Chapter Twenty-Four

I lurched out of my room, almost tripping on Rex streaking into the front sanctuary, a ribbon of caramel with a frightened sparkling of black pixy dust from one of Jenks's kids over her. Ivy screamed from the kitchen, and I bolted. Jenks was a zizzing light before me, and gripping the edge of the frame, I slid into the kitchen. The cloying scent of burnt amber was so thick, I could almost see it.

"Newt, no!" I exclaimed, and she looked at me, her black eyes lost in madness. She had pinned Ivy to the floor, the butt of her staff at her throat. Ivy was wide-eyed, the blackness of her pupils deep with forever. Terrified, she held the end of the staff, unable to shift it. Jenks darted down with his sword, and I cried out a warning when Newt gestured at him.

Jenks was flung backward, his swearing cutting off when he hit the fridge and slid down.

"Stop!" I cried as I tapped the line, and Newt took a magic-hazed hand from her staff.

It gave Ivy a chance, and she spun out from under the stick, going for her katana. Grimacing, Newt turned back to her, swinging the stick to strike her across the temple. It met Ivy's head with a dull thwap, and she collapsed.

Oh God. Ivy!

"Invader!" Belle shouted from the floor, and Newt shifted the aim of the black ball of death in her hand from me to the fairy, the demon's white robes furling elegantly.

"Newt, stop!" I shouted, diving in front of Belle to intercept it. I threw up a protection circle as I lunged, but Newt's magic tore right through, hitting me in the chest as I took the fall, narrowly missing squishing the small woman I'd been trying to protect.

I clenched into a ball, a spasm ripping through me as everything cramped. My feet scrabbled against the floor as I was racked with a curse that felt like it was ripping my spine apart. Newt hauled me up, pinning me to the farm table.

"Don't hurt Newt!" I gasped as Belle trilled like an Amazon warrior. "Belle, stop!"

Newt's black eyes stared into mine, wild and alive. Her color was high, accenting her new, spiky red hair, cut short just at her ears. Her fingers were clenched in my hair as she forced my head back, and her staff was across my neck, pressing me into the table. Clearly something had snapped in her. Had she remembered something, or forgot?

"Belle, no!" I cried out as the fairy, poised at the top of the hanging rack, gathered herself to jump on Newt.

"Immolerate!" Newt snarled, without even looking back.

A wave of force pushed from her, and I squinted as the air was pressed from my lungs. Belle was gone, and I panicked. I couldn't move my legs, and they felt like they were on fire.

"I have to kill you now," the crazed demon said, and I choked as she pressed into my throat. "And I was doing so well. If I don't, they'll believe that I'm responsible for all of this!"

"Fine. Great. But don't hurt my friends," I gasped, my hands trying to shove her off me. "Please."

The muscles of her jaw smoothed, and her shoulders eased. "Don't hurt your friends?"

"Please," I wheezed, my grasping fingers brushing the tips of her hair. If it had been an inch longer, I could have pulled her off balance. "My friends. Belle, she's the fairy-she's a great warrior. She protects the pixy children who live here. Jenks needs to be alive to help Ivy. Ivy is trying to live with her guilt. Please don't ruin her. She's so beautiful inside."

The fervor of her eyes diminishing, Newt eased up, clearly confused, and I took a grateful gasp of air. "And help Bis," I said, my hands dropping to her staff, trying to push just an inch more of space between us and failing. My arms, too, felt like they were on fire. "If you have to kill me, will you help Bis? Will you do that for me? He deserves better than to be with Ku'Sox the rest of his life. He's just a baby."

"Bis?"

She was confused, and I forged ahead. "And take Al his chrysalis." My eyes darted to the window. I couldn't see it; the angle was wrong. "It's right there on the sill," I said, wishing she would turn to look. "He thinks he can't love anymore, but I know he can. Tell him he was right. He used to have wings. They were like stretched moonlight. Tell him I'm sorry."

Newt took a step back, her grip falling from me. "You know what we looked like?"

Slowly I sat up against the table and rubbed my throat. Ivy was still out. So was Jenks. Belle was standing guard over him, fierce and determined. I didn't know where Nick was. I didn't care. "I saw the pools of shallow water, the moss green branches overhead," I said, voice ragged. "The fog that muffled and soothed the sun." Newt dropped back another step, her hands loose on her ebony staff, confusion in her eyes. I coughed, sending ribbons of fire to flare and die in my limbs. "The ever-after was a paradise. What happened?"

"We killed it."

I looked up to see Newt lost in a memory.

"Both the elves and us in our war," she said, her grip going white on her staff. "Together we killed the ever-after. They could flee. We were left to wallow in our shared war waste. We make it worse with every curse, but we have no choice. To survive, we must set things even more out of balance."

Somehow I wasn't surprised that the elf-demon war was to blame. "I'm sorry."

Newt's focus sharpened, and her long face grew tight again. "I didn't want to kill you. They made me do it."

"I'm not dead quite yet." Still holding my throat, I slid to the edge of the table and cautiously slipped off. Pinpricks of fire like the stars of returning circulation burst against my skin and vanished. Newt shifted her staff, and I eyed her sourly. Clearly she was having a bad Newt day. "Since when does anyone make you do anything?"

I crouched to feel for a pulse at Ivy's wrist, and Newt's face was ugly when I turned back. "They think I'm plotting with you," she said angrily. "Because I petitioned for time for you. Because my rooms are no longer shrinking. Al has been imprisoned, but I was told to kill you. If I do, they'll not only let me live another day, but they might listen to me."

Al was in jail? Crap on toast, it was down to Quen and me.

"Ku'Sox is at fault," Newt admitted bitterly. "It's easier to blame you. Killing him is impossible. Killing you is merely hard."

That was kind of nice. Killing me being hard, not easy.

Jenks was sitting up and holding his head, wings askew. Belle crouched beside him, whispering in his ear as her eyes never left Newt. "If you kill me," I said, cautiously moving to sit in my chair, "you'll all only live another week, tops." I gestured helplessly. "The reason your rooms aren't shrinking is because I fixed your line. That's why it is the only one that sounds right anymore. If I had Bis, I could fix them all. Can you get him back for me? Now?"

Newt backed up, confusion in her stance and apparently not knowing what to do if I didn't attack her. "No. You make it sound easy, not killing you."

"Easy?" I pushed out Ivy's chair for Newt with my foot and she stared at it in distrust. "It is easy. What I've had to do to save you dumb-asses is hard. First I had to figure out a way to fix the line. And when I do, you let Ku'Sox take Bis from me. I somehow find a way to prove Ku'Sox broke it, and then they convince you to kill me before my deadline. And now I not only have to prove Ku'Sox broke my line, but then survive doing so without Al? Without anyone? Ku'Sox wants you all dead. My God, why do you keep believing him?"

Newt glanced at Ivy, then back to me. "We made him. He owes us his life. He's going to bring the demons back to the sun with the demon children he has stolen. You owe us nothing. Why would you help us?"

I honestly don't know. An elbow on the table, I felt my neck. "Ku'Sox is a liar and a psychotic genius. I've had a very bad week, Newt. A very bad week. And to top it off, I don't have anything in my closet that is suitable to wear while saving the world."

"Are you sure?"

Head tilted, I met her eyes. God, I was tired. "You've seen it. Not much has changed since then."

Newt's black eyes narrowed. "No, I mean are you sure that . . ." She hesitated, glancing at Ivy. "Are you sure you can prove Ku'Sox is betraying us, not you?"

A rueful chuckle slipped from me. It must have surprised her, because she backed up almost to the door, her staff held defensively before her. "Given half a chance," I said. "Can you just hold off until tomorrow to kill me? By sunset tomorrow, I can prove all this was Ku'Sox's fault or he will have killed me himself. If we're both around come sunup, you can kill who you want, and we can all get on with our lives."

Newt shook her head mistrustfully. Ivy was starting to come around, and Jenks made a slow, wobbly flight to her, hopefully to tell her to pretend to still be out. "We're losing too much space. It has to be now."

My toes were the only part of me still tingling, and I looked at them. When did I get a hole in my sock? "You can't give me one lousy day?"

Slowly, hardly moving, Ivy sat up against the wall, holding her head. I made the finger motion for her to not move, and Jenks whispered it since she couldn't focus yet.

Newt drew herself up, her black eyes flicking over Ivy, not afraid, but assessing. "The leak is too wide. I've run out of room. You and Al, and I myself now, are so far in debt that there's nothing left."

"I've got a bushel basket full of truth," I said as I shifted in my chair to face her square on. "I know what you looked like. I saw the Eden your war destroyed. Ku'Sox knows only what you've shown him, and I'm sorry, Newt, but you've shown him only the present, not your past. You really want him in charge of your future?"

She hesitated, fingers clenching on the staff.

"I know you're afraid," I said, and she barked in laughter.

"Afraid of you!"

"Not of me," I said. "You're afraid of the endless days continuing with no change. You're tired. You think Ku'Sox is how you can let go and still continue on, but look at him. He's not you, he doesn't have your soul. That's why he keeps trying to eat them."

She was listening, and I sat up, trying to look like I knew what I was talking about. "Look at how he's getting past the elven curse. He's stealing babies. He's stealing the wisdom to keep them alive. I broke the curse you put on the elves, and I can damn well break the curse that keeps you stuck in the hell you both made of your paradise. I can free you, Newt. You can finish free of the ever-after as you began it."

Newt swallowed hard. A tear slipped from her, and she wiped it away, shocked. Behind her, pixies were plastered against the window, watching. "We had wings."

I smiled. "You flew between the clouds and the moon."

Her eyes came to me. "It's not a dream."

"No. This? This nothing that you live in?" My hand lifted and fell. "This is the nightmare you made for yourself. Let me wake you up."

Her lungs heaved as she took a deep breath. She looked scared, wild. She might do anything. "Strike me," she said softly, her stick held tight in her grasp.

From the floor by the fridge, Jenks rose up, wings clattering. "Whoa, whoa, whoa!" he said. Newt took a firm stance and pointed the butt of her staff at Ivy as the woman got to her feet, listing but ready to attack.

"Easy!" I shouted, standing up and holding out a hand. "Everyone just take it easy!"

Newt grimaced, and then, as if having a sudden thought, she set the end of her stick on the floor and calmed. "Wait," she said, and Ivy hesitated, ready to jump at her. "Let's find something from your closet for you to wear. Then you can strike me."

Totally confused, I blinked. "Why?"

Smiling to scare the bejeebers out of me, she came forward, watching me but keeping that staff of hers between her and Ivy and Jenks. "I need a reason for you to be alive come sunup. I'll tell them you hit me."

Jenks darted into the back room, his swearing dropping like golden apples. Nick was gone, apparently, but I could do nothing as Newt looped an arm in mine and a pulse of magic from her lifted through my hair, shattering the sanctity of the church. Damn it, she'd done it again!

"I can give you until sunrise. Then you will be summoned and you will die," Newt added, making me feel all warm and cozy.

"Tonight?" Jenks yelped as he flew back in, an angry red dust showing his path. "What happened to her four days?" Then he turned to me, his dust almost catching fire. "Rache, we got a problem. Nick ran off."

Newt hesitated at the threshold of the hallway, cautiously testing the sanctity with the butt of her staff. "That little worm of a man?" she said. "He owes me a familiar. Maybe two. I don't remember."

She gestured, and Nick popped into existence on the table beside me. I spun as Trent's books hit the floor, and then Ivy was on him, her eyes dark as she pulled him off and slammed him up against the wall. Dazed, Nick struggled to focus, then breathe when she gave a little squeeze, clearly enjoying herself.

Newt still had her arm in mine as she half turned to watch. Her hair was now my length, and I started. "You're Ivy . . ." the crazy demon said, and Nick coughed violently as Ivy's grip went slack in surprise. "I think I liked you."

Jenks and I exchanged a panicked look, and I turned Newt back to the hallway and away from Ivy. "Ah, let me show you what I've got picked out," I said, almost pulling her into the hall. Behind us, I heard Nick hit the floor with a pained grunt.

Looking over my shoulder at the stove clock, my gut clenched. Call Quen about the new deadline, pick out my clothes with Newt, keep Ivy from killing Nick. Was I forgetting anything?

"You have until sunrise," the demon said, looking at the pixies hovering at the top of the hall in the sanctuary as she led me to my closet. "Not because I particularly like you, you understand. I simply can't do all that you charge me with. You're going to have to do that yourself."