Eleven
I spun to Trent. The smug brat was smirking. “Why didn’t you tell me Quen was back!” I shouted, my urge to smack him hesitating when Quen dryly cleared his throat. Distracted, I looked up at the railing. Quen was there, his pox scars standing out strongly against an unusual paleness. Ray was in his arms, and the little girl clung to him. Both Quen and Trent were smiling. Ellasbeth was not.
Trent’s hand went to my arm to lead me upstairs. “Why did you let me believe Quen was dead the morning he recovered from his vampire bite?” he said, and I jerked my arm away from him as we found the first step.
“I was a little preoccupied with Takata being my birth father,” I said, heart pounding as I took the stairs two at a time.
Trent kept up, maddeningly graceful. “It wasn’t my place to tell . . .”
My eyes narrowed. “Not your place . . . Are we even now? You little . . . cookie maker!” I exclaimed, knocking him off balance when we found the eight-by-eight landing for the first floor. Ellasbeth gasped, but Trent was laughing, even as he caught himself. Quen was here. He was okay. Finally something was going our way.
Seeing me lurch up the last of the stairs, Quen straightened to try to hide his fatigue. Our eyes met, and the older man nodded solemnly. On his hip, Ray gurgled happily. The little girl was in a sweet full-length jumper/Indian-looking robe of some sort cut from a subdued orange-and-brown paisley, her brown hair braided and looped out of the way. Hearing Jenks’s wings, she pushed from her father’s shoulder to find him. She was a beautiful blending of Ceri and Quen, and again I was struck by the frailty of this small family.
“Rachel,” Quen said simply, and I pushed past Ellasbeth in her cream-colored business suit and matching heels.
“That’s not going to do it,” I said as I pulled the older man into a hug, getting Ray mixed up in there somewhere. The curious scent of cinnamon and wine that all elves had mixed with the throat-catching odor of hospital. Under it was his masculine pull, a faint hint of controlled magic and ozone to give it some interest. He smells different from Trent, I thought. Trent’s magic smelled powerful, but Quen’s had a darker tang than Trent’s shadowed glow.
Suddenly realizing Quen’s arms had gone around me in what had probably been self-defense, I pushed back, embarrassed. “They let you out? When?” I said, wincing when Ray grabbed my hair and pulled me in.
The older man made a noise of admonishment, disentangling her fingers and then, unexpectedly, tugged me back to him with one arm, turning us both to the common living room visible through the wide archway. “They didn’t let me do anything. I left. It’s good to see you,” he said, his voice rumbling through me. “You’re the one who sent those damn demon-scented petits fours, aren’t you? They woke me up at midnight, and I left at two.”
I grinned as I slipped out from under his arm. He looked tired but good, the injuries to his nervous system obviously repaired enough to function. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“No, but everything will eventually come back,” he said, and I gave him a light punch on his arm and wrinkled my nose at Ray.
“Tomorrow morning, probably,” I guessed. Three days. That’s how long it took to renew an aura so it didn’t hurt when you tapped a line. What had Ku’Sox done to him?
Trent was making his way to Ellasbeth. Having seen our reunion—and not being a part of it—the woman had retreated to the small kitchen behind the large sunken living room. Four doors led to four suites—Quen and Ceri’s, Trent’s, the girls’. The fourth had been Ellasbeth’s when she had been his fiancée, and by the sound of it, it might be again.
My heart ached at the toys scattered in the living room, and a crayon-scribbled picture of horses was pasted to a door, a sad two feet from the floor. This was the closest that Trent would ever get to a normal family life, and I was angry tha
t Ku’Sox had spoiled it.
Suddenly unsure, I followed Quen and Ray to the sunken living room, having to wave Jenks’s dust out of my way. The last time I’d seen Ellasbeth was when I’d arrested Trent at their wedding. I hadn’t known she’d been pregnant with Lucy at the time, and I didn’t know if it would have made any difference. The well-dressed, sophisticated woman looked broken as she sat at the small kitchen table, her expensive cream-colored slacks and coordinating top and jacket rumpled. She was tired, jet lag and worry having taken their toll on her perfect makeup and upright posture. Even so, I balked as her eyes found mine.
Her strawlike, straight hair looked fake next to Trent’s wispy strands, and her build was too strong to have only elf in her. She was not full blood, and it showed. Money had a way of erasing that, though, and her family was almost as influential as Trent.
Jenks’s wings shivered against my neck as he took refuge, and a chill went through me. “Oh, there’s trouble with a high-end handbag,” he said, and I agreed.
“Ah . . . hello,” I said, feeling awkward, as if she’d come home and found me naked in Trent’s tub. No, wait. She had once.
Ellasbeth stood in a smooth, controlled motion of grace, and I jerked to a stop. Quen gave me a “good luck” look as he continued into the lower living room area with Ray, and Jenks abandoned me, wings clattering. Chicken. But all she did was extend her hand, a stiff expression on her face. “Thank you for agreeing to help Trent get Lucy and Ceri back.”
That was not what I had expected, and I cautiously took her unworked hand in mine. Her voice wasn’t inviting, but it wasn’t cold, either. My thoughts returned to Trent’s words in the greenhouse. She wanted back into his life? Why? Power? Parental and social pressure? Lucy? I didn’t think it was to spend the rest of her life with Trent, but it wasn’t my business.
“Ah, it’s the right thing to do,” I said, letting her hand go and forcing myself to not hide mine behind my back. Her touch had been cold, and I maintained my pleasant expression. No, it wasn’t my business, but Trent would tie himself to this woman if he thought it was what duty required of him. He’d do it for everything she represented despite her having nothing he wanted.