out there, but maybe just the threat of it would get him to tell me more. Sure enough, he ran a hand over his hair, leaving it mussed, and shifting his weight to one foot, looking almost angry when he finally met my eyes. “Can I have some of that coffee?” he asked shortly, and I stifled a smile.
“Sure.” Feeling confident and sassy though I had no right to, I turned my back on him and went to make a fresh pot, running the taps slowly so I could hear him better.
“My father was a businessman,” Trent said, and I turned the taps off. “A good one.”
I turned, reaching for the cloth Wayde had left out, wiping the bottom of the pot dry. “So are you.”
Trent grimaced. “So I hear. Did you hear how my mother died? Not the official story, but what really happened?”
My smile faded. “No.”
He was silent. I recognized his distant expression as he tried to figure out how much to say, and I got the coffee out of the fridge. The bag was cold in my fingers, and the grounds smelled wonderful as I opened it up: bitter as burnt amber, and rich as the sunrise.
“I have tons of memories of her pressed and beautiful, as only mothers can be to their children,” he said, inches away and miles distant. “Her hair arranged and smelling like perfume, diamonds glittering in the night-light.” He smiled, but not at me. “She was the perfect politician’s wife at official functions, but I remember her best from when she’d look in on me while I was sleeping, checking on me when she got back from wherever she’d been. I don’t think she ever knew I woke up. It’s funny how things stick with you the best when you’re half awake.”
Not meeting his eyes, I measured out the coffee. My mother had never worn diamonds when she tucked me in.
“The days I didn’t see her leave, she always came back smelling like oil, metal, and sweat. Like a sword, Rachel,” he said, and my breath caught at his earnest expression. “That’s how I remember her best. Until the day she . . . never came back at all. Quen won’t tell me, but I think she was with your father the night she died.”
My God, no wonder he had hated me. “I’m sorry. That had to be hard.”
A shoulder lifted and fell. “No harder than you holding your father’s hand while he breathed his last, I’m sure. My dad was business, my mother . . . She was a lot of things.”
I stayed where I was with the center counter between us, feeling ill. His mother and my dad? Then my dad and his father? All dead, all gone. Leaving us to . . . what?
“I was asked to become my father when he died,” he said, dividing the charms into three piles. “I was expected to be him. I’m good at it.”
“It’s not what you want to be,” I whispered with sudden insight, remembering bits of conversation here and there, his quick conversion from businessman to child thief on our three days out West.
He never looked up, arranging the spells he’d made for me, wild magic woven with the power of the moon and sun, shadow and light both. “I’m good at it,” he said again, as if convincing himself.
But I knew that wasn’t what he wanted to be, and I remembered the cap and ribbon he kept stuffed in a pocket, probably in his suit even now. I recognized in his silence the pain of wanting something and being told that it’s not for you—that you should be something else that was easier, not so hard to become. “You were pretty good when we went after that elven sample in the ever-after.”
Trent put his hands on the counter, still at last. “You called me a businessman. You were right. I should have sent Quen to get the sample.” His expression became empty. “Quen wouldn’t have gotten caught.”
“I was mad,” I said. “It was the worst insult I could think of. Jenks says you weren’t a slouch when you, ah, reacquired Lucy.”
His eyes darted to mine, then away, but I saw the pride and love for his daughter. “I had fun with that. Jenks is quite the operative.”
I gazed at the charms between us, wondering how long he had worked on them. Fun. He had called it fun. The Withons would have killed him had they caught him. That had been the agreement. He’d been confident enough of his success that it had been
“I’ll leave these with you, then,” he said, his voice low, almost a monotone. “Throw them out if you don’t want them. It’s all the same to me. The ones with the blue pins temporarily paralyze your opponents, the ones with the gold pins temporarily blind them. Maintain eye contact when you pull the pin so the charm acts on who you want.” Trent looked at his watch. “Sorry about the coffee. I have to go. Maybe next time.”
He was leaving, and for some reason I couldn’t fathom, I didn’t want him to. I hadn’t known he relaxed by rescuing elven charm recipes. Or that he was stuck in a life he didn’t want. “Trent, about this morning.”
He hesitated, now eyeing his phone. “Don’t worry about it. The carpet has been replaced and most of the fish survived.”
“No,” I said, coming around the corner of the counter. “I didn’t mean that . . .” Trent looked up, waiting, and I swallowed hard. “I didn’t really thank you. For helping with Al.”
“You’re welcome.” He hesitated, his eyes going to my empty wrist, tossing his hair from his eyes. “Is that all?”
“No.” He snapped his phone closed and tucked it back in an inner pocket of his jacket, and I fidgeted, remembering his face when he’d opened up to me, just that little bit. “Ah, I’m sorry you can’t be what you want . . . to be.”
His professional mask back in place, he put his hands behind his back. “I never said that.”
“I know.” The silence stretched until it became awkward. “Thank you for the charms.”
Finally he smiled, but it was faint and it faded fast. Even so, I exhaled as if it meant something. “You’re welcome,” he said, tugging his jacket sleeves down. “Good luck finding HAPA. My guess is they’re downtown somewhere.”
Downtown? They couldn’t be downtown. We’d find them in an hour if they were downtown, and they knew it.
But he was leaving, and I just stood there, feeling inadequate. Trent glanced at my hands, then gave me a sharp nod. “I’ll see myself out,” he said as he turned away. “Good choice on the fabric color for the table. Red is tacky.”
“You are pathetic, Rache,” Jenks said, and my eyes darted to the top of the rack and I saw him standing there, hands on his hips and frowning at me, his wings a silver blur. “Rachel and Trent, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I- N-G. No wait, it was a hospital room, and he had his hands on your ass and you had your tongue down his throat. I can see why you might be confused.”
“Grow up, Jenks. He’s helping me to help himself. You watch. In three months, he’s going to be knocking on my door with some problem that only I can solve, and I’m going to do it because I owe him. He’s a businessman. Period. I am a commodity he has been working toward for two years.”
Damn it, why had I fallen for that poor-me crap? Ticked, I went to the demon texts, piling them up in my arms before going behind the counter and shelving them.
“Yeah, okay.” Clearly not believing me, Jenks landed next to Trent’s charms and kicked one, sending it rocking. “Except for one thing.”
I came up from shelving my books, catching the charm he had kicked as it rocked off the counter. The tingle of wild magic pricked, and I shivered, remembering it flowing through me and the charms he’d been making for the last year or so. Wild magic. “What,” I said flatly.
“This,” he said, kicking at the ring, and I took it up, turning it in my fingers to study it. It really was pretty, made of three individual metallic bands, interwoven to make one solid piece—sort of like a puzzle ring but able to hold together off a finger. “He didn’t tell you what it does,” Jenks said, rising up as his kids started screaming from the front room, arguing over the chalk again. The Weres began laughing, and I didn’t think it was because they were almost done.
I’d noticed that myself, and I set it down in mistrust. “So? He was in a hurry.”
“Knock it off or I’m going to come in there and turn your wings backward!” Jenks shouted down the dark hall, then came back, grinning. “So I’ve seen my boys do that a hundred times with the neighboring pixy girls. Give her their favorite seed and be too flustered to tell her what it was.” He rose up again, the screams from the front becoming louder. “I gotta take care of this. ’Scuse me.”
He darted out, leaving me blinking as I stared at the ring, among the rest of the charms. A cold feeling was
