Chapter Seventeen

The intention was for me to say good-bye," I said, almost setting my scrying mirror down, then changing my mind at the last moment. I wasn't staying-if I had any say in the matter.

Al scooted his chair closer to the fire, sitting on the edge before he shook his robe sleeves to his elbows and carefully wedged a marshmallow on the end of one of his toasting forks. Leaning in, he held the puffed sugar close to the flames. His muscular arms looked almost tan in the firelight. Feet spread wide, he hunched toward the flame, his bare feet showing from under the hem of his brown robe. They were surprisingly normal looking. Behind me, shelves of books were silent witnesses in the dark.

"Your intention was to see that they got there safely," Al said in a low voice, focusing on the marshmallow. "They are. Off to make mischief on an elven scale, which means worldwide and yet somehow...totally insignificant. You need a new hobby, Rachel. Something other than nasty little men with visions of world domination."

The marshmallow caught fire, and he pulled it close, somehow looking suggestive as he ran his fingers down the length of the stick to take off the still-flaming puff. "I want to talk to you about magic and sweat," he said, the light from the burning marshmallow glinting in his eyes. "Of good deeds born from stupid ideas. Of honest mistakes leading to dishonest graves." His eyes met mine, and he pursed his lips, gently blowing the flaming sugar puff out.

Oh God. He's talking funny, I thought, nervous as I looked over the dark room. Deciding to stay behind the chair, I let my scrying mirror slide down to rest on the soft leather. I wanted both hands free.

Al stood, and I froze. His movement had been graceful, a studied motion of power that I seldom saw in him. The marshmallow was gone, and he was licking his fingers, watching me from under his lowered brow. My pulse quickened as he went to the fire, taking a second marshmallow from the bowl. What in hell is he playing at?

"This trial of yours tomorrow," he said. "Odds are three to one that Pierce will betray you."

"I thought you said he was going to kill me," I said, trying to be flip.

A smile lifted his lips. "Odds are eleven percent there. But the bookies don't know that he lo-o-o-o-oves you," he mocked as he put the puff on the end of the toasting fork. "Stay here. Forget it all, and stay here with me. Let me spare you that."

I felt better with him eight feet away, and my eyes rolled. "Spare me the crap, will you? Al, I want to go back to the hotel." Shit, he was a demon. Why did I keep forgetting that?

Al crouched before the fire with the toasting fork, looking threatening somehow. His eyebrows were raised when he turned to face me, mocking. "Things have changed."

Stifling a shiver, I scanned the room, but there was nothing here to help me. Damn, damn, damn! Why had I trusted him? "Please don't tell me you're making a pass at me," I said, unclenching my fingers from the back of the chair. "It will make the next five hundred years really awkward. Besides, the last guy who said something like that to me while wearing nothing but a robe, I beat senseless with a chair leg."

Al blinked, looking surprised as he glanced down at himself as if only now realizing the impression he made. But then he smiled. And that smile was cruel.

He stood, and I dropped back a step, heart thudding.

"That demon your familiar let loose? Ku'Sox?" he said softly, poised as I started to sweat. "He's like nothing you've come up against. He wants to play with you. Take you apart slowly while you scream. The collective would throw me naked into the ley lines if I let you run about now. Pierce isn't enough. You're staying here."

"Like hell I am! Is this because I have a shot at getting my shunning permanently revoked?" Angry, I came around the chair so I could glare at him straight on. "I just might win our bet, so you're going to keep me here so you can win by default?"

"Willing to bet your life on it?" Al almost growled as he looked into the fire, his back hunched. "I'm not. Good or bad, my livelihood is connected to your continued existence," he said as his marshmallow burned. "Call me selfish, but you're staying here."

"You might be scared of that thing you all made, but I'm not," I snapped. "His sensitive bits are right where yours are. Ku'Sox is a demon, and I'm getting used to beating you guys off. I beat him off before. I can do it again!"

Al turned from the fire, his goat-slitted eyes landing on me with an unexpected intensity. I felt myself pale. He looked dangerous, crouched before the fire, his eyes glowing as the promise of violence drifted over him. A low sound lifted into the air, and my foot slid.

It was my undoing.

Al leapt for me, the toasting fork clattering, forgotten, to the hearth. Panicked, I turned to run. There was nowhere go. It was pure instinct.

I caught back my cry of terror as his fingers clamped on my shoulder. The world spun as he turned me around. "Al!" I managed, and then I felt myself lifted, shoved into a bookcase.

Hard thumps hit my shoulders and my lungs collapsed as I hit the tomes, little sparkles of energy pinging through me. My breath came in with a rush, and I stared at Al, inches from me, his bare ruddy hand gripping my shirt under my chin. I hadn't even seen him move.

"You think you can beat Ku'Sox off? Let's practice."

"Get off me!" I spat at him, strands of my hair on his face.

His expression became a snarl, and I jerked when his other hand reached behind me and grabbed my thigh. "This should be fun."

"Hey!" I shouted, trying to shove him away; then I shrieked when he pushed me back into the bookcase, his entire body pressing into me. "Get the hell off!"

"I think you've misjudged your strength, itchy witch," Al said, his voice iron hard. "And I'm going to prove it."

"How? By squishing me to death?" I wheezed, and then my eyes widened as Al's mouth covered mine, savage and demanding. The stink of demons assaulted me, hard and fast. A thread of ley line spilled into me from him, diving to my groin and flashing into heat. It could have been ecstasy, but I was too angry. His body was heavy on mine, and his leg forced its way between my knees.

Holy shit! I thought, my arms pinned behind me. I couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. I thought Al was trying to prove I couldn't protect myself. I wasn't scared, I was pissed!

Furious, I tried to get my knee up between us. Feeling it, Al let go of my wrist long enough to punch my rising knee with a heavy fist. I gasped at the sudden explosion of pain, and my knee went numb. My hand was free, though, and I went for his eyes, gouging.

My fingers dug in with a sickening give. Al took the abuse, quickly grabbing my wrist and almost yanking my arm out of its socket as he slammed it back into the books.

"Not nearly enough, dove," he said, smiling as he bent toward me again. My teeth were clenched, and I tasted his blood as he forced his mouth on mine again.

"You son of a bitch!" I screamed, muffled from his lips, and I reached for a ley line.

Al felt it, and I got in a clean breath as he pulled back long enough to laugh at me.

"That's it," he said, breathing heavily, his expression alight. "I think you're pissed enough now. Give me what you've got. I'll slip it back into you so slowly you'll scream in pleasure and beg for more."

It was then that the fear took hold. The ley line he was tracing through me felt good. Really good. I knew what a witch could do to another, and pain wasn't far from ecstasy. This may have started out as an object lesson, but Al could take my abuse and make me writhe for it. I was halfway to climaxing already. This was not what I wanted.

Al saw the realization in me and smiled, shifting his weight suggestively, his eyes half closing in anticipation. "You think you can handle me, Algaliarept?" I snarled, and his eyes opened as I used his true name, but his grip on my wrists was painfully tight.

"God, Rachel, you are such a tease," he said, and then he leaned in. His mouth was demanding, rough as he let go of my wrists and grasped the back of my head, crushing himself to me. The line he held sang in me, lighting my synapses in a cascading flash that spilled from my lips down to my groin, and I relished it, even as I despised what he was doing.

I'd fucking had it with men making inappropriate passes at me.

My hands pushed against the books, and we shifted forward, our kiss never breaking as he found the back of the tall chair and stopped. I never could have done it if he hadn't let me, but I wasn't gouging his eyes out, and since what he was doing to me felt really good, he probably figured I was his.

He was still holding my head, and his tongue was making inroads, causing my pulse to pound. A small sound of desire slipped from me, and Al let go of my face, lifting me up so I could wrap my legs around his body, feeling him against me. My hands were in his hair as I drank him in, taking the line through him, learning the paths that the energy took from him to me. God, it felt good, this careful exploration, and I shivered. I knew he was doing the same, and it only made me angrier.

Al broke from me, and we both gasped. "Itchy witch," he said, looking me up and down as he held me to him. "My God. You are...Damn. You have no idea how long it's been."

I smiled, my arms around his neck and my fingers running through the hair on the nape of his neck. "I don't think so, Algaliarept," I murmured, leaning in and playing with the corner of his mouth with my own. "I'm not a tease. I needed to know to...hurt you."

He sucked in his breath, but it was too late. My legs tightened around him, and I pressed his face to mine. My thoughts dove into his, finding the path among his synapses that he'd first burned eons ago to safely bring a ley line into him. Punching through his thin film of surprise, I grasped the ley line...and I pulled.

"No!" he shrieked, realizing his mistake.

My back arched as the power flooded in, painful and delicious. I could hear Al cry out, but it was as if I swam in glory itself, and I pulled him to me, closer, wanting more, arcing it through me back to the line, burning clean and bright, lighting the smut in me with pure fire from the gods.

The soft pop of displaced air almost went unnoticed as my soul chimed, tuned to the ley line I was drowning Al in, but a faint whisper of self-preservation caused me to open my eyes. Everything was bathed in a silvery white light. Everything, that is, but the flat foot in the purple slipper headed for me.

I tried to disentangle myself from Al, and the foot hit me, flinging me across the room like I was a rag doll. I hit a bookcase, numb. My fingers splayed over my chest, and I couldn't breathe. Shit, I think my ribs are broken, I thought, and I slid sideways to the floor, my cheek burning on the carpet.

"You lied to me!" Newt screamed, and I tried to cry out in pain as she lifted me up and slammed me against the shelf again. "I killed my sisters for you!"

My mouth was working, but nothing was coming out. My head lolled, and my focus was blurry. The line I'd been connected to was gone, and my gore rose.

And then I was screaming as the line I had yanked through Al was arcing through me.

Tulpa! I thought, trying to spindle it, and I feebly pushed at Newt to get her hands off me.

"Newt! Stop! That's Rachel!" I heard Al croak hoarsely, and the sharp sound of flesh smacking flesh. The world lurched, and I hit the carpet again.

I lay on the floor in a crumpled heap, my fingers rubbing the soft bumps of the carpet. My breath went in and out, and it felt good. It felt good not to be on fire. My head pounded, and I pushed most of the spindled energy out, sagging in relief.

"Newt, it's not Ku'Sox!" Al shouted again, and I heard a bang and smelled ozone and the acrid scent of burnt books.

"I killed my sisters for him!" Newt raged. "Get out of my way, Gally!"

Al's soft hand touched my shoulder, and I jerked, managing to sit up. Al was standing beside me in his robe, the hem trembling. Newt was in front of us, wearing her purple martial-arts robe, her funny, tall-sided hat almost in the fire. She had hair again, the straight black strands cut short in a pageboy style, and her long, ugly feet were bare. It was hard to tell what she was looking at since her eyes were black, but I was pretty sure she was looking at me, hatred pouring from her.

"This isn't Ku'Sox," Al said, his voice shaking, and I wondered why he had stopped her. "It's Rachel. She smells like Ku'Sox because she fought him. It's not Ku'Sox!"

Newt looked at me. Then her black eyes went to Al's. "She survived him? Are you sure? Maybe Ku'Sox is wearing her skin. He does that."

Al took a breath, exhaling long and low. His hand touching my shoulder left me, and I sat where I was, slumped over my knees, my hair in my face. I had tried to hurt Al to get him to leave me alone, and I think I might have gone too far. Drew a line through him like a familiar and almost fried his little kitty soul.

"It's her," Al said ruefully, and I looked up to see him shuffle to the arrangement of furniture before the fire and fall into the chair farthest from me.

Newt's expression became one of familiar confusion. "Have I forgotten something again?" she asked suspiciously. "It appeared as if she was killing you. Or were you two...?" She hesitated, then put a hand to her mouth and laughed. "Gally! You dog! You tried to seduce her?"

"She's been living in my kitchen for almost a year," he said sullenly. "Forgive a man for testing the waters. She wasn't screaming. And my name is Al now. Remember?"

"Testing the waters!" I echoed him, ticked. "You almost had me on the floor." I'd be furious if I hadn't given him back as much as he gave me. God! Men were pigs.

Al frowned, having to look over the couch between us. "You looked like you were enjoying yourself. I know I was."

"And that's why you were screaming like a little girl, right?" I barked, then hunched into myself and held my ribs. Ow. Yeah, I had liked it. But not with him, never.

"Is it a pajama party, Gally?" Newt asked, and a wash of black ever-after coated her. My chi ached as Newt shrank until the ever-after fell away, showing her looking like a child in bright red pajamas. Her hair was gone, and her eyes were hollow. She looked ill, and in sudden shock, I realized she was one of the kids in the brat pack at the hospital-the one who had forgiven me for doing black magic. She'd died with one of my stuffed animals clutched to her. And Newt wore her image as if it meant nothing.

"That's not nice," I said, and Newt smiled like a beautiful bald angel with the wisdom of the world in her, hurting me even more.

Newt laughed again, this time with a high, childlike innocence, making me shudder and forget what I was mad about. She was coming toward me with her little hand extended to help me up, and I got to my feet, not wanting her to touch me.

"I was trying to provoke you into defending yourself," Al said loudly from the couch. Rubbing a hand over his hair, he looked both sheepish and worried. "I'm worried about Ku'Sox. Newt, since you are here, what's your opinion? Is she reasonably safe?"

"Seeing as she was halfway to killing you, I'd say she has a sporting chance," Newt said in her child voice, and I stifled another shudder.

"That's great," I snarled, limping away from Newt and toward the fire. God, my life sucked. "So I can go back now, right?" I said sullenly as I picked up my scrying mirror and sat down. Crap, I was sore. I was probably going to have to get my ribs wrapped. This was going to look swell tomorrow at the trial.

"Oooh! Marshmallows?" Distracted, Newt almost skipped to the overflowing bowl beside the fire, the visage of a dying child somehow suiting her.

"Al?" I prompted, holding my ribs. I think he'd about crushed my knee, too.

Al slumped in his chair until his butt almost slid off the cushion. His robe had fallen open, and I couldn't help but look. Dude... He was hung like a horse, his ruddy complexion almost black down there. No way was he getting his tackle anywhere near me.

"Fine," he grumped, oblivious that he was waving in the wind. "If Newt says you're reasonably safe, you can go," he said sullenly. "You'll be back in twenty-four hours anyway."

Yes! I thought in victory. I was going to have to take a long shower to get rid of the burnt-amber stench, but I imagined they'd bring up more shampoo if I called down.

Newt turned from where she was kneeling in her pajamas before the fire, a lightly browned marshmallow at the end of her stick. "Bring a ruler with you when you return," she said, her voice high and childlike. "The ever-after is shrinking. But I can't prove it unless I have a tape measure from reality. All the ones here are shrinking, too."

Scrying mirror pressed to me, I watched Al cringe. "Shrinking?" I asked.

"Slowly," she said, her pinky sticking out as she tentatively squished the marshmallow to test how done it was. "The rate will quicken exponentially as we have less and less to lose. The ebb and flow of energy between reality and the ever-after has shifted. It's not all coming back. There's a hole somewhere."

She looked at me with her black eyes, and I shivered.

Al sat completely up and tugged his robe closed. Thank God. "The lines have been balanced for eons. Nothing has changed," he said, but his voice was too sure, too confident.

Smiling with a dead child's face and beauty, Newt awkwardly sat cross-legged before the fire. "You haven't been to the surface lately." Turning away, she put the toasting fork back into the flames, unsatisfied with the puff's doneness.

"I try to avoid it," Al huffed.

"The buildings," Newt continued as if he hadn't said anything, "are falling at an astounding rate."

Remembering the buildings in Vegas's ever-after, I took a breath, and Al shot me a look to keep quiet. Worried, I felt the bumps of the lines on my scrying mirror. "Buildings always fall," Al said, his eyes darting to his books.

"Yes, Gally," she said, her voice having a childish lisp. "But now they are on fire."

Crap, had it been me? I'd made a ley line. Maybe I hadn't done it right. "Um, Al?" I said, scared.

Again Al grimaced, telling me to shut my mouth. "It was probably your brat Ku'Sox," he said, and I clutched my mirror, feeling the cold soak in. Al was lying. He was lying to Newt. It hadn't been Ku'Sox. It had been me, and Al knew it. Shit. What had I done?

"Ku'Sox is not my brat," Newt said as she pulled her marshmallow off the stick, her little-girl pinkie stuck way out. "I was against giving him the ability to hold that much energy. You all vetoed me. Remember?"

Holy crap, Al was outright lying to Newt, and it scared me in a way that Al making a pass at me never could.

"Have a marshmallow, Rachel," Newt said, leaning over the coffee table to hand it to me. "Consider it a prize for almost killing Al."

Numb, I took the perfectly browned puff. Okay. Let me see if I have this right. Al provokes me into defending myself. I nearly kill him. Then Newt tries to kill me, thinking I'm Ku'Sox. Al stops her, saving my life. And now we're all going to have s'mores together? What in hell is wrong with these people?

"Thanks," I said softly, sticking the puff into my mouth. The ugly taste of burnt amber hit my tongue, and I gagged, spitting it out into my hand. "Oh my God! What is wrong with your marshmallows?"

His ears red in embarrassment, Al handed me a napkin that hadn't been there a moment ago. I wadded it up with the marshmallow inside, leaving it on the low table between us. "The real ones cost too much," Al said with a sigh. "That's why I burn the hell out of them."

"So if there's a hole in the fabric of time, how do we find it and fix it?" I said, wondering what they were made from if they weren't real. The coffee wasn't any good, either. Brimstone?

"You can't." Pinkie high, Newt plucked a marshmallow from the bowl and stuck it awkwardly on a stick before handing it to me. "Your turn."

The toasting fork was warm in my hand. "You can't pinpoint it, or you can't fix it?" I asked, thinking that was an important distinction.

Newt didn't say anything, kneeling on the hearth and running her fingers through the fire as if it were a kitten's fur. Al's slippers shifted a hair's breadth, and I realized he was more than a little nervous. At the sound of the soft scuffing, Newt glanced at him, a sly look on her face as she smiled with her black eyes. My gut hurt as a second haze of ever-after sifted over her, leaving her looking as she had when she slid into Al's library and sucker-kicked me. "You're sweet," she said as her intent expression turned to me and I shivered. "Don't you want your marshmallow?"

"I just want to go back," I said, and then I stiffened when she got to her feet with a boneless grace, coming to sit on the couch, angling herself so her knees almost touched mine.

"And back you will go," she said, her hand touching my hair.

"If the ever-after is shrinking, maybe she should stay here," Al said, and I stiffened. Newt saw my anger, and my hair slipped from her hand.

"I proved I can hold my own against Ku'Sox," I said. "Besides, Pierce is there in case I do something really stupid. You owe me this chance. If I can't survive the next twenty-four hours, then I'll never survive here."

Newt's thin eyebrows were raised in question. She saw my scrying mirror, and I stiffened when she took it from me. "Such a pretty little triangle," she said as she gazed at her hazy reflection in my mirror, then shifted her appearance to look like me. "Al wants to kill Pierce," she said, tucking a strand of her now curly red hair behind an ear, making me shudder. "But he can't leave Rachel alone and vulnerable in the sun. And Pierce"-she handed my mirror to me-"well, he is going to destroy you whether he wants to or not. Scheming, scheming. Such little men's desires flow around you."

It was more than a bit disturbing to see myself dressed in Newt's clothes. This was one of her bad days, I think. "Pierce doesn't want to kill me," I said, my thoughts flashing back to our night under the earth, then his sullen temper when I'd saved Al. Maybe he'd forgive me if I told him I'd almost killed Al, too. "He had a moment of pique, is all. He'll get over it."

She was nodding, looking like me as she sat on the couch. "They all get over it, don't they? And then he'll destroy your hope, kill your soul. He won't even know what he's doing until it's too late. I can tell the future because my days are always the same." I stiffened as she touched my hair again, head cocked as she studied it, feeling it between her fingers that looked like mine, right down to the wooden pinkie ring and the chipped red nail polish. "Between you and me, you'd be better off with both of them dead," she finished.

Al cleared his throat. Newt's gaze shifted to him and she made a soft noise. "Al, you are a fool," she said as a sheet of black ever-after coated her and she turned back into her usual androgynous self. "You might have more than two curses to rub together if you didn't allow both your familiar and your student to run about in the sun, plotting against you."

"Then she should stay, yes?" he said, and she threw her head back and laughed.

"No. Rachel goes back," she said, and I sagged a little in relief. "There's more than one bet to be settled tomorrow, and they made me the referee again. They never let me bet anymore. Not since I won Minias. Where is he, anyway? Oh, that's right." She eyed me speculatively. "I killed him."

Great. Newt was a demon bookie on top of everything else. "What are my odds of getting my shunning permanently revoked?" I asked, having to know.

Newt smiled and handed me my scrying mirror. "You're going to lose because of Pierce. Didn't you hear me? Or do you forget things, too?"

I couldn't answer, trying to find enough air to breathe. Do I have a shot at this or not?

"That's my girl," she said, her eyes holding a shared pain as she saw my confusion. "Al, where are you going to put her? Not in your room. She'd pull a line through you and kill you when you hog the blankets. I'll take the waif in. I promise I'll bring this one up properly."

Newt patted the six-inch space beside her thigh, and my face became cold. Oh God. Anything but that.

Al stood, tugging the tie on his robe tighter. "I have everything under control."

Newt waved a thin hand in dismissal. "And that's why she was arcing a line through you, yes?" she said, then vanished. The seat cushion rose slowly, and the fire flared as new air was sucked down the chimney to replace her mass.

I forced my teeth to unclench, and I shifted my grip on my mirror. "Now, Al?" I prompted, and Al slumped back in his chair again.

"Al?" I said again, louder, and he glanced at me, his fingers searching the chair cushion until he found a little tin of his Brimstone. Opening it, he sniffed a pinch up each nostril, his head going back as he closed his eyes and sighed. Great, now I was going to set the Brimstone dogs off at the coven's meeting tomorrow.

"You do like doing things the hard way," he said, eyes still closed.

"You said you'd send me back," I warned him, and his head came down, his eyes looking a little redder than usual.

"I am, I am," he said, but he was just sitting there, pinching the bridge of his nose. He did that only when I really screwed up. Like the time I used foxglove instead of peppermint, and the curse I was working on turned his ink into stone. "I don't know if I should hope you win your bet or lose," he finally said.

"Huh," I said. "I thought you wanted me to lose."

"I do," he said, "but if you're in reality, it will take longer for anyone to figure out that you were the one who made the hole in the fabric of time. Nice going, Rachel."

Worry clenched my chest, and I set my mirror across my knees. "Why are you assuming it was me? Maybe it was Ku'Sox. He did make the arch fall down. I didn't do anything that you didn't do when you made a ley line."

But Al was shaking his head. Sighing heavily, he let go of his nose. "I made my ley line while jumping from the ever-after to reality. You made yours jumping from reality to reality. It's leaking."

I licked my lips. "I guess the collective is going to be pissed, huh?"

His bark of laughter startled me, and I tried to hide my jump. "Yes, the collective is going to be pissed. I just hope I can find out how to fix it before they listen to Newt and realize she's right."

"U-uh...," I stammered, and Al frowned at me.

"U-uh...," he mocked, then reached beneath his chair to the bundle that hadn't been there a moment ago. "Here. You're going to need this for your hanging tomorrow."

I caught the cloth-wrapped package he threw at me, scrambling so as not to lose my hold on the mirror. "What is it?" I asked, thinking it was too heavy to be someone's head.

His red eyes landed on me, seeing me scared, cold, and disheveled. "You are a mess. Wear it. I'm not picking you up tomorrow in rags."

"Hey! I have a chance here, you know. This is supposed to be a formality!"

He grinned at me with his blocky teeth. "You don't have a rainbow's chance in hell to get your shunning revoked," he said, fingering a marshmallow before dropping it back into the bowl. "You just traipsed across the continent, black magic spilling in your wake, freeing demons and destroying a national monument. You knocked out a coven member. Kidnapped her. Let her watch you use demon magic to fight off said freed demon. Twice. Hell, girl, you burned down Margaritaville!" His smile widened. "You are so screwed," he said, hitting his Brit accent hard.

"Shut up!" I shouted, holding my scrying mirror close between me and the package. A puff of burnt amber wafted up, and I winced. Whatever he had given me was going to need to be dry cleaned.

"All right, all right," Al said as he sat up and rubbed his hands together. "You can go home. Or to your pathetic little hotel room. Whatever," he added when I made a noise of protest. "I'm going to have a busy day today, and you'll just muddle it up if you're whining about here. I've got to make reservations at Dalliance. It's a little tight, but if I drop your name, something will open up. And there are your quarters to arrange." He looked up at me. "Are you sure you don't want to be roomies? You can have the soft pillow."

I closed my eyes and tried to find strength. "Please don't start." I had a chance, didn't I?

"Go, go, go...," Al said quickly. "And here. Sorry for being so rough. I didn't think you had it in you."

My eyes opened, and I saw him make a tiny ley-line gesture just before the ley line took me. Warm and tasting of salt, it slipped into me, dissolving me into nothing but memory. I tried to listen to the line like Bis said he could, or sense an auratic color, but nothing could get through my protective circle. Al even took the smut for the trip, which I thought was odd, and with very little disorientation, I caught my balance as the curse touched my thoughts and rebuilt myself from my memory. My jeans still stunk of ever-after, but my aching muscles, sore back, and pulped knee felt perfect. That small gesture Al had made before sending me home must have been a healing curse, because traveling the lines wouldn't do that to a person. I'd tried.

The walls of Trent's penthouse suite shimmered into existence, and the soft sounds of music. Apparently Pierce had figured out the MP3 player. My dusty boots pressed into the carpet, and I shivered as I suddenly had a body again and the cool, dry, air-conditioned air hit me.

Pierce was standing at the windows, watching the light of the unseen sunrise spill over the bay. His stance was worried, and he clearly didn't know I was back. The fog had lifted, and Alcatraz was visible. I took a breath, and he turned.

"You're back," he said, his voice giving me no clue to his mood, but his features...It was all there to see. His blue eyes held thick worry, anxiety, and relief, all mixed up. He didn't move toward me, and I didn't know where we stood anymore. Obviously he was glad I was back, but not enough to touch me. He wasn't confident enough of the future to cross the room and tell me today was going to be okay, that I was going to see midnight come and go-and be better for it.

"I'm back." Not looking at him, I carefully set the scrying mirror down and dropped the package on the coffee table behind me. God, I stank. I didn't think the hotel soap was going to cut it. A fifty-five-gallon drum of tomato juice might.

Pierce hesitated, then went to the chair by the window, taking up his long, heavy cotton coat and shrugging into it. "What took so long? Kalamack giving you trouble?"

Why did I care what he thought? "Al was messing with me," I said shortly, not wanting to get into it.

Pierce hesitated in his motion to adjust his collar, and he looked at me from under his shaggy bangs. "Are you okay?"

I nodded, and he turned away, watching his reflection in the mirror as he arranged his sleeves. "Where are you going?" I asked, as it was obvious he was leaving.

His eyes met mine in the reflection. "To converse with Vivian."

About me? "Pierce...," I started, remembering what Newt had said about my odds. Having a shunned witch speaking for me wouldn't help.

"Not about you," he said as he took his hat from the stand beside the door and arranged it on his head. "I'm wanting her opinion concerning me trying to reclaim my spot before they fill it. It will give you another positive voice."

My lips parted. "But you were dead!" I said, and he turned to me, his dark eyes smiling.

"I was," he said, inclining his head, almost hiding his face behind his hat. "That's a tricky word, 'was.' Once a coven member, it's for life, and I'm alive." His smile deepened as his gaze became unfocused. "Wouldn't that beat all creation? A coven member who is also a demon's familiar? It would make you look rather...tame." Gaze sharpening, he took a step to the door and stopped. "Do you have your phone? Call me if you have trouble."

I bobbed my head. He was going to try to reclaim his spot in the coven. I bet that would shift the odds in the ever-after if anyone knew.

"Good then," Pierce said, and I did nothing, completely shocked when he leaned into me and gave me a quick, almost-not-there kiss. On my mouth. And then he was gone before I could even find the scent of redwood in my soul.

"Wish me the luck of the dead," he said, half in the hall, half in my life.

"Good luck," I whispered, and the door shut. He had kissed me?

He had kissed me, and like an idiot, I'd done nothing. It wasn't as if he'd never kissed me before, but clearly something had changed in his thoughts between my taking Trent to Seattle and now. When I'd left, he had been cold and broody-angry with me for having foiled his attempt to kill Al, and rightly so. I'd done nothing to apologize, and he knew I'd do it again in a heartbeat. And yet he had kissed me and left to claim his old position to help me?

I wanted to mistrust this. I wanted to believe that it was a trap to further his own standing and perhaps find a way out of his servitude with Al, because with mistrust came distance, and my heart would be safe. But a small, wiser part of me knew that for all his dark power, for all the crap he had made of my life, Pierce was true to his beliefs and wouldn't stoop that low. If he was trying to help, it was genuine. He had set his own desires aside to further mine, and the knowledge of that was scary. His sacrifice made it far too easy for me to put him in the position of hero, inviting me to turn a blind eye to the darker side of his psyche so I could feel the rush of falling in love again.

Not this time, I vowed, my hands in fists as I wiped off the lingering taste of redwood from my lips. He was a black witch who would use forbidden magic to kill those who threatened his life or the lives of those he cared about.

So was I, but that didn't mean I had to love him for it.