than that. I think.
Quen hesitated as Ivy made motions to get back into Trent’s car, then he said quickly, “Thank you from me. Ceri and me both…”
My smile grew wider, and for the first time, I started to feel good about this. “You’re welcome,” I said, knowing Quen couldn’t leave Ceri. It was his child she was having, not Trent’s. The woman could take on demons and win, but to have Quen beside her as she brought their child into the world would mean more to her than anything else.
“Bring him home safely so I don’t have to mess you up,” Quen added as he turned away, and my worry flowed back. I was responsible for Trent. I was responsible for keeping him alive on this magic carpet ride.
But Quen had gotten into the sleek black car with Ivy, and I did nothing as it looped forward and around, and left. The sound of the popping of gravel under tires gave way to crickets. A hot summer breeze rose, making my hair tickle my neck. My gaze went to the pale blue sky, then shifted to the cameras on the light poles.
I took a slow breath, and it was as if I could see the entire world spreading out unseen before me, making me small as I realized how far we had to go.
“How many miles is it?” I whispered to Jenks, and the sound of his wings melted into the morning, sounding right.
“One at a time, Rache.”
Nodding, I dropped my eyes and scuffed my boots to the passenger side of the car. Yanking the door open, I met Trent’s startled gaze. He was wearing a pair of classy, green-tinted sunglasses, and it made him look all the better. “You’re driving,” I said flatly.
Trent stared. “I beg your pardon?”
“I don’t have a license,” I said, waiting for him to get out. “The I.S. took it when I got summoned out on I-77 and plowed my car into a bridge railing. You’re driving, bucko. At least until we get out of the city and no one will recognize me.”
He blinked, then muttered, “For God’s sake,” as he undid his seat belt and slid over.
Jenks darted into the car as I got in, taking his usual seat on the rearview mirror. “You’re not going to swear all the bloody Tink-blasted way there, are you?” he asked.
Feeling weird, I settled myself, my bag going on the backseat. “I’ve got one more condition, or this stops right here,” I said, and Trent sighed, his hands on the wheel, staring at the dusty trunk of the car in front of us. Overhead, a plane roared.
“What,” he said flatly, more of a demand than a question.
My thoughts went back to the enthrallment curse and him wiping the memories of Jack and Jill, and I laboriously rolled my window down. My mom didn’t trust electronics, and they were the old crank style. “You do nothing but drive,” I said. “Got it? No wiping memories, no enthrallment, and no fighting if there’s trouble. Nothing. You sit in a bubble and play tiddledywinks.”
Jenks made a scoffing sound. “You’re not good at this, greenie weenie, and you’re going to slow us down if you try.”
“You don’t like my magic?” he said, a thread of pride in him.
“No,” I shot back, stifling a shiver at the memory of his wild, elven magic. “I don’t. Calling on the divine for strength is risky, and you never know what you’re going to get. Keep it to yourself, or I’m going to zip-strip you.”
His eyebrows rose mockingly. “Not a good feeling, is it? Knowing someone has the ability to do bad things and you just have to
“I only do black magic as a last resort,” I said through clenched teeth. It was all I could do not to smack the smug, satisfied look off his face.
“Keys?” Trent said mockingly, and Jenks hummed his wings in anticipation.
Twisting, I reached over the seat for my bag, flushing when I got myself back where I belonged. Sheesh, my butt had been inches from Trent, and Jenks was laughing as I refastened my seat belt. Trent was still utterly emotionless, and I smacked the keys into his hand with enough force to bring his eyes to mine.
“She’s all yours, Jeeves,” I said, closing my eyes as I tried to gather my strength. This was going to be a long ride. They stayed shut for all of three seconds, flashing open when Trent revved the engine hard, jamming it into reverse and making me reach for the dash. “Take it easy!” I shouted, staring at Trent, his eyes on the rearview mirror.
“Watch where you’re driving that piece of blue-haired crap!” someone yelled, and I turned to the businessman behind us, clearly hot and bad tempered as he looked for his car.
I went to shout something appropriately rude, but Trent had already yanked the wheel around and was accelerating, leaving him in a cloud of gravel dust. “When we get to St. Louis, we’re renting a real car,” Trent muttered.
“There is nothing wrong with my mom’s car,” I snapped.
Trent was silent, staring straight ahead, but I was fuming. There was nothing wrong with my mom’s car. Nothing at all.
Five
A narrow slice of early-afternoon sun made it into the front seat to warm my arm, resting on the open window. I was driving—big surprise—and the wind had my hair in a tangle that would take half a bottle of cream rinse to fix. We’d stopped three hours out in the bottom part of Indiana for Jenks to find something to eat and somewhere to pee, and after that he told me he was going to nap. Elves had a similar sleep schedule, and though he hadn’t said anything, it was obvious that Trent was getting sleepy, too, so I’d offered to drive.
Actually, I mused as I glanced at a somnolent Trent, the last four hours had been nice. Trent’s face was pleasant when he wasn’t scowling. His jeans and shirt made him look dramatically different—more attractive than his usual suit somehow. Accessible maybe. The wind shifted his baby-fine hair as he slumped against the door, as far from me as he could get.
I could reach right out and smack him if I wanted. I hadn’t liked his quiet disdain of my mom’s car. So it didn’t have a six-speaker system or power doors or windows. It wasn’t shiny, and the blue color didn’t do anything for me, either. But I could do ten miles an hour more in my old-lady car than in my shiny red car and never get noticed. It had lots of cup holders, too.
Tucking a wayward curl behind an ear, I eyed his sunglasses in envy, just sitting on the dash while he slept. I bet they’d look better on me than on him. The sun was giving me a headache, and I almost reached for them—until I noticed that Trent’s hands were clenched, even in sleep. Okay, maybe he wasn’t as comfortable with this as he wanted me to believe. Still, it said something that he’d even fallen asleep.
Looking back to the flat landscape we’d been in for the last hour or so, I wondered if I’d be able to fall asleep with Trent driving. This was weird, and not just because a witch, an elf, and a pixy were on the Great American Road Trip. I still owed Trent that “freed familiar” curse, and guilt was tugging at me.
Bothered, I glanced at my shoulder bag where his curse was, then back to the road. A quick look at the rearview mirror assured me that Jenks was still sleeping, soaking in the sun like a tiny winged cat in the back window. Sighing, I returned my attention to the landscape. I’d never driven like this, and the open spaces were getting to me. The road had been built pre-Turn, and it was creepy driving past town after town that had been abandoned during the plague the Turn had been born of. The trees growing through the roofs of abandoned buildings and the tall yellow
The mix of vegetation covering the old destruction was reminiscent of the ever-after, and curious, I brought up my second sight. My scalp tingled, the sensation shifting over my skull to make me shiver as the red-tinted ever-after swam up, coating everything in a sheen of red. The sun seemed to cast two shadows, but apart from the road, which now looked broken and covered with weeds, everything looked pretty much the same. A sun-baked field of nothing but grass stretched from horizon to horizon. Demons congregated where the ley lines were, living under
