[English] THE WITCH WITH NO NAME

The Witch With No Name
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Morgan! Landon’s thought iced through me as he found me hiding. I gasped as a wave of hatred pinned my soul down. Now you die!

I felt my body clench as Landon spun his intent through the dewar to collect his borrowed power to his purpose. The chant for the curse to break the lines continued without him as Landon turned his attention to destroying me. Vertigo spun me as he lit a flame of destruction in the middle of my brain. My throat went raw as I screamed as Landon’s curse raced through me, burning.

Almost lost under my agony, a twang echoed through me. It was the first ley line, falling under the dewar’s curse.

The dewar drums thundered, and a cheer rose, drowning out the pain Landon had pinned me with. He turned his thoughts from me, and a comforting black presence scooped me up, rolling me in the scent of burnt amber until the pain retreated and I could think again.

Rachel? It was familiar, the cooling burnt amber holding a hint of a British lord’s accent. I could feel my body shake on the floor of the Cincinnati hotel, but the pretend world in my thoughts was more real and I slowly focused on those minds around mine. A smattering of souls clustered near, stinking of frustration and broken trust. It was the demon collective. Al had found me.

Al? I thought, and his relief swept me, tempered by sour acceptance. My body was being cradled by Trent. I could smell the broken scent of spoiled wine. He held me as Al held my mind, but it was my mind that was in greater danger.

Thank God you came, I thought at Al, knowing all the demons could hear me. We have to stop this. Landon is breaking the lines!

Why do you think we’re here? Al thought dryly at me. You shamed them into it. We’re likely going to be trapped in the ever-after again, but if the lines end, everything goes with it. And then he thought so loudly that for a moment it drowned out the heart-hammering drums, To me, all free souls! To me!

Somewhere, pixy dust sifted down upon my bleeding leg. Somewhere I heard Ivy crying for Nina. Somewhere Trent rocked me, begging me not to leave him.

But I couldn’t abandon the dewar, and I felt my mind expand as free souls came—demon, elf, witch—so sure and swift that the dewar’s confidence faltered.

Trent! I called when I felt his thoughts wrap around mine as his arms were in reality. No! He’s here to help! I shouted when the demons bristled. Leave off! And I gasped, both our bodies jerking when Al yanked Trent’s soul next to mine.

Your thoughts smell funny, but they’re strong, Al said, and then we all started, faltering as another line snapped.

I felt myself jerk again as my thoughts expanded as if in a hiccup. Trent’s presence beside mine grew bright as the demon minds dimmed. Alone, Trent and I seemed to stand with the elves and witches who’d cleaved to us. Confused, I listened to the dewar drums beat against us, furiously renewed by the snapping of a second ley line.

Al! Trent, help me find Al! I thought as the howling of surface demons being pulled back to the ever-after became strong, the scraping of their claws like nails on a blackboard, shivering through my awareness like ice. The vampire souls were being forced back to the ever-after—and I think the demons were going with them.

Help me! I thought, terrified. As the lines went, so would they, reducing them sliver by sliver. Al! I shouted, reaching for his presence, but it slipped like silver past me.

I can’t help them, Trent thought, frustrated as he hid me from the dewar drums. They’re bound to the ever-after.

I wouldn’t allow it, but the theoretical world made another hiccup as a fourth line snapped. I could feel the undead souls sliding past my awareness, howling as they spiraled back into the ever-after. Determination alone held the demons in reality, and that wasn’t enough, for when the last line went, so would they. Landon would have it all.

I gasped as a fifth line fell, and the demon collective began to fall apart in panic. Don’t let go of me, I thought to Trent. I’m getting them out.

What? Trent thought, and I focused on his awareness until his thoughts became clear.

I’m going in after them. Don’t let go!

There was only one way I could find and get a grip on the demons. I didn’t have time to think about how smart this might or might not be, and I dove deep into my mind to find that tiny ball of black hate that Landon had cursed me with: the original binding curse. Take me, I whispered, opening myself to it and willing it to bind with my soul.

I gasped, hearing Al’s agonized cry of heartache as the curse gleefully dug its claws into me, molding to me, becoming part of me. And if it was a part of me, then I was a part of it. With a snap that shook me to my core, the demons’ thoughts became clear, huddled together in misery.

Rachel, why? Al asked, his presence clearer than the rest. You were to be the beginning of us anew, with all the best parts and none of the bad.

Another line snapped with the sharpness of a tension wire giving way. Somewhere I could feel Trent’s arms around me, the warmth of his tears on my face. His mind, twining about mine, was fainter. He was losing me. Grab someone, I thought at Al. Tell them to grab someone else. Everyone goes. Hurry! The lines are going faster.

Another line snapped, and the demon collective cried out as if an elevator had dropped six feet. Panic sifted up through me, pushed by their own thoughts of failure.

Let us go, Al thought, and I focused my awareness on him. If I hadn’t taken the binding curse, I never would have found him. But in the doing, I’d lost Trent.

You want me *****rvive? I asked Al. Then you have *****rvive with me! I’m not doing this by myself. Hold on!

There was only the thinnest thread of hope weaving through them, laced with madness and strengthened with hate. I fed on that, bolstering it as I focused on the binding curse, still hot-iron bright in me. I could feel them all behind me as I ran the lines of the spell, seeing the shades of color and sound, looking for the telltale sparkle of the Goddess magic that the elves had needed to create it. Of course the demons couldn’t break it—it was Goddess made. But I could.

Rachel, no! Al protested as he saw my intent. It will kill you!

You’re going to live forever, you son of a bastard! I exclaimed as I sensed him try to wiggle free of me. My thoughts clenched on his awareness, I held him as I dove to the bottom of the elven curse and found the Goddess, chortling with delight at the mischief she was making. Mystics swirled around her, visible in my mind’s eye like purple eyes lidded with feathers.

A mystic saw my thoughts, focusing on me with rapt attention, unable to remember but knowing I meant something. Then another. Oblivious, the Goddess strummed a ley line, laughing in delight as it curled up and vanished, and my temper snapped.

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Hey! I exclaimed, and the Goddess’s emotion imploded on itself, boiling down to a thought of recognition and hatred.

You! the Goddess snarled, and I opened my thoughts to her, inviting attack. The binding curse was created with the Goddess’s strength, and it would take that to break it.

I will kill you! the Goddess screamed into my mind, ribbons of her bright intent coursing through me to snuff out my awareness.

The last ley line lay glittering, overloaded and humming. It would fall soon of its own accord without the Goddess’s will, and I wanted to weep for the stupi***y of it all. The ever-after was going to fall. I couldn’t stop it. I could only keep the demons from falling with it.

You want to kill me? I thought at her. Try, I thought, willing the mystics to me, bringing them home, accepting them.

The Goddess screamed as she felt herself disintegrate. I could hear the dewar shaking with her outrage. And in that bare instant before she turned her thoughts to crush me, I wrenched control of the mystics from her.

Power sang through me, a million voices turned to one intent.

No! the Goddess cried, panicked. Give them back! But she was helpless as I bent my will to the elves’ ancient binding curse.

End this, I said to them, and with no more than my will, the curse that bound the demons to the fate of the ever-after simply . . . ceased to be.

A perfect moment of understanding and purity chimed through the demon collective. It resonated from me, blending into the demons and beyond. I felt them all, their awe, their bewilderment of grace bestowed. The wave washed out from them to leave a shocked silence.

And then the last line between reality and the ever-after broke.

They are mine! the Goddess howled at me, and suddenly I was scrambling to save myself as the Goddess dug at me, reclaiming what was hers.

Fire burned as the mystics rose up, two forces of the same beginning now poised to swamp each other until one was supreme, the other dead. But I didn’t want the job.

Al! I called, floundering. Al, help me! I cried, knowing he alone could pull me free—if he loved me enough to forgive me for what I’d done. Yes, I had saved them, but I’d used elven magic to do it. I was polluted, a pariah, unclean and reviled.

Please, I whispered as the Goddess dug to my soul, and a sudden smack on my face jolted me to reality.

My eyes sprang open. I was looking at a broken ceiling. Trent was holding me, my head in his lap. Al knelt beside him. The scent of ozone was thick in the air, and my throat hurt. “You’re here,” I said, voice raspy.

The instant of relief in the demon flashed to nothing, and he pulled back. “Why did you do it?” he said darkly. “Everyone knows you’ve got mystics in you now.”

“You treacherous demon bitch!” Landon screamed, and I gasped as Trent stood, dumping me in his effort to get between me and Landon.

“You will not!” Trent shouted as he stood over me, gesturing.

Landon howled, red faced, as he did the same. But nothing happened. Blinking, he looked at his hands.

Trent became white faced, and Al laughed. “You broke the lines, little man,” the demon said, and Landon backed up as Al strode forward, white-gloved hand reaching. “Guess what? I’m bigger than you.”

The lines were dead. Jenks . . . Where’s Jenks?

Landon made a dash for the door, robes unfurling as his soft slippers scuffed.

“Excuse me,” Al said, striding out after him.

“Jenks!” I called, sitting up in panic, and then opened my fist, remembering that I’d been holding him. “Oh God! Are you okay?” I asked, seeing him peering up at me with his wings hardly glowing and his narrow face pinched.

“I don’t feel so good,” the pixy said as he rubbed his shoulder. “Did we win?”

The lines were dead. The ever-after was going to vanish. But the demons would not go with it. “I don’t know,” I whispered, beginning to shake.

Trent sat down beside me, exhausted. “The hospitals are going to be full. I’m taking you home to get that leg looked at.”

My attention darted to my thigh. It was throbbing like the devil, but at least the bleeding had stopped. “Where’s Ivy? Nina?”

“About five minutes ahead of us,” Trent said as he looked at Jenks sitting on my palm, trembling from the cold and shock.

“Lucy?” I asked as he stood.

“With Ellasbeth,” he said shortly as he lifted me to my feet.

The blood rushed from my head and I stood for a moment, wavering. I could hear noise in the street. The lines were gone. Magic was dead. We’d be lucky to get out of Cincinnati before midnight. “You think giving her to Ellasbeth was a good idea?”

Trent tucked a shoulder under mine. “I think you were right about her and I was wrong. Can you walk?”

Jaw clenched, I took a hobbling step to the door. “I might have broke something.”

“I think so, too. We should get out of here.”

Nauseated and holding Jenks close, I limped to the door. The demons were safe, but I’d killed the source of magic to do it. That probably wasn’t going to go over very well.

Chapter 27

I leaned hard against Trent as the elevator lurched and settled. My leg throbbed, and I cupped a depressed pixy tight to me. I knew Jenks was thinking about his kids, scattered over the city, and Jumoke and Izzy at Trent’s estate. If he couldn’t fly, then they couldn’t either. There were no predators in Trent’s gardens, but that wasn’t what Jenks would be worried about. It was the natural magic from free-ranging mystics that gave pixies flight, and there wasn’t enough of them around anymore. The Goddess was pissed, having gathered her untold thousands of eyes to her and gone brooding somewhere, plotting to kill me.

Or at least most of them, I thought as a tingle passed between Trent and me as the ornate doors slid apart. Noise spilled in, and what little zest I had left for the day vanished as I saw the FIB hats and I.S. vests in the lobby. “What happened?” I asked as Jenks perked up, a faint dust hazing him.

“Looks like someone made a call.” Trent scooped me up and carried me out when I balked. There were too many people, and I was sure more than one of them wanted to talk to me in ugly, accusing voices. My bleeding leg was obvious, and Trent started for the front desk. Both an I.S. and an FIB cop were interviewing a tearful hotel employee, and the restaurant to the left was full of sullen Weres. One of them caught sight of me, jiggling his buddy’s elbow before grinning and giving me a bunny-eared kiss-kiss.

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Heads began to turn, and I felt sick. “There’s Edden,” I said as I looked over Trent’s shoulder to the bar. Immediately Trent did a one-eighty, making me dizzy. “Do you see Nina or Ivy?”

Trent shifted his grip on me before taking the shallow stairs up, his jolting pace making my leg throb even more. “No. I think they got out before all this.”

“I can’t see fairy farts,” Jenks complained. “Rache, it’s my wings that don’t work, not my brain. Put me on your shoulder, will you?”

Someone pointed us out to Edden and he grimaced before turning away again. It wasn’t a promising start. “You sure you can hold on?”

“Hell yes,” the pixy grumbled, and I carefully shifted him. “I’m not going to yell at Edden from your hand.”

“I know how you feel,” I said, glancing at Trent. “Ah, I appreciate this, but—”

“You will sit where I put you and not move,” he said as he pushed his way through the milling uniforms and into the informal bar area. “’Scuse me. Pardon!” he said loudly, finally setting me on one of the bar stools. It was about the right height, but I almost lost my breakfast at the pain when Trent moved someone’s satchel off the adjacent stool and lifted my leg onto it.

“Edden,” I called, and the man’s ears went red. “Edden!” I called louder, and his shoulders hunched. I debated sliding down and hobbling over, but Trent gestured for me to stay, needing to turn sideways to slip through the crowd to reach him.

“This sucks,” Jenks complained from my shoulder, and I waved at Edden when he looked at me after Trent shook his hand. The officers he was talking to broke up, and the short, graying, and overworked FIB captain reluctantly came over, hands in his pockets.

“Edden, did you see Ivy and Nina?” I asked even before he got close.

Edden glanced at the big glass doors, clearly worried. “I saw them into the ambulance myself,” he said, then sent his gaze over my bleeding leg, Jenks sitting on my shoulder, and then Trent. “Al said you were going to try and stop Landon.” He pulled himself straighter, looking over the crowd. “Paramedic! I’ve got a non-life-threatening GSW!”

“Gee, thanks,” I said, trying to smile. Al, eh? Interesting . . .

“The slug is still in her leg.” Trent hovered close to keep people from knocking into me. “Can you get her to emergency or should I take her home?”

Edden scratched his shoulder, his expression creased in worry. “It will take an hour to get an ambulance out here. How fast is your copter?”

“An hour!” I exclaimed, and Jenks’s wings clattered when Edden took my chin and peered at me.

“You aren’t dying,” he said distantly, evaluating my pain by the look in my eyes. “The roads are clogged.” He let go of my chin and straightened. “This is worse than last time.”

An unusually small woman with a Red Cross tackle box was trying to push her way through the taller people. I heard a grunt and the man blocking her way jumped. “Oh, I’m sorry!” She beamed up at him, worming her way closer and shoving people to make a space around me. “My God, you would think they were afraid to go outside,” she muttered, eyeing me for signs of shock. “Why are there so many Weres here?”

“They cleared the hotel out for me,” I said, and Edden started edging backward and beckoning someone closer. She was poking at my leg, so I looked away, trying not to pass out. If I passed out, I’d never make it to the next fight, and there was going to be another. The vampires’ souls were gone. I’d felt them being pulled back to the ever-after, trapped in a universe that would soon shrink to nothing and die. Cormel was going to be pissed.

I looked past Trent—now on the phone with a finger in his open ear—to the night-gloomed street. Traffic was stopped, and the flashes of red and blue lights on the buildings were ominous. “I can’t believe you hired Al,” I said to get my mind off my leg, and Edden’s entire demeanor shifted to a pleased wickedness. “Seriously? Where is he, anyway?”

“Chasing down Landon.” Edden almost swaggered, so pleased was he. “He’s the one who called us in. We got here before the I.S. Ah, if it’s any consolation, Cormel agrees that the elves were trying to kill the undead.”

“No, that doesn’t help,” I said sourly, then jerked, pain stabbing me. “Ow?”

The paramedic looked at Edden, not me. “It’s still in there.”

“I know it’s still in there!” I exclaimed, and Trent smiled as he put a hand over his phone.

“Edden, the surface demons are gone, correct?” he asked, and Edden nodded.

“You need to get that leg looked at,” Edden said.

“I am,” I said snarkily, gesturing at the woman wrapping a temporary bandage around my leg so it wasn’t so awful looking.

“I mean,” Edden said, leaning in close, “by someone who can do something about it.”

I smiled hopefully at the paramedic, and she shook her head.

“No. This goes to emergency. I don’t have the forms to file for taking out a bullet.”

Trent snapped his phone closed. He looked pleased with himself and I swear I felt a tingle as his hand touched my shoulder. “My med copter is coming. I’ll take care of Rachel. Where did they take Ivy?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“Can you find out?” Jenks piped up, and Edden’s “I have things to do” expression softened at the worry in the pixy’s voice.

“I’ll ask.” Edden gave my other shoulder a squeeze. He headed out into the mess, shouting a request to get a name and contact number from the Weres and get them out of here. I thought it sweet that Trent was going to take me to the same facility where Ivy and Nina were. Or maybe he knew I’d never stay at the hospital unless I could hobble down the hallway to make sure Ivy was okay.

The paramedic pushed some pills into my hand and curled my fingers over them. “Pain amulets aren’t working. Find some water and take these. You have four hours to get that bullet removed and sutured, or they’re going to make it heal open and ugly. Got it?”

“Got it,” I whispered as she snapped her tackle box closed and went to tend to someone’s crushed finger. I opened my hand and looked at the little packet of pills. I suppose it was better than nothing, and I took the glass of water Trent had reached over the bar for.

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“Thanks,” I said, words garbled as I juggled the pills around on my tongue. “You know there are a lot of people who need a medical copter more than me.” God, they tasted awful, and I swallowed them down and made a face.

“I’m sure there are,” Trent said as he kissed my forehead.

“Tink loves a duck,” Jenks complained. “You’re not going to sift your dust together right here, are you? Take me over to Edden. He’s warm.”

Edden was stuck in the middle of the floor, and I didn’t like the way he kept looking back at me or the shade of red his neck was turning. The Weres were beginning to leave, and Jenks’s wings tickled my neck as we both realized that every single one of them was running in the same direction the instant they hit the pavement. “What is going on?” I asked.

Jenks sifted a thin, frustrated dust and Trent fidgeted, his expression wary as we watched three more Weres run down the street. “Ah . . . I’ll be right back,” he said when Jenks began making a weird whine, Trent jiggling on his feet before lurching into motion and striding to Edden. The floor was clearing out—and it made me even more nervous than the crowded one.

“I don’t care if it’s the devil himself they got pinned down, you get your ass over there now and stop it!” Edden was shouting.

Jenks’s wings clattered, the barest hint of silver slipping down my front. “You just going to sit here?”

My leg was bandaged, and I held it as I moved it off the stool, teeth clenched as I tried not to use my leg muscles at all. My stomach lurched, and I almost lost those lame pills. I hesitated, the bar hard under my hand as I planned my way over, noting every handrail, every chair.

“Come on, Rache!” Jenks urged. “They’re almost done!”

I painfully hobbled forward, every step hurting. Trent caught sight of me, his expression shifting to annoyance, and he slid an arm around my back to hold me up as I made the last few steps to lean on the decorative side table. “What’s up?” I asked.

Clearly upset, Edden pointed at five more men, and they trooped out. Six more released Weres jostled around them and ran up the street in the same direction.

“Rachel, I’m sorry,” the captain said. “Get up to the roof and wait for Trent’s copter. I have to go. There’s a mob at Fountain Square, and without magic, we can’t stop it.”

“That’s like half a block from here,” Jenks said, and my eyes flicked to the door and the new night beyond.

“Which is why you are going to go to the roof until Trent can get you out.”

Get me out? Suspicious, I put a hand on Edden’s arm and stopped him cold. “Why?”

“Get her out!” Edden exclaimed, his eyes hard on Trent as he pried my fingers off.

Trent’s hold on me strengthened as he began to pull me toward the elevators. “Let’s go, Rachel,” he said, but his worry tripped all my warning flags and I dug my heels in—so to speak.

“Trent, what don’t you want me to see?”

Edden’s expression became almost panicked, and I squinted mistrustfully at Trent as he soothed me with a calm “It’s nothing you can do anything about.”

Nothing I can do anything about?

Jenks’s wings fluttered and he tugged on my ear. “Rache, they’ve got a demon pinned down in the square. My wings are broken, not my ears.”

“Jenks!” Edden exclaimed, and Trent, too, winced.

“At the square?” I looked at the doors, remembering the Weres running that way. Panic slid through me at the thought of what a human, what anyone, might do if they found a demon unable to do magic. My God. Al.

“Way to go, Jenks,” Trent grumbled.

“You said she couldn’t do anything about it!” Jenks shouted, hurting my ear. “Well, she’s not dead, is she?”

“And I want to keep it that way!” Trent argued.

I pushed up from the table, telling myself that my leg didn’t hurt that much now that I’d swallowed those pills. “Is it Al?” I asked, and Trent lifted his shoulders, unhappy. “You don’t know!”

Edden put a hand on my shoulder and I shrugged it off. “You didn’t think this wasn’t going to happen, did you?” he said, brown eyes sad as he looked past Trent to the dark street. “Demons have preyed upon humans and Inderlanders for thousands of years, and now that they’re helpless, what did you expect? That we’d take them to our bosoms and make cocoa?”

“Something a little better than this.” Teeth clenched, I shoved past Trent and headed for the door. It was only half a block. I could hear the noise from here.

“Damn it, Jenks!” Trent swore. “This was exactly what I was trying to avoid.”

“Rachel!” Edden called, following me. “You’re not in any shape—”

I took a step down, pain widening my eyes. Breathless, I leaned against the stairway railing. God help me, I had two more to go. “I just busted my ass getting them to reality. I’m not going to let a mob kill them! Now either get me over there or get out of my way!”

Both men were silent as they looked at me, both with regret.

“Well?” I snapped, pain making my words sharper than I wanted. “Just how serious are you about this, or is it all only if it’s convenient?”

“That’s not fair,” Trent said, and then I gasped when he scooped me up.

“Trent! Put me down!” I shouted. “You son of a bastard, put me down!”

But Jenks was laughing. “Relax, Rache. Look at his ears. He’s taking you to the square.”

“You are?” Blinking fast, I put my arm around Trent’s neck to distribute my weight more evenly. Sure enough, Trent’s ears were red with irritation and his jaw was set. “I knew I loved you,” I said, almost crying. “Oh God. Thank you.”

Trent’s gaze was fixed on the door as Edden dropped back in frustrated defeat. “I hope you still do by sunrise,” he said dryly. “This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done.”

“Kalamack, she can’t even walk!” Edden protested as I used my good foot to shove the glass door open.

The smell of the concrete night rose up around us, gritty on my tongue with the flashing lights and the sounds of an angry crowd. “You sure?” Trent asked.

The sound of gunfire popped. I thought of Al. I had no magic, no safety net, and I couldn’t walk well. “Yes.” I had to, even if fear had me so tense I felt sick.

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Trent began to walk, his steps usually so graceful now jarring.

“Okay,” I said more to myself than anyone else. “We’ll finish this, find out where Ivy and Nina are, and then go to Trent’s to check on Lucy. I’m sure they’re fine. Trent, I’m sure she got Lucy out of here before the sun went down.”

“She did,” Trent said as we turned the corner. “I already . . . called. My God . . .”

He stopped dead on the sidewalk as the wall of sound hit us. My mouth dropped as I stared, heart hammering. The square was packed with screaming people, angry, with their fists in the air. The lights were bright and the big TV showed a frightened newscaster, the captions spelling tragedy and fear as the sun went down across the U.S. On the stage in a bright spotlight was a man with a handgun. He was pointing it at a kneeling figure before him, bloodied and beaten. Bound and held from behind by two more men was an androgynous figure with big bony feet showing from under a shapeless robe. Newt.

“No!” I screamed, wiggling until I hit the ground. Trent pulled me up, and I reached out.

“Stop!” I screamed as the man on the stage shouted something. The crowd howled, and then I almost passed out as the flash of the gun and the sound of a shot shocked through me.

A wave of sound echoed between the buildings as the mob cried out. I could not breathe, could not believe it as the bound figure fell, dead, on the stage. I. Could. Not. Believe. This.

“At least it smells better than the French revolution,” Al said at my elbow.

I spun, almost falling until Trent propped me up. “My God,” I said, touching Al in his new suit and lingering on his red, goat-slitted eyes. “Go,” I said, shoving him back toward the hotel. “Go! Get out of here! Trent has a copter coming. Go!”

“It’s her!” someone shouted, and my heart seemed to stop. “It’s her! It’s that demon woman!”

“****,” Trent whispered, and I went cold as people in the streets turned, their faces ugly with fear, hatred, and a mad aggression. “Rachel—”

I gasped as someone grabbed me from behind. My leg gave way and I fell. “Trent!” I screamed, fighting the elbows and hands as I was pulled up and away. “Damn it, let me go!” I demanded, and then screamed when they twisted my arm behind me, forcing me through the crowd. Agony numbed my leg and I fell, so they picked me up, shoving me from person to person, pinching my arms, pulling my hair, tripping me. I couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe.

“Jenks!” I called out. He was gone. I fought to be free but someone punched me in the middle and I bent double, unaware and struggling to breathe until they hauled me up onto the stage.

Terrified, I hung in someone’s grip, shocked and bleeding as Al landed next to me in a sliding thud. Men kicked him to stay down, and he sat where he was, his new suit torn and his face bloodied. Newt still stood, her expression proud and a little wild as she waited beside me, her hands bound with a plastic bag.

“You try anything and I’ll shoot you!” the man with the gun screamed at us. The bleeding corpse behind him was dragged off, and the crowd carried it away. My gore rose, and I struggled to keep from vomiting. Trent? Where are Trent and Jenks? Jenks couldn’t fly. He’d be crushed.

“If you have any ideas . . . ,” Al said, sitting cross-legged with his hands laced behind his head.

“No, not really.” I pulled my eyes from the slick smear of blood, wondering how many demons they’d killed so far. What the hell kind of an ending was this?

“Get up!” the man with the gun screamed. “I said, get up!”

Al stood, his expression far more placid than I would’ve expected. “Thank you for our freedom,” he said to me as the man with the gun cavorted before us, whipping the crowd up to bolster his own courage. “I will never understand why you cared.”

“I don’t like bullies,” I said flatly, and Newt smiled. The electric lights caught a glint in her eye, almost anticipatory. I knew she longed for an end, but this was wrong, so wrong.

“They will all die!” the man screamed. “All the demons. Magic is dead, and we will be safe! Safe from the freaks and unholy demons!”

They might kill me, but they would damn well listen to me first.

“Shut the hell up!” I shouted, my voice cutting through the noise as if it was supplemented by magic. The crowd heard me, and in the barest hesitation of their outrage, I added, “And get your stinking hands off me!”

Adrenaline was a silver ribbon, snapping through me as I plowed my elbow into the man holding me. Weight on my good leg, I spun to break his nose with my elbow, shoving him off the stage and into the crowd.

Al cried out in elation, his expression fearsome as he rose and moved in sharp, decisive motions, flipping the two who held him into the crowd. Like a banshee gone berserk, Newt howled, kicking at everyone who got close. Between them, no one dared try the stage, and in the sudden hush, I realized no one was up here anymore but us, the forgotten gun, and the man who had shot it, now huddling beside a huge amp.

Al paced back and forth, his steps red from stepping in blood. Newt held her hands out to me and I tried to get the plastic knots free. “I was beginning to think you might not make it in time,” she said dryly.

My heart was pounding, and I couldn’t feel my leg. “Who was that?” I asked, eyes darting to the blood smear. Behind us, the man who’d shot him cowered. His hand had bones sticking out, and the gun, now useless to him, lay tauntingly within reach.

Newt glanced at the blood, then rubbed her wrists as the knots came loose. “I don’t know. He wasn’t a demon. Honestly, I was simply enjoying the fountain and he was sitting beside me.”

Relief coursed through me, quickly followed by anger. “They killed an innocent man because he might have been a demon?” I said loudly, then turned to the crowd, slowly realizing what they’d done, what they’d allowed, hell, what they’d encouraged to happen. “You killed a man and he wasn’t even a demon!” I shouted, my voice echoing between the buildings. “What is wrong with you people!”

“They’re demons!” someone shouted, quickly hushed by those nearest her.

“Yeah? So what?” I shouted back. That didn’t go over so well, and the murderous rise of complaint started to gain strength. The crowd, though, was beginning to break up at the back as the I.S. and FIB began to show.

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“Demons deserve to die!” another shouted, and I turned to him, feeling both strong and weak with Newt and Al behind me.

“Why, because you say so?” I said, fingertips tingling. “Maybe, but not on my watch. I warned you. I told you taking the easy way out was a bad idea. Did you listen? No! So you’re going to listen to me now!”

That went over even better, and small fights were breaking out all over as the Weres tried to get closer to the stage. “You need more practice at this,” Al said as two men vaulted onto the stage.

“Go home!” I shouted as Newt waved a cautionary finger at the men. “Go home, and pray that I find a way to reinstate the lines in Arizona, or demons without magic will be the least of your problems! You all think that security and peace are born from destroying everything stronger than you? There is no safety. There is no peace but what you make, every day, every second, with every choice.”

As if that was the signal, the crowd surged forward, swamping us.

Panic iced through me again, and I slipped on some poor man’s blood and went down, almost passing out from the pain as my hip hit the stage. “Rache!” I heard distantly, and then I’d had it.

“Enough!” I shouted, and a great boom of sound exploded from me. My fingers tingled, and I pulled my head up as men cried out, falling back from the stage, pushed by a glowing ball of silver light. My hair was floating, and I tried to flatten it, but I couldn’t stand up, and my hands were sticky. I felt as if I were glowing, and I looked at Al. He had fallen, seeming as shocked as I was. It had been magic, but how?

“Oh, you did it now!” Newt crowed, kicking that gun under the amp and almost dancing as she lurched to me and hauled me to my feet. Everyone in the square was picking themselves up. It was so quiet you could hear individual people and the whine of a siren.

“Mystics?” Al said, again at my elbow, but he wasn’t talking to me, and Newt nodded.

My heart seemed to both sink and expand. Mystics. I couldn’t hear them, but clearly they were here with me. And if they had found me, then so would . . . the Goddess.

“Oh no,” I whispered, scrambling to hide, to run, but Newt held my arm, forcing me to stay still and face the crowd.

“Just . . . let me,” she almost snarled, her lips inches away as she pinched my arm. “Let me in, Rachel.”

And panicked, I did, wiggling as I felt her siphon off some of the energy in my chi to shift my aura to hide me for a few moments more. As soon as the Goddess figured out she could find me by the mystics circling me, I was a goner.

“Bloody Band-Aid,” Newt said, eyeing the dispersing crowd. “I feel better already. Al?”

Someone in an FIB hat was beckoning us to the stairway. Numb, I shuffled that way. The crowd was scattering now as the cops started arresting them en masse, cuffing everyone and making them kneel in rows.

“Well, I’m not going to say this is a good thing,” Al grumped, and I gasped when Newt clenched my arm.

“Not good!” she snapped. “The lines are broken and you’re still going to hold to outdated beliefs based on a war that not even you remember the cause of?”

“It’s elven magic,” he whined, looking pathetic.

“Both of you shut up,” I said as I saw Trent. Oh God, he had Jenks with him, and I almost fell off the stage trying to get to them. The crowd was dispersing. They even had an ambulance, and I felt sick as I realized the medical people were clustered about that man who’d been shot. Another, very loud group of FIB agents was reading the rights to the man who’d shot him, his broken hand bound before him, bleeding and ugly. Maybe the shot man was still alive.

“Trent!” I called, and he reached out. I fell into his arms, burrowing my head against his shoulder as I shook. “They were going to kill me!” I sobbed as Jenks’s wings clattered. “What is wrong with them!”

“Shhh, you’re okay,” he soothed, and I pulled my head up, sniffing and sniveling as Al stiffly handed me a cloth handkerchief. “Next time, can we stop the lynch mob some other way?”

“Jenks, you’re flying,” I said, and the satisfied pixy landed on Newt’s shoulder.

“For the moment,” he said, sparkles almost vanishing. “Crap on toast, girl. How come you can do magic and no one else can?”

“Because she’s got a growing sliver of mystics looking to her,” Al said sourly. “That’s probably why you can fly. She’s a magnet.”

I felt like a magnet, all spiky and full of little electrical charges. I looked up at the thump-thump-thump of chopper wings echoing between the buildings. What was left of the crowd scattered, even some of the handcuffed Weres sneaking off. It felt good to be alive, and I leaned into Trent even more. “I told you this would happen. And no one listened.”

“Can she ever be right without rubbing your nose in it?” Al griped, and Jenks spilled a silver dust that vanished too quickly for my comfort.

The chopper swung into the square, and I smiled up at it, knowing it was going to take me somewhere where I wouldn’t have to think for a while, where I could have a bath, wash my hair, and maybe get the bullet out of my leg.

“Oops, she’s going down!” someone called, and I felt myself fall into Trent’s arms.

And I swear, I heard him singing as the helicopter lifted us up and away.

Chapter 28

The wind whipped my hair into a snarled mess as I inched to the edge of the medical helicopter. In an instant, the scent of antiseptic and bandages was stripped away, the hint of pavement and horse coming to me in the moonless night. Trent reached up, his hand bandaged and a raw red scrape on his cheek where he’d fallen. My heart seemed to skip a beat as I settled my fingers into his. I could have lost him. I could have lost everything.

“She should be in the chair,” said the paramedic who’d taken the bullet out and stitched me up on the way over. Trent just shrugged and lifted me down, my muscles aching as his grip tightened on me. My ribs hurt, and I held my breath. I’d rather die than sit in that chair with straps and be lowered down.

Which is a distinct possibility, I thought as my feet hit the parking lot and the resulting jolt of pain broke through whatever mundane drugs they had me on. “Thanks,” I whispered, feeling ill as I tucked the crutch Trent was handing me under my arm. It was already sized to me. Seemed he kept them on hand as a matter of course.

I was still trying to wrap my head around the mob at the square. They’d shot that man in cold blood. Newt was going to be next. Then me. Then Al. Nothing could excuse that kind of mindless panic, and I was shaken, betrayed by the same people I’d risked my life to save.

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“Tink loves a duck!” Jenks protested, tugging at my hair as the wind swamped him. “Can we get inside? I want to check on my kids.”

“First thing on the list,” I said as I looked past Al and Newt, ogling Trent’s holdings, to the cluster of people coming down the stairs to greet us. This wasn’t the usual way, but the parking lot had been empty for almost three months and apparently there was an issue waiting for Trent in his front office and this was quicker.

“That’s one good thing,” I whispered, barely heard over the copter blades as I saw Quen, Ellasbeth, and the girls. Ellasbeth held Ray, the little girl solemn and quiet. Lucy was more vocal, but clearly unhappy as she reached for Trent, complaining loudly when Ellasbeth stopped short at the sight of Al and Newt.

Grinning, Al tweaked Lucy’s nose, but his smile vanished worryingly fast.

“Trent!” the woman exclaimed, looking frazzled with her hair down and Lucy tugging on it. “There are demons everywhere! Everywhere!”

“None of them can do any magic, Ellie,” Trent admonished, taking Lucy before the little girl jumped out of her mother’s arms.

“But they’re everywhere!” the woman complained, shooting sideways glances at Newt and Al. “Cooking in the bar’s kitchen, in the garage looking at your cars, in the conservatory talking to the fairies. I’ve had to put up a sign to keep them out of your apartments.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Trent said as Lucy wrapped her arms around his neck and gave him a fierce, little-girl kiss.

My teeth clenched as I step-hopped to the stairs, trying to decide how to get up them. Ellasbeth looked awful, not just tired from dealing with the stress of what was probably four hundred demons showing up on her doorstep, but frightened now that magic was gone.

“You need to do something about Landon, too,” she said, taking Lucy back when Trent saw me balk at the stairs. “He’s been on the news, talking to everyone with a mic. He’s trying to put a spin on this to blame Rachel.”

“Me!” I barked as Trent cupped a hand around my free elbow to half lift me up a step.

Ellasbeth looked at me, her words hesitant as she took in the bandages and blood. Not all of it was mine. Most of it wasn’t mine, actually, and that somehow made it worse. “Ah, no one believes,” she said. “But you need to do something, Trent. He’s blaming you, too.”

“I’ll get right on it,” he said wearily, and she scowled, thinking she was being put off, but I honestly didn’t know what she expected him to do. According to the news, anti-Landon sentiment was growing among the elves as they demanded answers and he kept blaming me. Even the elves had lost their magic. Either the Goddess was withholding her strength, or the elves needed the lines, too.

And yet I had blown down everyone in the square using mystics. Hurray, me. I snuck a glance at Al and Newt, glad they both seemed to be ignoring it. Newt’s cheerful attitude in the face of the-end-of-all-magic wasn’t giving me any warm fuzzies, though.

“Sa’han, Dali is waiting for you in your office, and Cormel would like to speak with you at his convenience,” Quen said.

Ray reached out, and Trent took her, leaving me to handle the next step alone. “In my office, eh?” Trent said, nodding for Quen to take my elbow since Ray had buried her face in his chest and wouldn’t let go. “Tell Cormel he’s going to have to come to me if he wants to chat.”

Newt and Al were waiting for us at the top of the stairs, and Quen scooped me up. I would’ve protested, but I’d slowed everyone else down to a crawl. “That was incredibly stupid,” Quen muttered, lagging behind as Trent took Ellasbeth’s elbow and turned her away from me. “You put yourself and Trent in incredible danger taking the stage like that.”

I frowned, not saying anything until we reached the top and I wiggled until he put me down. “I didn’t take the stage, they dragged me up there. And what would you have done if you saw Jon on a stage with a gun to his head and a dead body at his knees?”

Quen’s eye twitched as he looked past me to Ellasbeth, ushering Lucy inside, Trent and Ray following as Trent argued over something with the frazzled woman. “The same. Are you going to let me help you to Trent’s office?”

The helicopter was winding up again, lights flashing over us and making Al look more demonic than usual as he grabbed my arm. “I’ll help her,” he said, making me wonder at his motives.

“Both of you back off,” Newt said as she pushed Al away with a single finger on his chest. “I’m helping Rachel today. She saved my life, the poor dear.”

I was starting to feel like a dog’s tug toy, but I really wanted to sit down and didn’t care who helped me to Trent’s office. I leaned heavily on Newt as Al held the door and we shuffled inside. “Thanks,” I muttered, and Jenks swore at me as I tucked my hair behind my ear when the wind cut off. I’d forgotten he was there. Ellasbeth was already halfway down the hall, her voice twined with Lucy’s as the little girl tried to outdo her mother in volume.

“It was incredibly brave of you,” Newt said as we slowly paced after them. “Very brave, but incredibly stupid.”

Oh God, I thought my ribs were going to **** in, and my teeth clenched. “I wasn’t thinking about rescuing you. I just wanted them to stop killing people.”

“Obviously,” she cooed, and my steps became even slower as we got to the carpet in the hallway and I couldn’t shuffle anymore.

Trent was standing outside his office at his empty secretary’s desk. His expression was pinched with irritation. Ellasbeth didn’t look much better, and she almost had a cow when he handed Ray to Al. “Quen, I’d like you and Jon to find out where Ivy and Nina are. Apparently they never made it to the hospital.”

I spun, my sight dimming when I moved too fast. “What?”

Quen took Ray from Al and inclined his head. “Sa’han,” he said simply, turning to go.

The soft clatter of Jenks’s wings under my ear shocked through me. He’d been so quiet I’d forgotten he was there. “Hey, Quen,” he shouted. “How about dropping me off at the greenhouse? I want to check on my kids.”

“Crap, I’m sorry, Jenks,” I said.

“Don’t worry about it. Go sit somewhere,” Jenks said, a thin red dust spilling from him as he took to the air. “Your grinding teeth are giving me a headache.”

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Ellasbeth and Lucy trailed along behind him, leaving Al and Newt staring expectantly at Trent and me. Trent took my elbow, his expression grim as he angled us to his office.

Ivy . . . “Trent, you don’t think Cormel has Ivy and Nina, do you?” I asked. “He wanted to see you.” See Trent, not me. The slight difference was the only thing keeping me here and not stealing one of Trent’s faster cars, bad leg or no.

“That’s what Quen is going to find out.”

It was going to be a long night, and I almost cried when we finally got to Trent’s office. Dali was in there, and I tried not to lean on Trent as he opened the door. The couch Trent had put in last week for short catnaps never looked better, and I gave Dali a swift nod, heart pounding as I moved as fast as I could and almost fell into it. Leather-scented air puffed up around me, and I thought it smelled wrong without a little vampire incense in with it.

“Dali,” Trent said cautiously, and the older, somewhat fat demon turned from where he’d been looking at the colorful saltwater fish in the wall tank behind Trent’s desk.

“How very elven,” Dali said softly, eyes flicking behind Trent to Al and Newt. “Keeping all his beautiful captives on display.”

The rims of Trent’s ears went red. “Everything in that tank was captive bred. Nothing came from the wild.”

Simpering, Dali settled himself behind the desk as if it was his. “That makes it worse.”

I could tell Dali sitting at his desk bothered Trent as he rubbed the side of his nose and went to feed the fish, his motions slow as he took a canister of food from a drawer inches from Dali’s foot. “Why are all of you here?” Trent said, his back to everyone as he sifted the food in and the rest of his fish came out of hiding.

Newt settled herself gracefully in the remaining chair, leaving Al and Trent standing. “Last in, last out,” she said cryptically. “Dali’s line was the last formed, so it was the last to go.”

I tried to shift my leg up off the floor, deciding to let it stay where it was when I almost passed out. “What about my line?” I asked when I could think again.

Al harrumphed, fists at the small of his back as he stood before the big vid screen showing an empty paddock at night. “Last line formed while fleeing the ever-after,” he explained. “Which might be why you are able to perform magic, and we can’t.”

“My line still exists?” I said, and Al shook his head. The lines were dead. There was no question as to how I could still do magic, and Dali wasn’t happy—even with Al’s lie as to why.

“Now, Gally,” Newt almost pouted, shifting her robe to hide the welts the makeshift cuffs at the square had given her. “You know that’s not why Rachel was able to do magic.”

“It wasn’t mystics,” Dali growled.

“I didn’t have any choice,” I said in a rush, seeing Al stiffen. “They’re dead. All the lines.”

Oh God, the lines were dead. I hadn’t seen Bis since yesterday. He must be in agony. Ivy was missing, probably in one of Cormel’s bedrooms awaiting my arrival so he could kill her and make me save her soul.

“I have to go,” I said, leg throbbing as I gripped the arm of the chair and lurched to a stand reaching for my crutch. “I have to get back to the church. Trent, I’m sorry, but I can’t do anything, and I need to help who I can.”

“Don’t be stupid.” Newt leaned across the space between us to yank my crutch from me and throw it at Dali. Trent reached to catch it before it hit his fish tank, but Dali was faster, and he glared at Newt as she settled back, pleased with herself for keeping me on the couch and getting Dali’s attention all at once. “Dali, you know as well as I that Rachel’s line went down first. The Goddess hates her. Rachel can do magic because the tiniest mote of mystics are looking to her, swarming her and creating a field she can tap into.” Newt’s eyes rose as she looked speculatively at me. “Filling her chi with wild magic . . .”

I sat back down, pinned to my chair by Dali’s fierce look.

“That is a lie!” Dali insisted, and Newt looked to the ceiling in false idleness.

“Or any she cared to share it with,” Newt finished. “She’s like a little ley line hot spot.”

“Enough!” Dali shouted. Trent inched in between me and the incensed demon, and Newt bobbed her foot like a twelve-year-old, delighted to rub the demon’s nose in something that would get me into trouble and distract Dali from realizing she’d once practiced elven magic, too.

“It’s the mystics, you decrepit old demon,” she said saucily. “The lines are dead, and the ever-after has until sunrise before the tides shift and it’s sucked out of existence, taking everything with it.”

Jenks . . . , I thought, looking at the door but helpless to walk to it. He couldn’t survive long without magic. Bis either. And the vampires. Their souls would have nowhere to go when they died their first death. Something was going to snap.

“You freed the familiars, yes?” Trent asked, and Dali’s expression went sour. “Your slaves? You’re abandoning them?” Trent exclaimed, outraged. “Your contract says you’ll keep them alive. You can’t just forget that because it’s difficult.”

“Difficult?” Dali snapped.

“And the undead souls,” I said aloud, thoughts on Ivy. She’d kill herself twice to keep her soul and consciousness together, even if she believed that would send her soul straight to hell.

Dali leaned forward over Trent’s desk, a thick finger pointing at me. “Failure to uphold any contract here isn’t my fault. I held to the undead curse as well as can be expected.” Lip curled back to show his teeth, he glared at Trent. “You and your species are to blame for the vampires’ soul destruction, not me.”

Soul destruction? I wondered, then pounced on that because it seemed to distress Dali the most. “You promised the first undead that his soul would be waiting, didn’t you? That promise falls to all who followed him. And now you can’t fulfill it.”

“This is not my fault!” Dali shouted, and the fish behind him dashed into hiding.

“You oversaw the curse,” Newt said sourly.

“This is intolerable,” Trent said, beginning to pace. “An entire population of living, breathing people trapped in the ever-after to die?”

Dali laughed, the bitter sound chilling. “Funny. That’s what you had intended for us.”

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Trent spun, his anger slipping from his iron-clad control. “It was your idea first.”

Al tugged his suit coat straight. “Because you made slaves of us and warped our children so far from us they were as imbeciles.”

“Hey!” I exclaimed, not wanting to be counted as an idiot from birth. No, I could prove that all on my own.

“Boys and girls,” Newt soothed, her pleasant expression faltering when she noticed a bruise in the shape of a handprint on her arm. “We, ah, have all suffered, and though we clearly cannot forget, can we at least strive to forgive each other such that we can . . . survive?”

Trent turned his back on us, frustrated. “There’s nothing to move forward to,” he said as he looked at his hands to estimate their shaking. “No magic to move forward with. They didn’t listen to me, and now we all suffer.”

My stomach hurt, but my ribs hurt more, and all I wanted to do was lie down and not move. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “If there was anything that could be done . . .”

“There is, love.”

Dali’s head snapped up at Newt’s soft croon. The demon’s hard, unforgiving expression pulsed through me with a surge of adrenaline.

“Newt,” Al growled as he stood before Trent’s seldom-used wet bar, his shoulders hunched and tense. “Shut the hell up.”

Trent came forward a step. “There aren’t enough mystics looking to her,” he said, but Dali’s vehemence as he thumped a meaty fist on the table brought him up short.

“No!” the older demon shouted. “I’ll not have it! I’d sooner see us dead than be saved with . . . elf magic!”

Newt’s foot bobbed and her cheeks flushed. “Dead is exactly what we will be. Are you blind or simply that stubborn? Demons can do magic through the Goddess. They just don’t like to admit it. They think it sullies them.”

“It does!” Dali cried. “They’re animals!”

Newt simpered. “Aren’t we all, old man. Rachel?”

She extended a slender hand to me, pale and unmarked. I could have sworn that her knuckles had been bruised, and I shied from taking it. Smiling, she turned her reach into a flamboyant gesture. “She’s modest. The girl can do it.”

“No!” Dali exclaimed. “By the two worlds colliding, if I could go back in time, I’d kill her the first time she set foot in my office!”

Al rubbed his forehead before picking up two shot glasses full of an amber something he’d just poured from Trent’s bar. “I know the feeling,” he said, setting one of them on Trent’s desk and giving it a clink before sipping his.

“Then you’d both be dead three times over already,” Newt said brightly. “You, Dali, are not yet ready to slip from this life, and for all your pissing and moaning, neither are you, Gally. Not like this—whimpering and sniveling, taken out by an elf’s plotting. Rachel can do elven magic. I don’t care if you don’t like it. So can you, so can you all, if you would take that holier-than-thou noose off your necks!”

“Ah, Newt?” I hazarded, but Dali had stood, his face red and frustrated as the already insecure demon came to grips with the fact that he was helpless before a world that wanted to see him dead.

“No more!” the demon bellowed, and Newt stood, robe unfurling.

“You will!” Newt shouted back, and I pressed deeper into the couch. “I have watched your cowardice and unfounded prejudice stain our existence long enough! We share a source of magic with the elves. No wonder they best us time and again when we ignore the source of our strength and take it in the dribs and drabs that exist in tiny pockets.”

“Enough!” Dali shouted, and Newt strode forward to put her face inches from his.

“You will listen!” she exclaimed, her black eyes flashing and a haze of blue rimming her hands.

Dali’s eyes flicked to them and she abruptly backed off, shoulders hunched and eyes down. Al cleared his throat. “This just got a lot more interesting,” he said, and Dali’s confidence came rushing back. “Newt, where are you getting your magic, love?”

Newt grimaced. I gave Trent a shrug, breathing easier when Dali finally found someone else to be mad at.

“Rachel isn’t the only one dabbling in elf magic, eh?” Dali said, clearly disgusted as he pushed back from the desk and stood.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Newt hid her hands in her sleeves. I suddenly felt like two kids having been caught setting off stink spells in the girls’ bathroom. Not that I had experience there—much.

Brow furrowed, Dali took a sip of his drink, not as irate as I would’ve expected. But then Newt was known to be crazy. “You knew about this?” Dali asked Al.

Al shrugged. “I didn’t believe her. How could a demon hide that she and the Goddess—”

Newt’s head came up. “I won’t sit and do nothing as Rachel goes insane trying to hide what she is, what we all are. The Goddess will speak to us, answer us as well.”

“And leave us to die,” Dali said bitterly. “To fight and scratch out an existence when she turns her back on us? No. Never again. She has her favorites and I’ll not be played for a fool once more.”

It was starting to come together, this bitter rivalry between the elves and the demons, and I watched, silent, when Newt, her robes rustling faintly, crossed to where Dali now sat against Trent’s desk, his head bowed as harsh thoughts spun through him.

“You don’t have to,” Newt said softly as she touched his arm.

A haze shifted between them, and Dali looked at his hands, feeling the energy she had given him, filling his chi with a portion of her own. His breath caught as he accepted that there was a way out of this—if he could let go of a lifetime of hatred. “How long have you hidden this?”

Newt turned away. “I don’t remember. So long that the Goddess’s mystics don’t look to find me anymore.”

Her expression was pained, and I started when Trent’s hand landed on my shoulder in support. I knew how she felt, and I imagined that the hurt of losing the exaltation the mystics imparted never dulled with time but only intensified.

Dali looked tired as he shifted his attention to me, eyes flicking listlessly to Trent standing protectively beside me. “You taught her how to hide them as well?” he asked Newt.

“I changed her aura so they can’t easily find her, but Rachel has a newer bond, one they haven’t forgotten yet.” She hesitated. “They’re still looking for her, knowing that the Goddess must become again. Her eyes have seen reality through Rachel, and the need to partake in it has left the rest predisposed to becoming anew.”

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Becoming. The Goddess had said that as well, but she’d feared it, as it would destroy her.

“Dali, we can reopen the lines before sunrise with elven magic.”

Trent’s hands on my shoulder tightened. “I’ll rally the dewar and the enclave.”

“No.”

Dali’s word was soft. He never looked up, his mien holding regret as he stood against another man’s desk, in another man’s house, in a world that didn’t want them while the prison they’d desperately tried to escape stood poised to crumble and destroy the very world they wanted to live in but were afraid to.

“You’d have us live like this?” Newt said bitterly, pulling at her clothes as if the tattered and stained remnants were their pride and power. “We can reopen the lines, but it must be done before sunrise. I’ve been talking with the Goddess—”

“What!” Dali’s head snapped up. In the corner, Al clinked several glasses together, and my mouth became dry at the sound of water being poured into them.

Undeterred, Newt lifted her chin. “She’s actively looking for Rachel, but she knows that if the lines stay shut, she’ll have reduced sight. She’s already starving. The only access she has to reality is through failing pixies and Weres who don’t even know she exists. She’s not listening to the elves anymore thanks to Landon tricking her into destroying the lines.”

Interesting, I thought, wondering if this was why elven magic had failed. A tiny wisp of possibility took hold, pulling me straighter in my seat. I could do this, maybe. I had wrestled control of the mystics’ individual power from the Goddess’s will before. Several times before.

And every time, I ended up fighting to disentangle myself from her so my thoughts wouldn’t kill her, change her beyond recognition, make her . . . become something new.

“I cannot live by reality’s rules without magic to make it tolerable,” Al said. “Dali, we have a chance to not only survive, but in the doing, the world will thank us. Perhaps give us a place again.”

“Give us a place?” Dali thundered. “We are demons! We don’t take charity, we take what we want!”

“Well, what I want is to belong!” Al suddenly yelled. “I want to try it this way for a while. What the hell, Dali. If you don’t like it, you can go back to bartering souls to fill your waitstaff, but I think we can do well here with other people’s rules.” He hesitated, eyebrows rising wickedly. “Finding our ways around them. Making them squirm within their own . . . laws.”

Newt’s face was flushed. “But first we need to reopen the lines.”

I held my breath, waiting. There was more being decided here than if we should try to save the ever-after.

“We lack the strength,” Dali said.

“Then we join our strength with the elves.” Newt put her hands on the desk and leaned toward him.

Dali’s disgusted gaze flicked to hers from under a lowered brow. “No,” he growled.

Trent stepped from me, his breath held and color high. His eyes were bright, and he looked like a leader of people even torn and bandaged as he was—maybe because of it. “Why are we even considering not doing this? The dewar is disillusioned with Landon. They’ll listen to me. Let’s reopen the lines and be done with it!”

“Because she lies, elf!” Dali pushed Newt back off the desk with his voice alone. “The Goddess lies! She tricks! She will kill Rachel outright before allowing the lines to be reopened, and then doom the rest of us to a slow, ignoble death to give herself something to play with for another thousand years. The Goddess will not grant power to us to do this even if it expands her reach. She’ll kill us, then do as she will!”

“But we don’t have to rely on the Goddess’s will,” I protested, feeling left out as I leaned forward on the couch. “I can simply take the power we need from her and be done with it! I just need someone to weave the curse and give it direction.” And maybe save my ass afterward.

Dali seemed to freeze, only his eyes moving as he looked at Al first, then Newt. Both of them seemed to center in on themselves, avoiding him as he slowly gathered his presence. A chill slipped down my spine, but I’d only said the truth.

“The way is that firm already, then?” Dali said, bewildering me even more.

Al’s head bowed, ignoring the question. He looked ill, but Newt’s chin lifted as if taking on a burden.

“Rachel almost caused a new becoming on the Goddess twice now and still managed to extricate herself, saving both their lives. The Goddess will strike her dead on sight, but there will be a span where Rachel is unrecognized, and in the battle for supremacy, Rachel could spin enough magic from her to reopen the lines if we were there to take advantage of it.”

It was what I already knew, but hearing Newt say it made it sound risky.

Dali’s expression was wary. “It would leave her vulnerable to the Goddess’s wrath.”

As if he cared. He was calm, scaring me more than if he had been shouting. “I can handle it,” I said, shaking inside.

“I’ll be there with her,” Newt said, making me feel worse.

“And me,” Trent offered, and I took his hand as he extended it. Seeing us thus, Dali’s expression twisted and he looked away.

Al remained pointedly silent, clearly unhappy. His silence was noted by Dali. Hell, it was noticed by everyone, and he set his glass of ice and liquor down with a sharp snap.

“You both together,” Dali said, lip curling. “With her. Trying to take over the Goddess.”

“It’s what we have,” Trent said loudly.

My heart thudded as I saw the possible end of my days laid before me. “I can’t sit and do nothing if there’s a chance. If this works, magic will be restored, the undead will still have their souls in a parking orbit until they fully die, and the thousands of familiars you’ve got tucked away in the ever-after will still be alive. I’m going to want them to be freed, though.”

Dali sniffed. “Of course you do,” he muttered.

“Even if the lines hold for only a short time, we can get the familiars out,” Newt said. “They will undoubtedly be gathering in the largest space and be easy to move.”

But I didn’t want a rescue. I wanted a resolution.

“This is a bad idea,” Dali said, unconvinced.

“But it is an idea,” I said. “Bad or not, we have to try. If I can steal the energy, will you spin the curse? All of you? I can’t do it.”