Ever After

you?”

“No!” Trent exclaimed, then shifted on his feet nervously. “This is good,” he said as if trying to convince himself. “Ray and Lucy have natural ears. It’s fitting that I do, too.”

“You sure?”

He looked a little ill, but he was smiling. “Yes, I’m sure. Thank you.”

One foot cocked behind the other, Al leaned heavily on the counter and belched. “At least your hair will stop falling into your eyes with those huge wings of yours.”

I stiffened. “They are not huge,” I said crossly. “Trent, don’t listen to him. They’re just right. Seriously, I can fix them,” I said, reaching to touch them.

Trent’s hand on my wrist stopped me. “I like them,” he said, and I froze. Letting go, he retreated to his chair, sitting down and unlacing his dress shoe.

“What are you doing now?” Al questioned, listing heavily as he tucked another one of those bottles under his arm and staggered for the cot half hidden behind a curtain. “Seeing if your circumcision is gone? It is.”

My expression went blank, and Trent hesitated, a silk sock in his hand as he felt the underside of his big toe. He looked at me, and I put a hand to my mouth, face flaming. “Oh. My. God. Trent. I’m sorry.” Crap on toast, could I screw this up any more?

“Um,” Trent said, clearly at a loss.

“Call me tomorrow,” Al said seriously, pointing at him with a bottle as he reclined on the cot. “I’ve got a curse that will take care of that.”

“Ah, I had a scar on my big toe,” Trent said, his thoughts clearly scattered. “It rubbed sometimes.” He put his sock back on, the firelight making the creases in his forehead obvious.

“Unless you like the snake in a turtleneck look,” Al said, and I hung my head and massaged my temples. “Ceri did. But she was earthy in her desires. Delightful little animal she was.”

Al went suddenly still, his breath rattling as if he was in pain. Ceri. Suddenly I understood. That was why he was drunk. But it didn’t excuse Al’s presence. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered, mortified. “I didn’t think—”

“She called it my purse of delight,” Al was saying to the ceiling, flopped back on the cot until only his legs showed beyond the curtain, one foot on the cot, the other draped down onto the floor. A little sob came from him. “I should have freed her. I should have freed her . . .”

Trent had turned away, his steps long as he strode to the wine rack. “Rachel, have you tried my family label?” he asked, almost frantic as he searched for a corkscrew. “It’s fairly palatable for having been grown at this latitude. My father shoved a few more genes into a species or two for better sugar production.” Hands shaking, he poured white wine into a glass, downing it in one go. If I didn’t know him better, I would say he was babbling.

This was going really well, and I glumly sat back down on the raised hearth, my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands. The kettle had begun to steam, and I pushed it off the fire. I didn’t feel like coffee, and by the looks of it, neither did Trent. From behind the curtain, Al was either singing or crying. I couldn’t tell. Asking him to jump out probably wasn’t a good idea.

The clink of glasses brought my head up, and I wasn’t surprised when Trent gingerly sat next to me, setting the glasses on the hearth between us and filling them both. “He misses Ceri,” I said softly, to which Trent nodded, his own eyes filled with a private heartache.

“Miss that little bitch?” Al said, the curtain fluttering as he tried to get up. Arm waving, he managed it, his eyes haunted. His next words were lost when he saw the twin glasses, one of which Trent was handing to me. His heartache deepened, and he held his bottle high. “Yes, a toast to Ceri.” His bottle sloshed as he shook it. “You were a most exceptional familiar.” His arm dropped, and for a moment, there was silence. “I should have freed you, Ceridwen. Perhaps you would have sung to me again if I had.”

I thought of Al’s blue butterflies, and I set my drink down untasted. The last thing I needed was to add a headache to this. “I’m sorry, Al,” I said, my eyes welling up.

“She was a familiar, nothing more,” he slurred, swinging the bottle. “Why should I care?” But it was clear he did. “Miss her? Ha!” he cried. “That elf woman was useless! Hardly able to warm my coffee in the morning. Pierce did a better job of keeping to my schedule. I wouldn’t take her back even if I could get that damned resurrection curse to work.” His head drooped, and I hoped he would pass out soon. “She was forever waking me up in the morning, crashing the cupboard doors. The bitch.”

Beside me, Trent seemed to start. “She did that to me as well, every time I tried to sleep in on the weekends. Then she’d smile at me as if she didn’t know she’d woken me.”

“Crashing about,” Al said, gesturing with the bottle. “Making more noise than a box of squirrels. She did it on purpose, I tell you. On purpose!”

Trent shook his head as we watched Al begin to become unconscious. “The woman could stomp like an elephant,” Trent said softly, leaning to whisper in my ear and make me shiver. “Quen threatened to smack her.”

“Yes, thrash her,” Al said, slumping back against the wall. “But she always had my coffee and toast to distract me.” His expression became serious. “You cannot thrash the person who makes you coffee. It’s a rule somewhere.” Blinking, Al slumped against the wall, his hair pushing up behind him. “It was a sad day when she stopped singing. You can’t keep a caged bird. No matter how beautiful she is. Maybe if I had freed her. But she would have left me. This is hell, you know? My rooms are so quiet.”

I shifted on the raised hearth to build the fire up. I had a feeling we might be here for a while, and this was the only light source besides Trent’s lantern in the window.

Trent took a sip of his wine, a brief flash of worry crossing him. “Mine, too,” Trent barely breathed, his sadness obvious.

Al jerked forward in a sudden movement, and Trent started. “That is intolerable!” Al said, his feet flat on the floor and gesturing with his bottle before taking another gulp. “You must put yourself into the collective immediately so that we may converse!”

Poker in hand, I half turned, shocked. Trent, too, looked uneasy. “Ah, no. No, thank you.”

Head violently shaking back and forth, Al scooted forward on the cot. “Nonsense! We already have the wine. Rachel, fetch my yew stylus. It will take a moment.”

My head came up at the slippery pull on the ley line, and Al frowned as things started popping into reality and falling to the floor. “I need to tell you the circumcision curse if nothing else,” he slurred, blinking at the small vial of camphor that appeared in his fingers.

“Al.” I jumped at the dull crack of an empty scrying mirror hitting the ground inches from my foot, then ducked when the demon threw a bag of sand from him in disgust. “Al!” I shouted. “Knock it off! He doesn’t want to be in the collective!”

“I’m flattered,” Trent said with a false calm, the fire flicking eerily behind him, “but I don’t think the rest will appreciate it. Would you like another bottle of wine?”

I wondered if he was trying to get him drunk enough to pass out until the sun rose, seeing as Al showed no sign of leaving. Sure enough, his mouth on the bottle, Al nodded. “You helped kill Ku’Sox,” he said when he came up for air. “You don’t think they remember that? You can handle being in the collective.” He reached eagerly for the bottle Trent was extending.

“I’m not worried about handling it. I think they wouldn’t approve,” Trent said.

“Fiddlesticks,” Al said, then cleared his throat. “A-dap-erire . . .” he intoned carefully, and I checked to see that my zipper was up when the cork flew out of the bottle. He might be drunk, but he still had control, and it was right where it belonged. “Elves used to be part of the collective,” Al said as he winced at the first harsh swallow. “Just because there haven’t been any for the last five thousand years doesn’t mean it can’t be done. You can access the old curses then. Protect yourself. You’re going to need it. The old ways are ending. Embrace the new. Elves and demons living together.” He blinked. “Oh God. We’re all going to die.”

Standing beside the cot, Trent took the empty bottle from Al. “No. Thank you, but no.”

“Here.” Al reached out for the cracked scrying mirror, and I handed it to him, wishing he would go to sleep. “Draw the figures, elf man. Draw it. Pick a name. We can use your marvelous wine. Ceri, be useful and go fetch some salt.”

My heart clenched, but kneeling beside the fire as I was, I didn’t question why he’d called me that. “Go to sleep, Al,” I said, my own sorrow rising.