after you. I’m sorry! Damn it, I’m sorry!”
He stopped, his arm stiffly holding open the wide hospital door. The hall noise slipped in, both familiar and hated, and then…he let the door shut and turned back around. I exhaled, falling back against the raised bed, shaking in exhaustion.
“Hey, Rache!” Jenks buzzed close. “What’s it like being dead?”
“A lot like being a sixties housewife. What happened?” Trent said I’d been out for three days. Three days? Where was Pierce? And Bis?
My attention shot to the top of the wardrobe, and a new fear joined the rest when I found him there. The gargoyle was sleeping, an exhausted pale gray with a baby bottle in his tight grip. But what scared me was that I’d known where he was. Even though I was cut off from the ley lines, my eyes had gone right to him. Bis had saved me. Our fates were bound together, and there was nothing I could do about it. He’d chosen me, and now I was responsible for him. For life.
Ivy stood, and I wasn’t surprised when she leaned over the bed and gave me a hug, shocking me from my thoughts. The spicy scent of vampire soaked into me, better than a calming spell. I smiled up at her warmth, feeling loved. “Welcome back,” she whispered, and then she pulled away, her eyes black and tearful. “I have to go, but I’ll come back when your dinner tray is here.”
“You’re leaving?” I said, not liking how my voice wobbled. My gaze darted between her and Bis. “Why?”
“Jenks and I have something to do,” she said, giving the pixy a pointed look.
Jenks hovered between us, spilling a red dust. His hands were on his hips in his best Peter Pan pose. “Like what?” he shot at her. “We’ve done nothing but sit here for three days while you’ve moaned and pissed over Rachel, and now that she’s awake, you want to leave?”
My gaze went to Trent, standing by the window, his back to us.
“Yes,” Ivy said, and I jumped when she gathered my blankets and pulled them up around me, hiding my arms. They were pink, as if I had a sunburn. Ivy and Jenks looked okay, but Trent was a mess. Bis looked kind of gaunt, too. I was afraid to look in a mirror. I had been bleeding from my pores. And Trent had saved me. Maybe twice. Maybe three times.
Seeing my worry, Ivy started to drift back.
“See you around, Rache,” Jenks said, humming loudly as Ivy gave me a last touch on the shoulder and walked out, her boots clattering confidently on the tile. I remembered hearing them in my dreams, their cadence frightened and hesitant. The noise from the hall grew loud, then soft, then silent.
My eyes went to my band of charmed silver, rising to find Trent when the memory of that kiss made my face warm—until my gaze dropped to his cast, then rose to take in his hand. He was missing two fingers. I was missing three days.
“Thank you,” I whispered, but what I wanted to say was, what happened?
Trent’s silhouette stiffened, his back still to me. “You said that,” he said softly.
I tried to shift my weight farther up the pillow, and the blanket that Ivy had tucked around me fell down. “I’m sorry for slapping you,” I added.
Still he didn’t turn. “You said that, too.”
His voice was low and soft, and I remembered him singing to me in words I didn’t understand, holding my soul together. Grimacing, I tried again. “Uh, you’re a good kisser. It was nice.”
His bandaged hand shifted behind his back as he turned to me, wonder in his expression. “Is that why you asked me to stay?”
I managed a thin smile. “No, but I figured you’d turn around if I said it.” He frowned, his thoughts somewhere else, and I added, “You’re supposed to say I’m a good kisser, too.”
At that, he chuckled, but his smile faded fast. Awkward, he moved to an empty chair, one not as close to me as Ivy’s was, but here nevertheless. His eyes flicked to Bis as he sat down, and then a heavy sigh escaped him, a world of hurt in the sound. “You want to know what happened,” he said flatly, more of a statement than a question.
I fingered the band of braided silver around my wrist. It was heavy, more substantial than the one I’d had on in Alcatraz. A faint tingling came from it, not ley line in origin. Wild, elven magic. I flushed again, remembering the kiss, remembering letting his magic flow through me, kindling my chi back to life.
My gaze went to Bis, wishing he would wake up. He looked so sad up there, holding that bottle that had once held my soul. “I remember you singing my soul into that bottle,” I said. “I don’t remember you being hurt.”
A shudder lifted through him. “The sun went down. Al came.” His eyes met mine, the green of them almost gray in the light. “He saw you brain-dead. He was…upset.”
Guilt went through me. “Oh.” Upset, hell, I’d be willing to bet he was furious and looking for someone to take it out on. Damn, Trent was lucky to be alive.
Trent leaned back, his hands going to cradle his knee as he crossed his legs. “I’d go as far as to say he was very upset,” he said, looking at his hand. “It was my fault, naturally. I was the one who freed Ku’Sox. And because he couldn’t take me to the ever-after, he decided to take me apart and move me there bit by bit.”
“My God,” I whispered, seeing his missing fingers in a new way.
“Vivian tried to stop him—”
Worry pulled my heartbeat into a faster pace. “No…”
“She’s in intensive care,” Trent said, and I eased back into the pillow, not relieved, but not as frightened. “She’ll be okay,” he added, his eyes on the floor, undoubtedly reliving it.
“I’m sorry.”
Trent wiped his face in an unusual show of agitation, and I remembered the feel of his bristles on me. “You were brain-dead. He never noticed the bottle. Bis took you, your soul, and hid it away. As far as Al knows, you are still dead.”
He was looking at my sunburned arms and the band of charmed silver, and I saw it in a new way. Al thought I was dead? “You bested him,” I said, and Trent gave a bark of laughter. It was a bitter, angry sound, and it struck through me cold.
“Bested him?” he said, uncrossing his legs. “We survived. And that was because of Pierce.”
Again fear took me. Trent had said Al thought I was dead. Al was still alive. “Where is Pierce?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
Trent stood, turning to the window. I couldn’t read his tells. I was afraid to. “Pierce knew you were alive in the bottle,” he said softly, the hospital noise coming in faintly. “He also knew that I was the only one who could get you safely out. If I died, you would die.” Trent turned, his head bowed, looking nothing like himself in his wrinkled clothes and with his hair unstyled. “Pierce doesn’t like me much, but he took the blame. Said he was the one who caused your death by his failure to protect you and keep Ku’Sox from taking you into the lines. Al dropped me and took him instead.”
My face lost its expression. Pierce had sacrificed himself. To save me.
Panicked, I sat up, swinging my feet to get out of bed and coming to a frustrated halt. Damn it, I had a catheter. “Where’s my mirror?” I asked, knowing he wouldn’t have it. I started pulling at the silver around my wrist again. “I have to talk to Al.”
Trent’s face was empty of emotion when he turned back to me. “He did it because he loves you. I pity him.”
“Al won’t kill him,” I said frantically, not knowing if it was true. “He’ll be okay.”
Shaking his head, Trent smiled sadly. “I don’t pity him because he’s a demon familiar. I pity him because he loves you.”
I took a breath to say something but couldn’t exhale. Damn it, he’d sacrificed himself so that I would live. He knew I didn’t love him, and he’d done it anyway. “I-I…,” I stammered, fingering the band of silver around my wrist. It was humming with wild magic, slumbering deep within it. I could feel it. I looked up at Trent, confused.
“Al saw you comatose,” Trent said. “He told the demon collective. Perhaps you should keep it that way. This is why I gave you the charmed silver. It was a chance for me to…” He hesitated, sighing as he sat back down. His head was bowed over his knees, and his eyes were on his hands—his beautiful hands, now broken and marred. He might never be able to work some of the finer ley-line charms again, and I shivered.
“My father made you into a tool to save the elven race,” he said softly, his voice pained. “It saved your life but took it from you at the same time by making you into something that most people would deem too dangerous to
