Ever After

hadn’t appreciated having to steal his own child.

“This is good, isn’t it?” I said, glancing back at the unappealing cold tea to see the fairies descending on it.

Trent looked sideways at me. “Yes, of course it is. It would make everyone’s lives much easier.”

Damn it, I couldn’t read the smile he was giving me, and the nerves suddenly started. What if that book was useless? What if Ellasbeth had brought it all this way, and I couldn’t figure it out? What if . . .

We paused at the door and Trent punched in a code on the pad. It was too fast for me, but I was sure Jenks caught it. There was a heavy thunk of a lock shifting, and Trent nodded, easily moving the huge, perfectly balanced door. “I’m anxious to see what you make of the book she brought,” he said, and Jenks buzzed in ahead of us, ever curious. “I remember looking at the pictures when I was about ten. I don’t know where my mother got it. Probably stole it from Ellasbeth’s mom, seeing as she willed it back to her.”

He chuckled, but I thought he might be serious as I followed him inside. The hallway was brightly lit and sported beautiful close-ups of orchids in the morning dew, but the air smelled stale after the rich scents of the garden.

“You’re going to have to look at it in the girls’ closet,” he said as we started down the carpeted hallway, heading back to the great room.

“A closet?” I said, trying to keep up with him. “You keep your magic books in a closet?”

“You keep your splat gun in a mixing bowl.”

True.

Jenks flew ahead as we entered the lower level of Trent’s great room. To my right was the huge three-story window ward that Lee had made, letting in light and sound but little else. Beyond its faint shimmer was the highly landscaped outside living area with a grill/kitchen and swimming pool. At the far end of the gigantic room was a fireplace large enough to roast an entire elephant in. In between was the grand staircase up to Trent’s apartments.

“Since learning my father’s vault downstairs was not secure, we moved everything to the girls’ closet,” Trent was saying as he headed for the stairway. “Ceri put some kind of demon ward on all the upstairs rooms. They aren’t holy, but it has the same effect. There’s no way in or out but the door, which only Ceri, Quen, and I have access to. If you ask me, it’s safer than my father’s vault. But the reason Ellasbeth insists you look at it there is because it’s temperature and humidity controlled and the book is ancient.”

That Ceri had warded the girls’ rooms sounded about right, and I touched the smooth finish of a couch as we passed. The ground floor here was basically a big party room. Past the stairway was a dark and silent bar area, and behind that the kitchen and underground parking. I knew, because I’d run through it more than once. Damn it, what was I doing having tea and cookies with Ellasbeth while Ceri suffered all that Ku’Sox was capable of?

Jenks dropped from the ceiling, an excited silver dust trailing from him. “Rache!” he exclaimed as he landed on my shoulder, his wings never slowing as they drafted my hair back. “You’ll never guess who’s here!”

“Who?” I asked, almost afraid.

From the third-story apartments, I heard Quen’s distinctive gravelly voice say, “I’ll speak to the chef immediately, Miss Withon.”

“See that you do,” said an imperialistic feminine voice, and I stopped short at the foot of the stairs.

Quen? He was okay? He was back!

Chapter Eleven

I spun to Trent. The smug brat was smirking. “Why didn’t you tell me Quen was back!” I shouted, my urge to smack him hesitating when Quen dryly cleared his throat. Distracted, I looked up at the railing. Quen was there, his pox scars standing out strongly against an unusual paleness. Ray was in his arms, and the little girl clung to him. Both Quen and Trent were smiling. Ellasbeth was not.

Trent’s hand went to my arm to lead me upstairs. “Why did you let me believe Quen was dead the morning he recovered from his vampire bite?” he said, and I jerked my arm away from him as we found the first step.

“I was a little preoccupied with Takata being my birth father,” I said, heart pounding as I took the stairs two at a time.

Trent kept up, maddeningly graceful. “It wasn’t my place to tell . . .”

My eyes narrowed. “Not your place . . . Are we even now? You little . . . cookie maker!” I exclaimed, knocking him off balance when we found the eight-by-eight landing for the first floor. Ellasbeth gasped, but Trent was laughing, even as he caught himself. Quen was here. He was okay. Finally something was going our way.

Seeing me lurch up the last of the stairs, Quen straightened to try to hide his fatigue. Our eyes met, and the older man nodded solemnly. On his hip, Ray gurgled happily. The little girl was in a sweet full-length jumper/Indian- looking robe of some sort cut from a subdued orange-and-brown paisley, her brown hair braided and looped out of the way. Hearing Jenks’s wings, she pushed from her father’s shoulder to find him. She was a beautiful blending of Ceri and Quen, and again I was struck by the frailty of this small family.

“Rachel,” Quen said simply, and I pushed past Ellasbeth in her cream-colored business suit and matching heels.

“That’s not going to do it,” I said as I pulled the older man into a hug, getting Ray mixed up in there somewhere. The curious scent of cinnamon and wine that all elves had mixed with the throat-catching odor of hospital. Under it was his masculine pull, a faint hint of controlled magic and ozone to give it some interest. He smells different from Trent, I thought. Trent’s magic smelled powerful, but Quen’s had a darker tang than Trent’s shadowed glow.

Suddenly realizing Quen’s arms had gone around me in what had probably been self-defense, I pushed back, embarrassed. “They let you out? When?” I said, wincing when Ray grabbed my hair and pulled me in.

The older man made a noise of admonishment, disentangling her fingers and then, unexpectedly, tugged me back to him with one arm, turning us both to the common living room visible through the wide archway. “They didn’t let me do anything. I left. It’s good to see you,” he said, his voice rumbling through me. “You’re the one who sent those damn demon-scented petits fours, aren’t you? They woke me up at midnight, and I left at two.”

I grinned as I slipped out from under his arm. He looked tired but good, the injuries to his nervous system obviously repaired enough to function. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“No, but everything will eventually come back,” he said, and I gave him a light punch on his arm and wrinkled my nose at Ray.

“Tomorrow morning, probably,” I guessed. Three days. That’s how long it took to renew an aura so it didn’t hurt when you tapped a line. What had Ku’Sox done to him?

Trent was making his way to Ellasbeth. Having seen our reunion—and not being a part of it—the woman had retreated to the small kitchen behind the large sunken living room. Four doors led to four suites—Quen and Ceri’s, Trent’s, the girls’. The fourth had been Ellasbeth’s when she had been his fiancee, and by the sound of it, it might be again.

My heart ached at the toys scattered in the living room, and a crayon-scribbled picture of horses was pasted to a door, a sad two feet from the floor. This was the closest that Trent would ever get to a normal family life, and I was angry that Ku’Sox had spoiled it.

Suddenly unsure, I followed Quen and Ray to the sunken living room, having to wave Jenks’s dust out of my way. The last time I’d seen Ellasbeth was when I’d arrested Trent at their wedding. I hadn’t known she’d been pregnant with Lucy at the time, and I didn’t know if it would have made any difference. The well-dressed, sophisticated woman looked broken as she sat at the small kitchen table, her expensive cream-colored slacks and coordinating top and jacket rumpled. She was tired, jet lag and worry having taken their toll on her perfect makeup and upright posture. Even so, I balked as her eyes found mine.

Her strawlike, straight hair looked fake next to Trent’s wispy strands, and her build was too strong to have only elf in her. She was not full blood, and it showed. Money had a way of erasing that, though, and her family was almost as influential as Trent.

Jenks’s wings shivered against my neck as he took refuge, and a chill went through me. “Oh, there’s trouble