Ever After

had one. “Jenks, check Marcie’s sketch there. Who donated the demon slave rings?” Slave rings. This was a mistake. This was a mistake in a big way, but I had to take a huge leap if I was going to survive.

He whistled, his dust a shade brighter as he darted to the woman and leafed through her papers. “Ahh, Cabenoch.” He flew up, his dust settling on the velvet background to look like stars on a moonless light. “Cabenoch. That’s German, isn’t it?”

“It’s elvish,” I said, finding the rings I wanted. Something in me quivered seeing them there, plain circles of battered metal. They were both tarnished, but one looked as if it had been on a hand that had never seen dirt, and the other had never seen the sun. Slavers. That would work, though it curled my lip thinking about reinvoking them.

“Okay. It’s rigged, right?” I said, and Ivy carefully slid the entire box almost entirely off the table. Jenks darted under it, and from the door, Marcie groaned. We had maybe thirty seconds. I didn’t want to hit her again. “Jenks?” I prompted, and a wash of depressed blue bathed our feet.

“Standard stuff,” he said, not coming out. “I dusted you about ten seconds of electronic memory, so make it fast. Ready?”

I nodded, eyeing the rings I wanted and pulling the fake ones off my finger.

“I still don’t see how this is going to help,” Ivy griped. “He’s going to know the ones you took.”

“Just hold it still,” I muttered. “Ready, Jenks?”

“On my mark . . . go!” he said, and I opened the lid, feeling a pull of a magnetic field. Breath held, I grabbed the rings, slipping them both on my index finger as I dropped the fake rings in their place. Ivy’s eyes widened when I then moved the “donated by” card, then another.

“How long, Jenks?” I said. “Give me a count!”

“Four, three,” he said, me moving cards like a con artist on the corner. “Two,” he said, and I pulled my hands out, shutting the lid. “One!”

My eyes met Ivy’s, and she exhaled. Muscles easily managing the weight, she slid it back onto the table. Jenks flew up, and all three of us looked at the lumps of metal sitting in my hand. They felt as dead as they looked, but something in me quivered. I could bring them back to life. I could make this anew. Demon slavers. I shuddered.

“Can we go now?” Jenks said, his dust still that dismal blue, and I nodded, not looking back at Nick as I walked out the door.

Next time I had the chance, he wouldn’t be so lucky.

Chapter Twenty-Two

My protection circle hummed with the satisfyingly pure sound that I was identifying with the narrow ley line out back in the graveyard, the bell-like ting a spot of beauty in the chaos of sound and abrupt faults every other ley line was spitting out right now. Frustrated, I set the nested slave rings on my palm, and after Jenks’s somewhat unenthusiastic thumbs-up, I peeled my aura off my hand, leaving it bare to everything all the way to my wrist.

The steady, ringing snick, snick, snick of Ivy sharpening her second-best katana in the corner was a soothing rhythm, but I still felt uneasy as I imagined the thinnest whisper of red aura spilling down my arm, mirroring the shadow of veins to puddle under the rings, rising to gently enfold it and breathe the first hints of life into the cold metal.

“Looking good, Rache.”

But it wasn’t good, and my heart pounded as I exhaled, empting my mind of everything but the rings. The red had taken, I could feel the cold metal resonating, and I shifted my aura to orange, pinpricks racing over my arms like goose bumps.

Jenks’s wings clattered, and my brow furrowed. The sliding sound of Ivy sharpening her blade hesitated, and I stiffened as the orange rose up and over the ring, completely unabsorbed. Take it, damn it! But I knew it wasn’t going to. I’d been trying all afternoon, and I had never gotten any further than this, and I didn’t know why.

“Damn it all to the Turn and back,” I muttered, letting the rings drop into my palm and lowering my hand. My full aura raced down my arm, and I shivered, feeling protected again. Jenks’s wings slumped, and I shoved the rings into my pocket like a guilty secret.

“If I hadn’t done it once, I would have said Pierce made it up,” I said sourly as Ivy held her gray length of steel up to the light. “And I don’t know why you’re sharpening that blade. It’s like bringing a knife to a gunfight.”

“It’s always good to have a backup plan,” she said mildly. “And before you say anything, just shut up about it. Jenks and I can keep whatever demons there are at bay while you and Quen do what you need to do.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” I said, and her easy motion on the blade hesitated.

“Mmm-hmm.” Her tone made it clear she knew I was lying. I’d feel better if they were here and out of harm’s way. It was going to be warmer tomorrow night but maybe too cold for Jenks. And Ivy was going to be more of a liability than an asset trying to defend herself against magic. There was a reason even the I.S. didn’t send vampires after a witch. I didn’t like Quen being out there with me either, but if anyone could help me, it would be him.

“Keep it simple and everything will be fine,” Jenks said, and I jumped when a thrown fishhook and line snagged the edge of the counter and Belle’s pale, scary face popped up. With an acrobatic flip, she levered herself up and away from the drafts to stand among Trent’s library books. I still had to get them back, and I wondered what kind of late fee I might be risking.

Keep it simple, I thought as I reached to tidy Trent’s books. Nothing about any of this had been simple. I’d been trying to get these stupid rings to reinvoke since getting back from the museum, all with no results. It was as if something was blocking me. Maybe because the sun was up? Slave rings were foul. Just the idea made me uneasy. And here I was, trying to reinvoke them. For a good reason, I kept telling myself, but did I really want to be the person who believed the end justified the means?

“It will work,” I said as I stacked Trent’s books with a thump, and the draft blew Belle’s spiderweb-like hair back. “You can’t lose with a vampire vanguard and a pixy backup.”

Ivy glared at me, and I gave her a questioning look until she darted her gaze to Jenks. He was slumped over again, his wings not moving. Damn it! That was supposed to have cheered him up, not remind him of his stupid son! I hadn’t known it at the time, but Jenks had found Jax in the back halls and thrashed him soundly so he wouldn’t raise the alarm. I was sure his son was okay, but Jenks was depressed.

“Jenks,” I pleaded, wiping my hands off on the apron and coming to sit kitty-corner to Ivy, Jenks standing between us. “I’m sorry about what happened with Jax. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t thankful. It was the difference between walking out of there and being carried.”

Jenks’s face was frozen in grief and guilt. “I hurt him,” he said bitterly. “I tore his wings to shreds. My own son. He won’t be able to fly for months, if ever again.” A dark pool of black dust spilled off the table for Rex to paw at. “He’s my son, even if he is blind, ignorant, and . . .”

His words cut off as his head drooped. Heartache clenched my chest, and I curved my hand around Jenks, wishing I was smaller so that I could give him a hug, and then maybe a shake. “He’s been misled,” I said softly, and Jenks angrily wiped his face, his hand glowing with a silver dust. “He’s your son, Jenks. Whatever happens.”

Clearly depressed, Jenks sat down where he was, his legs crossed and his head down. “I don’t think my son will be spying on us anymore. I scared him. I scared him into believing I’d kill him if he ever came home again.”

“Jenks . . .”

“I’m fine,” he said with such bile that I knew he wasn’t. Head coming up, he flew to the sill, standing beside the overturned water glass and looking out the window with his back to us as he gazed into his garden, shadowed in the coming sunset.

I exchanged a worried look with Ivy. I had no comfort for him, nothing to say.

“He will forgive you.”

It had been Ivy who spoke, and Jenks spun, the anger so thick on him that I was glad I hadn’t tried to make