Ever After

Chapter Eight



The red sun of the ever-after hurt my eyes, and I squinted, holding up a hand as I stood on dusty red soil made of pulverized rock and felt the gritty wind push at me. Al and I had come in on a slightly raised plateau. Before us snaked a dry riverbed. To our left was a slump of broken rock where Loveland Castle was in reality. Sprigs of waist-high yellow grass were scattered about, and a few stunted trees were all that was left of the woods that surrounded the castle in reality. Here in the ever-after, it was desolate.



Between us and the pile of rock, a ley line shimmered, more of a heat image than anything else in the sunbaked wind. The line was making me feel slightly nauseated, almost seasick. The leak? I wondered. As a gargoyle, Bis would know, but he'd be hard to wake until the sun went down.



Beside me, Al was again dressed in his familiar crushed green velvet coat, lace and all. Black boots with buckles scuffed the dirt, and he jauntily sported an obsidian walking cane and a matching tall hat. Dark round glasses protected his eyes, but I could tell it wasn't enough, as his expression was pained and the sun seemed to be picking away at our auras as we stood. The sun was one of the reasons the demons hid underground in vast caverns overlain with the illusion of the outside. The fact that structures tended to fall apart on the surface was another.



It was odd seeing Al, with his top hat and elegant grace, poking about with the tip of his cane as he found evidence of other demons. "No surface demons," I said. The hot air hurt my chest.



"The sun feels worse today." Al crouched to turn over a rock that someone had shifted.



I winced as the wind whipped my toga and tiny pinpricks of rock hit my bare legs. All around me were the telltale signs of other demons: a footprint here, a scuff there-an oval impression in the dust that looked like the bottom of Newt's staff. They'd been here, seen the damage, incidentally obliterating the evidence that Ku'Sox might have been here earlier to make the leak in my line worse. I sort of knew how the I.S. felt.



Al slowly exhaled as he stood, his expression blank as he looked out over the dry riverbed to the scrub and trees. His fingers fumbled in a tiny pocket, and he sniffed a pinch of brimstone. "It's a damn ugly place for a ley line."



"I wasn't planning on making one to begin with," I said, then shivered when a wave of ever-after coated me, falling away to show he'd changed me out my toga for head-to-toe black leather. No bra or panties, but at least the gritty wind wasn't scouring me like the sun was stripping my aura, and this outfit, unlike most, fitted me, not Ceri.



Oh God, Ceri. I was no closer to getting them back than when I'd got here.



Unaware of my thoughts, Al shoved a prissy pink-and-white lace parasol at me. "Here."



The frail thing clashed with the leather, but immediately I felt a sense of relief in its shadow. I'd seen Ku'Sox. He knew I was aware of what he'd done. He'd make his demands soon enough, and until then, I had to believe that Ceri and Lucy were okay. "Thanks," I said as I looked at the stack of rubble. "Shouldn't the line be over the rocks? That's where I came in."



Al began picking his way to my ley line, his cane knocking jagged chunks of rock from his path. "Lines drift," he said, his head down. "Move. They're like magnets repelling each other. They will shift across continents given enough time and impetus. They only appear to be stationary because they've balanced with each other ages ago. Yours here . . ." Al sniffed in consideration. "It likely won't move much anymore. Has it always been this size?"



I nodded as I came even with him and faced the barely visible shimmer in the air. The ley line the university was built on was wide enough that you could drive a team of horses down it for a quarter mile. The one in my graveyard was about four feet wide and twenty feet long, an admittedly small line. Mine here was about the same, maybe a little longer.



Al pressed his lips together, puffing his air out as he gazed at seemingly nothing, but he was probably looking at my line with his second sight. "You got out fast. The longer it takes, the wider the wound."



"Really?" So a small line was a good thing, which made me wonder who made the line in my graveyard. Then I wondered who had taken forever to get out of the one at the university. Al maybe?



Walking the length of the shimmer in the air, Al turned and strolled back, the line a haze between us. "A line this size can't be leaking this much on its own."



"It wasn't when I left it." I cocked my hip, feeling naked without my usual shoulder bag.



Al's focus landed on me. "Can you hear it?" he asked, and my lips puckered in distaste. "You're not using your second sight," he added, and I shook my head, tucking a gritty strand of hair behind an ear. But at his dramatic prompting, I exhaled and opened my second sight.



The ringing worsened, scraping across my awareness in a discordant jangle the way the red sun seemed to rub my skin raw. But as bad as it sounded, it looked even uglier. The line was the usual red shimmer at chest height, but there was a sharply defined line of purple at its center running the entire length, thickest at the center and thinning to nothing at the ends. It was almost black at its core, and streamers of fading red were funneling into it like bands of energy slipping into a black hole. I could actually see the leak as it sucked in everything around it, and it made my stomach twist.



"Is it safe to use like that?" I said to Al, looking distorted and red through the line's energy. Behind him, the rubble loomed ominously.



He shrugged. "We used it to get here."



Distressed, I put a hand to my middle and dropped my second sight. "Al," I said. "That purple core wasn't there the last time we were here."



"I know."



"What did Ku'Sox do to it?" I said, frustrated.



Hands on his hips, Al searched the line with his eyes. He reminded me of Jenks, somehow, even though he didn't look anything like him. "I don't know."



He believed me. Relieved, I eased my shoulders down. I debated walking through the line to stand beside him, then edged around it as he had done, my boots kicking rocks and pebbles out of my way. "So-o-o," I drawled, feeling small beside him. "How do you unbalance a ley line?"



Shifting his arms at his side, he glanced at me and then away. "No idea," he said, looking as if it had physically hurt him to admit it. "Tell you what. Toddle through it to the other side to reality and see what it looks like from there."



I backed up a step. "Seriously?"



Frowning, he gave me a once-over, the wind blowing his hair about his glasses. "Get in the line, will yourself through, and see what the line looks like from reality. If we're lucky, it won't be like this. Maybe it's merely a curse we can break."



I hesitated, then jumped when he swooped forward and took my arm, stepping us into the line together. "Hey!" I yelped as my stomach dropped and the sensation of an unending chalkboard scrape serrated over my nerves. Stiffening, I yanked out of his grip, but I didn't leave the line since he was still standing in it. If he could take it, I could, too.



Nauseated, I brought up my second sight. The purple line was so close I could touch it. My heart pounded, and little pinpricks of energy seemed to hit me. By all appearances, the line was sucking in energy, but the discordant jangle clearly showed it was giving something off as well.



"I'll stay here in the line," Al said, and I swallowed hard. "That way you can tell me what you can see. Do you think you are capable of that?"



"Sure." I licked my lips, then wished I hadn't as my tongue came away gritty.



"Now, maybe?" Al prompted as he tugged his sleeves down. "It's going to take me hours to get the sand out of my hair. And stay out of that purple shit."



I looked at the evil purple line, swirls of red vanishing at its black core. "Not a problem." Taking a slow breath, I closed my eyes and willed myself across the realities. It was different from using a line to jump, and demons seldom did it unless they were dragging an unwilling slave across realities-it was akin to taking a horse downtown when everyone else had a hovercar.



The whine from the line shifted, and I opened my eyes, seeing a ghostlike Al still standing beside me with a shimmer of red between us. The air lacked the bite of burnt amber, and the damned wind that always seemed to be blowing in the ever-after was gone. I could hear birds, and under my feet were weeds and grass. The sound of running water was faint, and tall trees leafed out for spring stood around me. Exhaling, I turned. Behind me Loveland Castle was whole again, albeit a dumpy little building falling apart-one man's dream of nobility crumbling from neglect. Noble ideas tended to do that when left alone.



"Well?" Al prompted, and I turned to him, catching my balance in surprise. The weirdness of the line was impacting everything. The vision of the dusty, sunbaked surface of the ever-after was superimposed over the lush greenery of the raised garden area of the castle, but the purple-and-black line looked about the same from this side as the other. Ugly.



I lowered the parasol and squinted up at the yellow sun. "It's hard to tell. Mind if I step away and see what it looks like from outside the line?"



"Hurry up about it," he grumped, and I took several hasty steps backward until the unsettling scrape across my nerves vanished. My soft headache went with it, and I took a breath of clean air. I was completely in reality, and I brought out the phone from my back pocket, checking the time. I had about fifteen minutes until Jenks summoned me, and knowing Al was becoming impatient, I texted Trent I was okay and to have Jenks give me another hour.



Unfortunately, the line looked about the same from this reality, though the grating whine that remained was a slightly higher pitch. Snapping my phone closed, I looked over the area to try to determine if anyone had been here. The weeds right under the line were all ramrod straight, as if they were being tugged upward. It was weird, and crouching just outside the line, I ran a hand under it, watching the grass spring back. The ground between the clumps of weeds looked as if it had been vacuumed.



I stifled a shiver and rose. Thinking my parasol must look silly, I closed it. They did have tours at the castle, occasionally. I could see no evidence that anyone had been here in weeks, and I stepped back into the line. Al seemed to relax as I became slightly more real to him, slightly closer to his reality. "Well?" he prompted.



I shrugged, scuffing my boots in the grass. "It looks the same, but the pitch of the whine is higher. The grass, though . . ." I kicked at a tuft. "It's growing funny. Straight up, like it's being pulled. Even the ground looks like anything not nailed down got sucked up into it."



"Maybe it did." Al ducked under the purple line, shuddering as he came up on the other side, closer to me. "The purple seems to be a physical manifestation of a heavy leak of energy."



"Where's it going?" I asked. "The energy, I mean?"



Al held his arms behind his back, adopting a posture of lecture that I recognized from our days and nights in his kitchen/lab. "When the sun is up, energy flows from reality into the ever-after; when the sun goes down, the flow reverses." His voice echoed, ghostlike. "The problem is that less is flowing into the ever-after than is going out. That purple line? I don't know what in the two worlds that is. It appears to disrupt the natural ebb and flow, sucking in energy like an event horizon. Making it worse than it should be."



Event horizon? I wish I'd paid more attention in advanced ley line physics.



Al sighed, and I willed myself back to the ever-after. The wind hit me like a slap, and I popped my parasol back open. "I'm sorry," I said as I walked around the line to join him.



"For what?" he said sarcastically. "You've done so much."



I fidgeted. "For making the line to begin with, I suppose. How did you balance yours?"



Al gave me an askance look before rocking into motion, distancing himself. "I tweaked it until it was within proper parameters, but we can't do that with yours because it is a reality-to-reality-based line. Besides, you need to know how to jump a line first."



My jaw clenched, then relaxed. Bis had to teach me, and he was too young.



"Even so," Al said as he waved a dry stalk of ever-after grass through the purple line, then inspected it for damage, grunting as if something pleased him. "I don't think knowing how to jump a line will help. No, this purple shit is different." He straightened and dropped the stalk. "We should be able to do something about it. Buy us some time. Put us back where we were yesterday."



The first faint stirrings of hope began in me. "What do you have in mind?"



He flashed me a quick grin, and I felt as if I'd done something right. "Stay here," he said, waving his white-gloved hands dramatically. "I'll be right back."



"Al?" I called out, but he'd vanished. Nervous, I gazed across the bleak, sunbaked earth and the dry riverbed, feeling the bits of windblown earth hit me. I didn't like being alone on the surface, and I twirled my parasol. My hair was going to be impossible to get through tonight.



Almost immediately he stumbled back in, his head down and back hunched. "Ah, here," he said, his goat-slitted eyes meeting mine from over his dark-tinted glasses. "Put this on."



It was a small black ring, and I looked at it in my palm, seeing there was a new lump of a circlet under his glove. Uneasy, I eyed him.



"I'm not giving it to you," he huffed. "It's a loan. For a few minutes. I want it back."



"It's a ring," I said flatly, not able to tell if it was black gold or simply tarnished.



"Sharp as a tack, that one," Al grumped. "You want to put it on, now? Pick a finger."



I spread the fingers of my left hand, and I swear, he made a small noise of dismay. I looked up to see his jaw clenched. "What does it do?"



Al grimaced, shifting from foot to foot. "I, ah, it's a life rope of sorts. That is, me in the ever-after to pull your ass out of the fire if I'm wrong, and you in reality, fixing it."



Fixing the line was the entire point, and I didn't mind having a safety rope. If it was a ring, then that was cool. Still I hesitated; the ring seemed to soak in the harsh light. It was heavy on my palm, and I had the insane desire to drop it into a fire and see if an inscription appeared. I set the open parasol down, and it rolled in the wind until catching against a large rock.



"The rings will allow us to function as a single energy entity across the realities," Al said, standing almost sideways to me as he looked out over nothing. "I think."



"You think?" I said, starting to understand. "Is that like a power pull?"



Al leered, the wind shifting the gritty lank curls of his hair. "If you want."



Head shaking, I extended the ring back to him. "No."



He rolled his eyes, looking at the washed-out sky and refusing to take it. "You are utterly without a sense of humor today," he said, and my hand dropped. "We will simply be able to borrow upon and find each other's chi with minimal disruption."



These were more than just rings, and I wanted the truth of it. "Al," I said forcefully. "What are these? You have one, too. I can see it under your glove."



Shoulders slumping, he showed me his back. "Nothing," he said, the wind almost obliterating his voice. "They're nothing now but a way to yank your butt out of the fire." He turned around, and his lost look surprised me. "Go through the line to reality," he said, gesturing. "You should be able to hear me whether you're in the line or not if you have the ring on. You'll have a better chance fixing it if you work from the reality you made it from." I hesitated, and he added, "Think of them as a scrying mirror, without the eavesdropping."



Unsure, I looked at the simple band of tarnished metal. A private line to each other's thoughts was a rather questionable connection-not a violation as such, but very . . . personal. It didn't help that they looked like wedding bands.



Against my better judgment, I slipped the ring on my index finger. Wavering on my feet, I felt my consciousness expand. It was exactly like a scrying mirror, but the connection was tighter, far more intimate. I could feel not just Al's presence, but sense his masculinity, his worry, his concern. I could sense the limits of his chi, and I knew to the last iota how much it could hold, the power he could wield. It wasn't as much as I could. It wasn't that he lacked. Female demons had a naturally elevated ability to harbor two souls behind one aura, as in having a baby.



"Mother pus bucket," Al said breathily. "You've expanded your reach, Rachel."



Apparently he could see my abilities as well. "Is it supposed to feel like this?" I asked, heart pounding as I flicked a quick look at him.



"This isn't a good idea," Al said, seeming as uncomfortable as I was. "We might be able to do this with scrying mirrors."



I jumped when he took my hand to slip the ring from me. There was a pain in the back of his eyes that had nothing to do with me. My heart pounded, and not knowing why, I curved my fingers to make a fist. Al's attention jerked up, and I knew I must've looked panicked as he froze. "Ah, I'm good," I said, tense. "That is, if you're okay."



His lips twitched. "I didn't expect it to be . . ."



"What?" I prompted when he faltered.



"Exactly the way I remembered it," he said sourly, and he dropped my hand. "Go. Let me know when you're in reality standing outside the line. As I said, they function much as a scrying mirror."



He turned away, waiting, and I hesitated. He was staring out at the broken landscape of the ever-after, thinking of someone. I could feel it in his thoughts, the longing for something he'd lost so long ago that he'd forgotten even that he missed it.



My feet scuffed, and he tensed. Spinning the ring on my finger, I stepped into the line, being careful to stay clear of the purple center. Immediately the harsh discord renewed my headache, but almost before I recognized it, the pain seemed to halve. Al had taken some of it.



"Sorry," I said, and he spun, coattails furling and heartache carefully hidden.



"That's what the rings do," he said, urging me away with his gloved hands. "It's not anything I wasn't expecting. Go."



Nodding, I took a breath and moved myself into reality. Again I breathed the fresh air, relishing the warmth of the yellow sun and the soft hush of the wind in the trees. It was no wonder demons were bad-tempered. They lived in a virtual hell.



Remembering Al, I toned down my thoughts of relief.



Good, they work, he thought, and I squirmed as his masculine, domineering presence solidified in mine. I wasn't sure if they would between realities.



"Good Lord, can you ease up?" I asked, feeling as if he was breathing down my neck, and I felt him chuckle.



Uncomfortable?



I looked over the fallow, weed-choked garden, seeing the outlines of a man's dream of a perfect spot of truth. "A little, yes," I said, then sighed in relief when the spun-adrenaline feeling he was instilling in me seemed to fade. He was everything masculine, and having it so close was unnerving. "Thanks," I said, backing out of the line and looking at it with my second sight. I could see Al watching me like a foppish ghost from a romance novel. "So, how do I fix it?"



I changed my mind. You watch. I'll investigate. I'm going to follow the purple line inward, see if there's an aura signature on it. Maybe I can plug it. It's clearly a manufactured flaw, and as such, it will have a beginning and an end with which to unravel it.



I smiled. "And with proof, they will go after Ku'Sox!"



I'd rather fix it, he thought at me wryly. If we can't do that, we will all still die. That is, everyone but you and Ku'Sox.



My attention came up from where I'd been scuffing the grass. "Then you think he has a way around that curse?"



He nodded, and my heart pounded. "But you said not to step into the purple line."



That was before the rings.



Distrusting this, I stared at him, the red sheen of a dimensional barrier between us.



There's nothing in either reality that will sever our connection through the rings, he thought, glaring at me. If I get stuck, pull me out. Ah, without physically going into the purple shit, that is. If both of us are in there, what's the point of a lifeline?



Still I looked at him, weighing his body language against the emotions I was sensing through the rings. He was better than me at blocking them, and I wasn't sure why he was nervous. Al, I thought at him, hands on my hips. I don't like this plan.



We don't have time to find a plan you like. His thoughts slipped into mine, oily with deceit. Newt is paying for the volume lost with her own space. The sooner we get this hole plugged, the better. I just got my atrium back, and I don't want to lose it.



He was moving toward the purple line, and fear slid down my spine, magnified by Al's own worry. "Al!" I cried out, hand outstretched.



Al stopped, turned, and gave me a last look. Hold on to me, I saw him say, hearing it echo in my thoughts as well. Don't let go.



And then, he stepped into the purple line.



I gasped-it felt as if an ice pick was hammered into my skull from the top right to the bottom left. I screamed, falling to my knees. Al's pain. It was Al's pain, and I floundered, forcing my eyes open. I couldn't see him, and I panted, almost losing him in my thoughts. Forcing the bile down, I closed my eyes and searched for him with my mind. I was swimming in a black cloud of acid, unable to open my eyes, arms outstretched and burning as I followed down a rising trace of agony like bubbles to find him.



"Got you!" I gasped, and I wrapped my soul around his.



I flung myself backward with him, crying out because it felt as if my thoughts had been ripped apart. My back hit the scattered tufts of grass, and I stared up at a perfect blue sky. The pain was gone. Al wasn't with me.



"Al!" I scrambled to my feet, realizing what happened. I'd tried to pull him into reality when the sun was up. It wasn't happening. I couldn't feel him anymore, and in a panic, I rushed back into the line, willing myself into the ever-after with wild abandonment.



The line burned, scraping across me like sandpaper. Even with my second sight, I couldn't see Al, and I wondered if he had been sucked into that purple line. If I physically went in after him, we'd both be lost. I had to stay where I was. But perhaps with the rings . . . Maybe I could find him with my mind and bring both his body and soul back?



I gave one last look at the broken, red-sheened world the demons were consigned to-a hell of their own making designed to entrap and kill the elves but that had only damned themselves. And then, falling to my knees, I closed my eyes and sent my mind into the line, letting it be pulled into the purple-black nothing.



My breath came out in a pained whimper, and I fell against the dry earth, my hands spasmodically clenching on the broken rock, my cheek pressed into the dirt. My mind was squished to a thin line, my thoughts reduced to a colorless state. My heart beat, and that hurt even more.



Al! I thought, and the pain redoubled as I found him, struggling to think, starved for thought under the crushing pressure. There were sparkles in my distant fingertips and toes. I was suffocating. If I didn't get us out of here soon, I was going to forget how to breathe and we'd both die.



My skin and thoughts on fire, I wrapped what I could of myself around the echo of emotion that was left of Al. With one last agonizing push of will, I sent us home, back to where my body jerked in convulsions in the red dust.



The harsh wind of the ever-after hit me like a slap. The heavy weight of Al slammed into me, and we both cried out as he slid to the earth. Sharp fragments of stone bit into my side, and I heard him take a sobbing breath of air. I tried to move, my scream of pain coming out as a whimper. My thoughts still burned, and I finally got my eyes open.



We were in the ever-after, the humming ley line still unchanged above us, still holding that core of purple nothing. Beside me, Al lay askew, his green velvet coat charred, mimicking the state of his mind, his aura. Pain-racked, I managed to sit up, tears running down my face as my eyes tried to clear. My clothes were untouched, and I wondered how much of this pain was mine and how much was Al's.



Al's body shifted as he took a ragged breath, and I touched him, my hand shaking and the ring glinting a bright silver white in the red air. It was black no longer, the tarnish burned away.



"Al?" I croaked. The sun hurt, but I couldn't reach the parasol, shifting back and forth in the wind that scoured me to my bones.



"I thought you'd . . . left . . . me."



I could barely hear him, and I leaned on his shoulder as I scooted closer. He gasped at the added weight, and the pain in my head doubled. "I couldn't pull you out into reality," I explained. "I had to move to the ever-after to do it."



"I'm out?" he said, and his jaw clenched as he opened his eyes. He'd lost his glasses somewhere, and his eyes were black-like Newt's. He closed his eyes at my fear.



"We're out," I said, still panting at the pain. We were out, but I didn't think it mattered.



"I'll get us home," he said, and then we both screamed as he tried to jump to a line. Fire burned down both our synaptic lines, and I fell back, groaning as I forced my lungs to keep working. If I was breathing, I was alive, right? How could it hurt so much? I was on fire. We were burning to death from the inside out.



"Oh God. Oh God," I moaned, looking in my hand in wonder. It looked the same, but it felt like it was burning, charring. "Don't. Don't do that again. Please."



"I can't jump us, Celfnnah. I'm sorry. Save yourself."



The heartache in Al's voice cut through the agony, and I focused on him, seeing him curled up against the pain. Celfnnah? "You want me to leave?" I said in disbelief as my tears started again, but whether they were to clear my eyes of the grit or because of Al, I couldn't tell.



Al groaned, and with a sudden jerk, he finally got the ring off his finger. My breath sucked in as the pain vanished. He took one last shuddering breath, and then he passed out, his entire body going limp. My hand flashed out as Al's ring pinged against the rock and I caught it.



Silence filled me, the cessation of pain almost unreal as the wind shifted a lank curl into my line of vision. There was only a fading ache, deep in my tissues as if I had been in a fever. "Al?"



I touched his shoulder, my hand coming away with a sheen of sweat bleeding all the way through his clothes. He still breathed, but he was out cold. "Don't you go to sleep, Al!" I shouted, shifting to kneel before him. "Stay with me!" I might as well be talking to the dead, and I put his ring on my thumb so I wouldn't lose it. Stretching, I reached for my parasol, holding it over both our heads. Damn it, we were in big trouble now.



My head jerked up at a clink of rock, and my heart seemed to clench at the skinny, raw figure silhouetted against the red sky, his tattered clothes drifting in the never-stopping wind, looking like the remnants of an aura as it fluttered. I tensed. Where there was one surface demon, there were many, and they only attacked the weak.



Yeah, we fit that category now.



"Al!" I hissed, shaking his shoulder, but he only groaned. "Wake up! I can't jump us. Damn it, I knew this was a bad idea!"



A huge shadow covered us and was gone. Looking up, I tapped my broken line, crying out and shoving it away as the discordant jangle cut through me. Either I'd damaged my aura, or the line was truly poison. Eyes on the empty sky, I scrambled up, not knowing if I could reach another line from here, but willing to try. But I froze when I saw what had made the shadow. It was a huge gargoyle-his skin gray and pebbly, and his leathery wings bigger than a bus is long. Slowly my panic ebbed to a cautious alarm, leaving me shaking and standing askew.



The surface demon had vanished, and I stared as the huge gargoyle made one last circle and landed where it had been, as if daring it to return. My gaze flicked to the sun. Either this gargoyle was very old or they went by different rules here in the ever-after.



My attention dropped to the heavy, notched sword he had in his clawlike hand, and I edged back to Al, feeling scared for an entirely new reason.



"Who are you?" the gargoyle said, his vowels sounding like rocks grinding, his consonants like iron shavings stuck to a magnet, sharp and pointy. "What are you doing to the new rift?"



His sword had drooped slightly, and I took a slow breath. Gargoyles were protectors. Either I was in big trouble or I finally caught a break. "We were trying to balance it. Please, can you help us? He's burned. We need to get out of the sun."



The gargoyle dropped the sword as if it were a worthless stick, and it pinged against the rock until it wedged itself. His craggy hind feet cracked the stone as he shifted his grip. "Balance the line?" he said, his voice rising and falling. "That's short term, but possibly the only answer that I will allow. For now. I know you. Your gargoyle is too young to facilitate fixing the new. This is your line. It rings with your aura. You let him break it. Why?"



Him? I thought, trying to shade Al with my body. He must be talking of Ku'Sox, and I wished a gargoyle's testimony would hold up in a demon court. "I didn't let him break it. He did it to blame me for destroying the ever-after. Do you know how I can fix what he did?"



The gargoyle yawned and looked at the sun. "Change damaged it. Change will fix it. In time it will fix itself, destroying everything here along with it."



From my feet, Al moved, whispering, "Newt. Call Newt."



My gaze jerked to him, glad he was conscious. "Newt?"



His eyes opened, and I started at his black eyes. "She can jump us," he breathed, clearly not seeing anything. "She'll be listening for you. She's worried about you, the insane bat." Wincing, he tried to move, then thought better of it. "Do hurry. I feel less up to par than usual."



Nauseated, I loosened my hold on my thoughts, searching for the demon collective. I'd never tried to contact anyone without a scrying mirror, but as he said, she was listening. "Newt!" I shouted, and the gargoyle lifted his wings in alarm. "Newt, I need you. We need you!"



The gargoyle made one leathery down pulse of air, then hesitated, his feet still gripping the ruins of the castle. "You won't find enough time to fix it before it fixes itself. The lines are failing. The world breaker wakes. We need to leave. Save who you can."



He jumped into the air, the wind from his departure making me squint and sending my lank hair blowing back. He circled once before becoming lost in the red sun. Desperately worried, I looked at Al, out cold again. The sweat had dried on him, and he was shaking.



"Maybe I should've asked him for help," I whispered, then spun at the clink of stone on wood. It was Newt, and I was struck dumb for a moment, reminded of the first time we'd met. She'd been a referee to see how long I'd last after the sun went down, marooned in the ever-after by Trent's "best friend." She was wearing a long, flowing robe like a desert sheik, her black staff in one hand, the other holding her robe closed against the wind. Her awareness, though, was clear this time, her step sure as she made her way to us with a new urgency.



"Help me get him home," I said before she had closed the gap, and I shocked myself with the knowledge that I'd pay just about anything for it.



Her long, somewhat bony hands were gentle as she crouched beside him, holding a hand over him as if testing his aura. "What did he do?" she asked tersely, then paused as her glance fell on the sword the gargoyle had left behind.



I sniffed, backing up a step with my arms wrapped around my middle. "He tried to find out if Ku'Sox made that purple line and fell to the bottom of it."



Newt spun, finding her feet in an instant. "And you let him?"



"He didn't say it was going to scrape his aura off!" I yelled back. "I got him out, but . . ." My words faltered, and I felt the prick of tears, hating them. It was Al, for God's sake.



"You got him out?" Newt blinked her black eyes at me, drawing herself up when she saw the ring on my hand. "Oh." She hesitated. "He gave you . . . Where is the other one?"



Nervous, I held up my other hand to show her my thumb. "He took it off. He took all the pain so I could call you."



Newt made a harrumph of disagreement. "He took all the pain so it wouldn't kill you."



Fidgeting, I came closer. Was she going to help or not? "Newt. Please. The sun."



Her androgynous face twisting to look more feminine somehow, she squinted up at it. "Indeed," she said sourly, twitching the hem of her robe off Al. "It's like breathing in acid."



The gritty wind gusted against me with a sudden force, and I closed my eyes, feeling the dust suddenly halt and drop away before it could hit me. It was Newt yanking me into a ley line, and with a nauseating twist, the horrid red sky winked out of existence.



My heart thudded once, twice, and still we hadn't reemerged anywhere. My lungs started to ache, and at the last moment, when I thought she might have forgotten me and I was going to have to scrape another line into existence trying to get out, she yanked me into reality.



Stumbling, I caught myself against the bedpost in Al's room. The oil lamp beside the bed was lit, making shadows at the edges of the smallish chamber. Browns, golds, and greens mimicked a primeval forest, and plush, sinking textures made it a close, secure space.



"Sorry about that," Newt murmured, looking matronly as she tucked the cover over Al, already resting in my, or rather, his bed. "It took me a moment to get around the room's safeguards. I thought one jump right to his bed would be better than sliding into the library and having to drag him."



"Yes," I whispered, suitably cowed. Al had told me his old bedchamber was absolutely foolproof, but apparently it wasn't crazy-proof. I let go of the bedpost, and Newt sat on the bed beside Al, looking like a bedside nurse. I couldn't see anything but his face, the rest of him lost in the voluptuous coverings.



Giving Al's cheek a little pat, Newt looked up, her black eyes taking in everything in a single sweep. "This is not Al's bedroom. It's far too . . . plush."



"It's mine," I rushed. "He gave it to me. Made me take it. He sleeps in the closet."



"You make him sleep in a closet? Very good. You might survive him after all."



I edged closer to look down at Al, the bed between Newt and me. "It's not really a closet. I just call it that. It's a tiny nine by twelve I got for making Tron that car."



"Oh." Her hand touched Al's, turning it over as if looking for the ring on my thumb.



"Is he going to be okay?"



Again, Newt blinked at me, her eyes looking almost normal in the dim light. "You care?" Her gaze was on the ring he had given me, and I hid it behind my other hand. My thoughts went to Celfnnah, but I wasn't going to ask Newt.



From the bed, Al's voice rasped out, "Of course she cares. I'm a god to her."



"Al!" I leaned forward over him, and he squirmed as if hurt.



"Mother pus bucket," he swore, running a sweat-stained, dirt-caked hand over his forehead. "I feel like I've been across a cheese grater several times in quick succession." His gaze sharpened, and he tried to sit up, panic edging him. "Where are my rings? My rings!"



"Here," I said as Newt forced him to lie back down, and I wedged both rings off my finger and thumb, dropping them into his waiting palm. He slumped, eyes closing as his thick fingers wrapped around them. His hand was shaking, and I remembered the pain we'd shared. Taking that doubled would have killed me.



"I let go of him," I said, backing up from the bed and feeling as if this was my fault. "I had to. I couldn't pull him through to reality while the sun was up. I had to let go so I could move to the ever-after to get him!"



"Stop babbling," Al grumped, trying to smack Newt's hand away as she tried to see his eyes. "It wasn't your fault. Let me sleep." He opened an eye to glare at Newt. "What is your problem, bitch?"



Newt stopped trying to lift his eyelids, and I shut my mouth.



"I'm not babbling," I said, sounding sullen even to myself.



Still sitting on the edge of the bed, Newt tucked the covers to his chin. "Good thought, bad implementation."



It looked as if he was going to be okay, and I wondered if Newt had seen the bottom of a purple line once and survived. "Can I do anything?" I asked.



"You? No," Newt said. "But I have an aura that I can give Al if-"



"No!" both Al and I exclaimed, and she looked insulted, standing up to smooth her robe.



"No need to shout. You'll just have to wait until you heal, then. Here, in Rachel's bedroom." Her eyes went over the ceiling. "Where all your safeguards are."



I started to relax. It lasted all of three seconds until Al pushed Newt's hands off him again, muttering, "Ku'Sox did it." I stiffened, and he added, "The entire leaking line is a ruse to get us to kill Rachel for him. A very expensive, chancy ruse." He made a wry face at me. "Maybe you shouldn't have cursed him."



"It was him or me, and I like where I live," I said loudly, and Al winced.



Newt gave up on Al and stood with her arms crossed before herself. "I saw to the bottom of that purple line," Al said. "His aura signature is down there. He caused it, whatever it is."



I lifted the mass of my tangled hair and let it drop, wanting nothing more than a hot shower and a carton of ice cream. "So we can go to the collective and make him fix it, right?" I said, feeling good for the first time in . . . hours? Had it only been that long?



Newt had drifted from the bed, tidying little things here and there, snooping, and my hackles began to rise. "If he caused it, he can fix it," she said. "But he'll wait until after you're dead, then 'save' us so we are more indebted to him."



Al snorted. "A brat after my own heart. Minus the killing Rachel part, of course."



"But you know he did it!" I said. "We found the proof!"



Al said nothing, and my smile faded. "Al?" I questioned, and he sighed. Even Newt was avoiding me, and a spark of anger grew. "We can make him fix it, right? Al, you saw his signature in the leak."



"Unfortunately-" Al started, and I got in his face, waving my hand under his nose.



"No, no, no!" I exclaimed. "There is no unfortunately in your next sentence. We make him fix it! I'm not going down as the one who broke the ever-after!"



Al heaved a sigh, then shivered when a black-smeared coating of ever-after slithered over him. It fell away to leave him clean, the soft shape of an old-fashioned nightdress showing between his skin and the coverlet. Newt, obviously. "Rachel," he said as he studied his bare hands. "My aura is burned down to my soul. Will you wait a few days? Then we can go in, accusations and hidden barbs flying, okay?"



I scrunched my nose up, hating Newt when she laughed at me. "Ah, the vigor of the young," she said, making things worse. "If it were me, I wouldn't go even then."



"Why not?" I said, feeling another unfortunately coming on.



Newt touched a hand mirror that looked identical to the one I'd seen Ceri use. "Al's testimony will be suspect, even if he did nearly kill himself. No one will risk verifying the truth of it after seeing what it did to him. Al would be dead now if not for . . . you pulling him out."



She had been going to say "those rings," but I kept silent. Her word choice was telling. Frustrated, I loomed over Al, and he closed his eyes, ignoring me. "Al," I said forcefully, and he opened them. I hesitated at his black orbs, then rushed ahead. "I am not going to take the curse off Ku'Sox. It's the only reason I can sleep at night. Besides, I don't think he simply wants me dead, he wants all of you dead, too, or why bother with the Rosewood babies?"



Newt looked at Al, an unusual trace of fear in the back of her eyes. "I believe you," she said, her fingers tracing over the few things on the dresser. "But no one is going to help you."



"Why not?" I said in frustration.



"Because we know we can't control him, and we are cowards," she said. "It was your familiar who freed him, and thus it is your responsibility to control him. If you can't, we will give him you to placate him and save ourselves."



This sucked. "I got him back in the ever-after," I said, and she took up the hand mirror.



"Where we didn't want him," she said, and I slumped. "Best him, or we will kill you so he will save us. I'm surprised the collective gave you any time at all. They must like you."



I couldn't get the frown off my face if I tried. Like me, huh? Funny way to show it.



Al reached out to take the mirror Newt had brought to the bed. "Send her home," he said, sounding tired, and then he started at his reflection. "What the devil happened to my eyes?"



Newt took the mirror back despite Al's protests, oddly sexy as she sashayed across the bedroom to put it back on the dresser. "Will they return to normal?" he asked, and she shrugged.



"No!" I said loudly, and Al looked at me. "This is bull crap!" I added so he'd know I wasn't talking about his stupid eyes. "Ku'Sox is going to own up to this!"



"He'll say you went in on it together and are now backing out, love," Newt said.



My zeal evaporated at the moniker, and cold, I slowed my anger. I didn't like being "love" to a demon. It meant I was being stupid and foolish.



"Newt, send her home, please," Al said, his voice low in fatigue.



The demon inclined her head, and I waved my hands in protest. "Hey! Wait! Who's going to watch you?"



"I don't need watching," Al mumbled, burrowing deeper into the folds of goose down and silk. "Go home. Call me in three days."



Three days?



Al smiled, his eyes closed. "Newt?"



"Damn it, no!" I shouted, but my words caught in my throat as I was suddenly wrapped in Newt's awareness. I snapped a bubble of protection around myself before she could. Send me home like a little girl, eh? I thought, steaming in anger.



But, as reality swirled around me and I found myself standing in my sunlit graveyard, my church before me in the late afternoon light, I sobered. Ku'Sox could show up in my church day or night thanks to Nick. And there were Ceri and Lucy to think about, hostages in the extreme. I couldn't risk Ku'Sox taking revenge out on them, turning my potential win to a personal loss. Getting him to admit that I had nothing to do with that ugly purple line sucking in ever-after without compromising Ceri's and Lucy's safety wasn't going to be easy.



Immediately I found my phone, scrolling until I got to Trent's number. I ought to put him on speed-dial or something. Pixies were coming from everywhere, and I waved them off as I began walking to the church's back door, my head bowed as I waited for someone to pick up. "Your dad is fine," I said, glad when Jumoke chased most of them back to their sentry duty.



Three rings and a click, and my feet stopped when I heard Ray crying through my phone. It was a soft, heart-wrenching sob of loss that no ten-month-old should even be aware enough to make. Jenks was singing to her about blood-red daisies. "I'm back," I said even before I knew if it really was Trent. "Don't summon me."



"Did you see them?" Trent asked, his voice shockingly stark. I took a breath to tell him, my throat closing when I couldn't get the words out. My eyes welled up. For three heartbeats, neither of us said anything, and then softly, Trent added, "No, I guess you didn't."



"I think they're okay," I said, but it sounded like a thin hope even to me. My chest hurt, and I began to weave through the grave markers, one hand wrapped around my middle so it wouldn't cave in. In a soft sound of wings and dust, Jumoke sat on my shoulder. "Ku'Sox has them. He's going to use them to force you and me to do what he wants. Trent, give me some time to find a way to get them back. Ku'Sox can't do this. Ceri is a freed familiar. All I have to do is file the right paperwork."



"I don't have time for paperwork," he said bitterly, and then I heard him sigh as Ray finally stopped crying. I could hear her little-girl snuffles, and I figured he'd picked her up.



"Give me some time to talk to Dali then," I said. "I need a chance to explain what's going on to him, and then maybe he'll help."



"Why would a demon help me?" Trent said, and I looked up at the church, squinting to try to find Bis. There was another huge gargoyle up there, and I frowned.



"He'd be helping me, not you. And I'm not going to ask him to do it for free," I said, then softened. "Give me a few hours. Can you bring Jenks home for me? And maybe my car? Say after midnight? I should be done by then and will have more information for you."



"Midnight!" I heard Jenks shrill, then I frowned when Trent covered the phone. "Fine, midnight," the pixy said sourly when I could hear again.



"Trent?" I said cautiously.



"I'll see you at midnight," Trent said, and then the phone went dead.



Startled but not surprised, I closed the phone and tucked it away. Arms wrapped around myself and my head down, I stomped up the back porch and wrestled the screen door open. This was going to take a lot of planning.



I should have called Ivy.