My coffee, instant prepared from water warmed up over the open fire, was cold. I’d make more but I was afraid the scent might wake Trent, and I’d just as soon have him asleep while I finished up the prep for crashing Landon’s spelling party tomorrow. Not everything was legal, but nothing was immoral, and that was my guide these days.
I was tired of trying to overcome the bad guys with a few simple spells and throwing raw energy at them—as effective as it was. Earlier today Trent and I had made and imbibed potions to make ourselves almost invisible, to temporarily hold our breath for five minutes without stress, to make our hands sticky enough to climb walls, and to coat an attacker in a spiderweblike net. But after a morning of prepping spells and curses, I was beginning to have second thoughts. They all tasted like crap. I didn’t know how Al stood being his own spelling cupboard. I felt ill, as if I’d eaten bad yogurt. And what if I forgot the word of invocation?
But if Trent would stay asleep for ten more minutes, I had one more spell to craft, one I’d rather finish before he woke.
The soft hum of pixy wings pulled my attention to the tiny window over the bowl currently being used as a sink. Dust glittered in the sun as Jenks landed on the narrow sill. I slammed down a third potion as Jenks leaned over his knees, a stick of yew as tall as he was in his grip.
“Is this long enough?” he asked, panting as he glanced at the sleeping Trent in envy.
I nodded, carefully setting the four remaining potions aside and clearing the table. My pulse quickened. It wasn’t as if Trent would be mad, but he’d made it clear that he wasn’t going to count on the demons to help. I disagreed. I was sure I could get them to help us stave off the elven trickery. I mean, they knew Landon was lying. Why wouldn’t they help expose him? But to talk to the collective meant I needed another scrying mirror—something smaller this time, say small enough to fit in my shoulder bag.
“Thanks, Jenks,” I said as I took the plates with their crumbs of cheese and crackers to the makeshift sink. The pixy propped the stick against the side of the open window frame. It still sported bits of green and peeling bark, and I smiled, seeing where he’d wedged it off the plant.
Jenks followed me to the table, coming to rest on my cold coffee cup as I swabbed the teak down with a salt water–soaked rag. Apparently teak was spell resistant. I hadn’t known, and it felt really weird to be spelling on it. “Can I help?” he asked, and then a draft sent his dust into the fireplace to flame up with a hiss.
“Ah, sure.” Brow furrowed, I shifted a footstool out of the path of a protection circle. It was inlaid right into the floor, making me wonder about Trent’s mom. This had been her spelling hut, and it was a fairly large circle for most casual users. “Keep an eye on Trent’s aura and let me know if he’s waking up.”
Jenks snorted, and I shot him a look to behave as I settled myself at the table with the hand mirror, bottle of wine, salt from Trent’s stash, and the rest. The charm would temporarily strip me of my aura, which was the reason for the circle. Closing my eyes, I reached out and strengthened my hold on the ley line.
Energy was a jolt instead of the usual calm flow, and my eyes started open. The line was only six feet away, but there was a raw, serrated feel to it that I’d never felt before. I had a bad feeling that it was the mystics and that I’d gotten used to the smooth silk of power that they naturally gave off like a living ley line.
“Okay, let’s get this started,” I muttered, glancing at Trent as I set the protective circle. Jenks was inside it with me, and his wings shifted in agitation as the molecule-thin sheet rose up and around us.
I was reaching for the knife to pare down the yew stick to a proper stylus when the silver bell over the fireplace made a single, beautiful peal of sound.
My heart seemed to stop. I looked to Trent, then Jenks, his dust shifting to an alarmed silver as he turned to that tiny slip of ley line that crossed the hut’s corner.
I spun to a stand. Al! The demon materialized in his green crushed velvet, his nose wrinkled and disdainfully brushing at his coat. “Al!” I almost hissed, still in my circle. Crap on toast, not again! At least he wasn’t drunk this time. “Get out!” I exclaimed softly.
Jenks took to the air when Al seemed to shake his foot free of the line and stepped closer to the fire. His sleeve brushed the edge of my circle and it fell with the sensation of winter snow, our auras being identical thanks to Newt. “I should have guessed you’d be here,” he said, a white-gloved hand reaching for the chrysalis he’d once given me. “Here, collected among that elf’s favorite things,” he finished bitterly.
“I’m not collected,” I whispered. “And put that down. It’s mine!”
Eyes mocking, Al succinctly put the black chrysalis into his front pocket, daring me.
Springs squeaked as Trent shifted on the cot, and my pulse quickened. Damn it, I’d wanted to talk to Al, but not in person, and not here! “Outside,” I demanded, grabbing his coat and tugging him to the door. “Now, before he wakes up.”
“Like I care,” he muttered, but he was moving, and I got behind him and pushed.
“I want to talk to you,” I said, again noticing he didn’t smell like burnt amber. “Alone,” I added, making Jenks bristle.
Al let himself be shoved out, but I think it was only because Jenks was having a personal issue with the “alone” comment. “Rache . . . ,” the pixy protested once we were outside.
“Stay here,” I demanded, tugging Al down the path. “I mean it. Just . . . keep Trent safe.”
“Trent!” the pixy yelped, releasing a burst of gold dust rivaling the sun.
“Do this for me!” I exclaimed, voice hardly above a whisper. “Al, walk with me.”
The demon snorted. “Walk with me . . . ,” he drawled. “How poetic. You’re turning into the little kingmaker, aren’t you?”
“Sweet ever-loving pixy piss,” Jenks griped. “I hope he turns your underwear to slugs!”
Jenks wouldn’t follow me right away, and tension brought my shoulders up to my ears when I realized I was shoving a demon through Trent’s private gardens. “How did you know I wanted to talk to you?” I said, pulse fast as I slowed down.
“I didn’t.” Al’s voice was low, distant almost as he touched a coiled fern frond and it gracefully unrolled with the sound of green. “I came to stop you from making a mistake.”
He came to stop me. My heart jumped at the thought that he might have forgiven me. I mean, he wasn’t throttling me or threatening me. But then my brief elation died. “It’s not a mistake. We could use your help in twisting Landon’s curse to dust.”
Al’s steady pace faltered, and I stopped in the middle of a tangled cricket-filled clearing.
“Rachel, you can’t shift the elven curse. The best you can hope for is to survive it. But it doesn’t matter. You must come now as we prepare.”
“Prepare for what? I’m not leaving Trent to do this alone. We could do this if the rest of you would help,” I accused, glad we were out of earshot of Trent’s hut.
Al reached for my arm, his hand falling back before it touched me. “No, we can’t,” he said with an infuriating sureness. “Trent has overestimated himself, and you won’t come out of this alive if you bind your fate to his.”
My brow furrowed. “I didn’t know you cared.”
Fire exploded against my cheek, and I stumbled back, hand pressed to my face as I reeled. Al caught me by the shoulder, jerking me back upright. He’d slapped me?
“Don’t toy with me,” Al whispered. “Trying to shift the elven curse will get you killed!”
He’d slapped me! “Hey!” I exclaimed, almost afraid. He had struck me because I’d used his pain to hurt him. “You walked away from me. You don’t have any say in what I do anymore, and if you hit me again, I’m going to smack you back!”
Al let me go. I tensed, but he turned away, his back bowed as he went to a cement bench. I hadn’t even known it was there, so covered in a rambling rose vine it was. Head down, Al waved his hand, brushing aside the vines to find a clear spot to sit. The scent of disturbed roses wafted out—one last bid for beauty before the autumn chill pinched the petals free.
He looked broken as he sat there with his elbows on his knees and stared at nothing. My cheek throbbed, and guilt swam up. I deserved to have been slapped. Using his own pain against him was cruel.
“We need your help,” I said, and he looked at me from under lowered eyebrows. My boots scuffed through the leaf mold to find paving as I shifted closer. There’d been a clearing here once—a patio maybe—and I went to sit on a broken statue. It looked as if it might have been a witches’ garden, though admittedly not a very sunny one.
“Why do you care about the undead souls? The demons? Me?”
His last word held a painful vulnerability, and I tried to find a more comfortable position. “Because everyone deserves a chance to come back from their mistakes.” My roving eyes returned to find him sitting among the roses. “I should know.”
“You won’t come back from this one,” he said. “The elves are massed for destruction. Our destruction. The undead souls were the lure and the way. The elimination of the aged undead is a bonus, but it’s us they’re after. We couldn’t beat them when we were forty thousand strong. We are four hundred and thirteen now.”
His head dropped, and I frowned. Four hundred and thirteen? It had always seemed more than that, but perhaps it was the familiars who filled the shops and parties. “Trent stands with us,” I said, and Al sighed heavily.
“It cannot be done,” he said solemnly. “Come with me. We’re weaving a wall.”
“A wall,” I said flatly.
The lift of Al’s shoulders gave away his disdain for their own cowardice, but his jaw was set. “A wall to keep from being pulled back when they dissolve the lines.”
“A wall,” I said again, and he bared his teeth at me, daring me to call them cowards. “Al, walls are prisons. You need to break the original curse.”
“With four hundred of us?” he protested. “It can’t be done.”
I leaned forward, trying to cross the distance with my words. “That’s why you need the elves’ help.”
Al looked at me as if I was crazy, and maybe I was, but I stood, unable to sit any longer. “The elves are modifying an old curse, not making a new one,” I said, words rushing over themselves. “You told me yourself that was dangerous. All we have to do is end it!”
“And in the doing, we put ourselves in the stream itself,” he said sourly. “We will flounder and be lost.”
“You don’t know that!”
“We do!” he thundered, and I stiffened as I heard Jenks’s wings. He was somewhere close, but I said nothing as Al slumped, clearly frustrated.
“We know Landon will be the fulcrum,” I said, pacing now. “He’s in downtown Cincinnati, right by the square. We know his damn room number, Al! Ivy and Jenks can get us in—”
Al sat up, waving a hand disparagingly. “Why do I even try?”
“If we’re with him, we can shift the focus of the charm!” I protested. “Al!” I complained, my feet stopping as he frowned at me.
“There can be only one weaver in a spell that complex—”
“Then Trent and I will be a fulcrum and slant it the direction we want,” I pleaded.
“Rachel.” Al slumped. “We tried that. Their magic . . . It’s too strong.”
“Then we can try it again,” I insisted.
“Their magic is too strong!” he shouted, and I shut my mouth. Sighing, Al held a hand out to me, inviting me to sit down. “It can’t be done,” he said softly, never letting his hand fall, extending it for me.
Frustrated, I stomped over and sat down. “Cowards,” I accused.
“Realists,” he countered, but his anger was gone. The silence stretched. “What do you hope to get out of this?” Al asked, startling me.
“To end the war between you. To bring you home!” I said, and he actually smiled.
“No, I mean what do you want from the world? From everything?”
“Oh.” That was different, and the fire seemed to wash out of me. He’d come here to save me, save me again. “The same thing you do, I guess. A little peace to find out who I am.”
Slumped, Al looked out over the broken clearing. “There’s no peace but for the dead, and even that we’ve found a way to corrupt.”
It was starting to sound like a pity party, and I stood. “I don’t have to listen to you anymore, remember? I have to go. I’ve got to make a scrying mirror before midnight.” Damn it, I was going to have to do this without their help. If I couldn’t convince even Al, then the rest were useless. I strode back to the path, arms swinging.
“Rachel?”
His call was so soft, yet it pulled me to a halt. I didn’t turn, standing there with my back to him, but he knew I was listening.
“You don’t need the mirror anymore to connect to the collective,” he said, voice holding a sliver of pain. “Why do you think I’m here?”
Mystics, I thought, shaking as I turned around to see him still on the bench.
“You haven’t for a long time,” he said, hands clasped between his knees, making him look worried and scared. “We, ah, hate to admit it, but demons are still tied to elven magic.”