Ever After

I shivered despite the night’s warmth, and Bis tightened his grip on the retaining wall, making the stones crack. I didn’t want to let the little guy know how nervous I was, but it was hard with him so close. Trent’s rings were in my pocket. I had refused to give them to him when I’d come back through the vault, afraid he’d come out here with Quen and do something stupid. Quen wasn’t up to magic yet, and it had taken both of us to convince the man to stay with Ray tonight lest Ellasbeth take her to the West Coast for her own hostage demands.

Trent was helping Jenks canvass the nearby area for pixy intel, but I still felt naked knowing that Al wouldn’t be able to save my butt if Ku’Sox showed. For the first time, I was really on my own. “Well?” I whispered to Bis, wishing they would hurry up. “What do you think?”

Bis shifted his clawed hind feet and bits of rock pattered down. “It hurts,” he said, simply, ears pinned to his skull. Depressed, I went to sit on the stone wall beside him, scooting myself up until my feet hung above the lower path.

“But do you think we can separate the imbalances?”

He shrugged, looking lost as his ears perked up. I was asking a lot, and I edged closer, rocks pinching me. “Let me hear,” I said, touching his foot so I could feel the lines resonate.

My teeth clenched as suddenly every single ley line within my reach sung inside my head. It was a heady experience—and why I usually had a bubble of protection around my thoughts when I touched Bis. This time, though, the harsh discord of my nearby ley line cut through the beauty, making my teeth ache and my head hurt.

“My God!” I said as I let go of him and stared at the line with my second sight. “How can you stand it?” And how am I going to separate anything from that noise?

The cat-size gargoyle shrugged, touching his wingtips together over his head. “I don’t have a choice. Everyone is tired of listening to it. I’ve been told to fix it, and fix it now.”

My thoughts zinged back to the three gargoyles I’d seen tonight before we’d left, perched on the roof of the church and spitting at the pixies to keep them out of earshot as they talked in low rumbles. I would’ve gone up into the belfry to eavesdrop, but I was afraid they might take Bis and move to another church. “You!” I said, surprised. “But it’s my line!”

His red eyes glowed eerily in the lantern’s light. “And I’m responsible for you having made it.”

“Bis, this isn’t your fault. Neither is Ku’Sox exploiting the tear to try to break the ever-after. Even if you hadn’t left me, I would have scraped that hole trying to get out.” I clutched my arms around myself, cold as I remembered it. I might have managed to jump the lines, but I’d damaged my aura and scraped a hole in reality in the process.

“But I left you,” he said, unable to look at me.

Smiling, I bubbled my thoughts and touched his shoulder. “It was my fault, not yours, for trying to jump a line before I knew what I was doing.”

He was silent, and I gave his shoulder a squeeze before letting go. I knew he still blamed himself. He’d changed a lot since then, waking up in the day for brief periods, becoming more somber, less prone to playing tricks on the pixies. He was getting older, and I worried that I’d brought an end to his childhood before its time. “Is this why there have been gargoyles on the roof with you?” I asked, not sure how much he’d be willing to tell me.

Immediately Bis brightened. “They’re teaching me the vibrations of their lines,” he said proudly. “Usually a gargoyle is taught by only one other gargoyle, but the lines aren’t acting right, so they’re taking turns by singing me only their line, the one they know by heart.”

“D-demons?” I stammered. “You’ve been talking to demon-bound gargoyles?”

He nodded, almost going invisible as he flushed a deep black to make his red eyes stand out. “They’re trying to teach me all the lines so that I can teach them to you. I only know a few, since most won’t leave the ever-after and their demons. They want me to come to them.”

He dropped his eyes, scared of the idea, and I frowned. “The lines aren’t acting right,” he said, clawed feet shifting as he looked at the line. “Demons aren’t jumping on their own at all. Everyone needs their gargoyle, like they’re brand-new to line jumping.”

Remembering my jump from the mall to Newt’s kitchen, I nodded. “They’re teaching you line jumping,” I said, and he grinned, a glint of light showing on his thick black teeth.

“Yup.”

I looked at the line, then him. “So you know what some of the lines sound like?

He nodded, making a face. “I know what they’re supposed to sound like. They’re off.”

“Because their imbalances are here in my line . . .” Fingers tapping the cold stone, I thought that over. “Bis, if you know what they’re supposed to sound like and you can hear what they sound like now, then maybe I can find what’s missing in my line here and shift it back. It’s the misplaced imbalance that’s causing the trouble.”

Bis’s eyes blinked slowly. “Maybe that’s what they were talking about,” he said, his heavy brow furrowing. “Pigeon poop, Rachel. Talking to those old gars is like talking to crazy old men. They never come out and tell you what they mean. Everything is spoons and two-legged chairs. What does a spoon have to do with a ley line? I don’t know! Do you?”

Clearly he was frustrated. I could sympathize, having listened to enough wise-old-man crap to fill a wheelbarrow. “No,” I admitted, “but if we can separate even one imbalance and put it back, it might make a big difference in the leak. Buy us some more time.”

“Or Ku’Sox might show up,” Bis said.

True. I exhaled heavily and turned in a slow circle, looking into the dark for the silver tracing of pixy dust. Jenks should have been back by now; Trent was slowing him down.

“Sounds kind of hard,” Bis said, the tip of his tail twitching.

I turned to follow his gaze to the ugly, shrill line, slumping as my first excitement died. “I know,” I said dejectedly. “I have no idea how to separate the imbalances.”

Bis moved his wings, the hush of leather against leather making me shiver. “Why does it have to be hard?”

Bis’s head turned. A second later, Jenks’s wings’ clatter became obvious. “It always is,” Jenks said as he hovered before us, dusting heavily and clearly having heard Bis’s last statement. Behind him, a black shadow strode out from the surrounding woods. It had to be Trent, or Jenks would be having issues. Besides, no one else I knew moved with that kind of grace.

“Well?” I asked Jenks, trying not to look at Trent as he rejoined us. Pierce’s warning was still ringing in me. I was not in love with Trent, and never would be—especially with Ellasbeth back in the picture and Trent on a mission to save the elves. True, we worked marginally well together. His unexpected surprises were annoying, but they did generally work out. And yes, he looked more than a little attractive in his sturdy black jeans, tucked-in stretchy shirt, and lightweight rain jacket. His fair hair was covered with a black cap to keep off the damp, and the black gloves were probably just for effect because I knew he wasn’t cold. But to entertain anything more than a casual work relationship was laughable.

Seeing Jenks hovering over his shoulder, I was struck by how they managed to look as if they went together though they were nothing alike. “There isn’t much here for pixies unless there’s a tour coming through,” Jenks said, his face glowing from the dust. “They remember you being here yesterday, and a bunch of demons before that, but not one on his own like Ku’Sox. We did a quick survey, and we’re good for at least a quarter mile unless you count the raccoons.”

I squinted at the line. “Okay. I’m going to take a look-see—”

“You’re not getting in that line!” Jenks shouted, and Bis’s red eyes widened in alarm.

“I’m not getting in the line,” I said, glancing at Trent to see him watching me with the same intensity as Jenks. “You think I’m out here sniffing fairy farts? Bis knows what some of the lines are supposed to sound like, and by comparing that to what they sound like now, maybe we can find the imbalance, bubble it, and move it out . . .”

My words trailed off when Trent tilted his head. “That wasn’t our original idea.”

Jenks hovered right before my nose, wings clattering belligerently. “Yeah? Then what?”

I winced. “Maybe if I move it out, it might just get sucked back into place?”

Bis was making this weird noise, and we all turned to him. I think it was his version of clearing his throat, but it sounded like rocks in a garbage disposal. “Ah, bubbled imbalance won’t get sucked anywhere,” he said