Ever After

on me, making my thoughts slow.

Got it! I thought, panicking when I found Bis struggling. This would be a lot easier if we didn’t have to do this on the run. Bis, where does it go? I thought as I bubbled the imbalance. Where does it go!

His thoughts whispered in mine, singing a color I felt I should recognize. I tuned the bubble holding the imbalance to it, and with a ping of sensation I felt Trent notice, it was gone. A pure note joined the howling energy, ringing in the sound of hope.

Wrenching us together, I shifted the circle surrounding us to the taint of the imbalance I’d just replaced, feeling reality swirl and coalesce. The imbalance made each ley line unique—the key flaw that made traveling them possible.

I gasped as my air-starved lungs became real and expanded, pulling in the acidic taste of burnt amber. Face- first, I plowed into the red dirt, my eyes squinted shut and my elbows taking most of the impact. There was a pained grunt and sliding of rock, and I guessed Trent had made it. The wind was gritty and the sky was dark. Sitting up, I rubbed my chin and spit the dirt out. “Bis?” I croaked, realizing we were in the ever-after. “Shouldn’t this be getting easier?”

Bis was a hunched shadow next to me. “I thought the ever-after might hide us a little longer,” he said, his red eyes on the sky, the moon, half full and waning, just rising over the broken horizon. “He will find us soon. There’s not as much to damage here if he does.”

What he meant was fewer people as potential hostages, and I rose, extending a hand to help Trent up. He shook his head and refused, head bowed as he sat on the ruined earth and tried to catch his breath. Bis was getting the job done, but he clearly lacked finesse. Rubbing my scraped elbow, I looked out over a huge drop-off. Turning, I saw a large valley filled with slumps of rock; the edges had a red sheen from the moon, which showed their outlines facing the east. I made a slow circuit, recognizing where we were when I saw the shallow depressions and the broken bridge across it.

“Eden Park?” I asked Bis. “Whose line is this?”

Bis shifted his clawed feet nervously, jumping onto a rock that was probably mirrored in reality by the statue of Romulus and Remus and the wolf. “The only demon who isn’t gunning for us,” he said. “Al’s.”

My feet shifted in the dirt, and I looked down, thinking there should be something to differentiate this from everything else. We were standing on the very spot where I’d made my pact with Al to be his student if I could have Trent as my familiar. And there Trent was, coughing at my feet, wearing a ring that made him my slave. Slaves could be freed, though.

As if sensing my emotions of regret and inevitability, Trent wiped the grit from his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said as he stood gracefully, the red rock staining his lab coat like blood.

“For what?” Head down, I dragged my foot around us in a circle, rude but effective—my thoughts waiting for the twinge that would mean we were found.

“The sacrifices I asked of you.”

Surprised, I looked him up and down. “I’m not the one wearing the slave ring. Besides, I’d be content if I could get an apology for you slamming my head into a tombstone and choking me half to death,” I said, twisting the master ring on my finger. Either he knew me better than I thought, or he was getting far more through the rings than I’d gotten from Quen.

His half smile made something in me twist. “Then I apologize.”

“And I accept,” I said, tucking a rank strand of hair back. “It never happened. Thank you for saving the babies. That was important to me.”

His expression went blank. Silent, Trent put his hands on his hips and scanned the brightening skies, squinting.

He isn’t telling me something. My nose wrinkled at the stench and gritty wind, remembering when we’d walked from the church to the basilica in the ever-after. There were no surface demons here now, and I wondered where they were. “It’s awful,” I said softly. “It used to be woods, springs, and fog. All of it, the entire ever-after.”

Trent’s attention fell to me. “How do you know?”

I shrugged. “I eavesdropped on one of Al’s dreams. I think I know what they used to look like, too.” My head turned. “They were the slaves of elves once, weren’t they? And they rebelled. Got the best of you.”

His expression went empty. “Rumor has it.”

“And you tried to destroy them.”

Trent took a slow breath. I could feel Bis paying attention. “I wouldn’t argue with that.”

“And now you’re helping me save them.”

Nodding, he smiled with half his mouth again. “My goal was to save you, but yes, I suppose I’m saving them as well.”

Bis jerked. An instant later, I felt it too. Someone was coming. With three wing flaps, Bis was on my shoulder, the healed line singing. I pulled heavily on Al’s line, and it hummed through me, drowning out the damage we had yet to repair in other lines. Trent’s head came up in shock, feeling it as well.

“Okay, time to see if these rings were worth lying to me about,” I said, putting my back to Trent’s and readying myself.

“Time to see if you’re as good as I think you are,” Trent whispered, and I blinked as he raised a circle with the line I had drawn in the dirt. The energy didn’t exactly flow through me, but I felt it as keenly as if it had. In my mind, whispers of spells I’d never heard of breathed and glowed with the sound of distant music. My lips parted in awe. Trent’s magic. And if I was seeing his internal spell book, he was probably seeing mine.

Along with his wisdom came Trent’s desire for Ku’Sox’s end. His anger and hatred flooded me, almost sending me down. Trent was driven, and through the rings, I saw the depths of depravity that Ku’Sox subjected him to, what he had casually threatened his child with, and the extent Trent would go to in order to stop him. His emotions joined mine, Ku’Sox becoming ugly and sordid in our shared view as our comparisons made a more perfect picture of his broken, lacking soul. My eyes welled, and Bis touched my cheek in concern.

Trent turned to me, shock in his eyes. It was as if I’d never truly seen him, and it shook me to my core. I blinked fast, wanting to touch him but afraid.

With a pop of air, Ku’Sox was abruptly standing between us and the rising moon. Snarling, he took two running steps, throwing a black ball of hate like a pitcher. I stiffened, still lost in Trent’s mind. Ku’Sox hardly seemed to matter compared to the depth of connection the rings could foster. I’d felt nothing like this when Quen had worn them.

Trent looked to Ku’Sox. At the last moment, I pulled deeply on the line Trent and I were connected to, feeling our circle strengthen. Our shared emotion about Ku’Sox—neither entirely his, entirely mine, or entirely real—echoed through us as we stood unbowed as Ku’Sox’s magic sped forward, shedding silver sparkles like pixy dust, the very air hissing from the assault.

It hit our barrier with a shower of energy, lighting the inside of our circle with a black haze. Bis’s tail tightened, and I heard in Trent’s and my mind, the drums of his wild magic. They blended with the humming purity of Al’s line—and grew strong. There was no hesitation in Trent’s abilities as there had been between Quen and me, and a small part of me wondered why.

“No monologue,” I taunted as Ku’Sox took in his lack of result. “I like that.”

“I’m going to eat you from the inside out, Rachel Mariana Morgan,” Ku’Sox intoned, his hunched form circling us like a big black cat.

His words iced through me, and Trent shuddered.

“Rachel?” Bis warbled, and I turned to follow Ku’Sox, backing up a step at Trent’s clenched jaw and pained expression. Ku’Sox was trying to use him.

“Fight it!” I said, grabbing his upper arms. “Trent, you can say no!”

“No, he can’t,” Ku’Sox mocked, flinging his coat out of his way as he stalked closer, breathing on our bubble to make the black run to him. “Dolore adficere . . . Do it, slave!”

Trent shuddered under my grip. The music in his mind faltered, the rushing sound of the line in mine grew loud as Bis’s tail tightened. “I am yours,” Trent gasped through clenched teeth, and my hand sprang from him, thinking I was betrayed. Trent fell to a knee, looking up at me, pleading. “I. Am. Yours. Claim me, Rachel! Damn your morals and claim me!”