my eyes open.
'Nothing!' David protested, his shoulders hunched. 'I gave her some bane. It shouldn't have done this. I've never seen it do this to a witch before!'
'Ceri,' I said, 'I'm sleepy. Can I go to sleep?'
Her lips pursed, but I could tell she wasn't angry with me. 'Yes.' She tugged the coverlet to my chin. 'Go to sleep.'
I slumped back, not caring that I was still wearing wet clothes. I was really, really tired. And I was warm. And my skin was tingling. And I felt like I could sleep for a week.
'Why didn't you ask me before you gave her bane?' Ceri asked sharply, her words a whisper but very clear. 'She's already on Brimstone. It's in the cookies!'
I knew it! I thought, trying to open my eyes. Boy, I was going to let Ivy have it when she got home. But she wasn't, and I was tired, so I did nothing. I'd had it with people getting me drunk. I swear, I wasn't going to eat anything I didn't make myself ever again.
The sound of David's chuckle seemed to set my skin to tingle where the coverlet didn't come between him and me. 'I got it now,' he said. 'The Brimstone upped her metabolism to where the bane is going to do some real good. She's going to sleep for three days. I gave her enough to knock a Were out for a full moon.'
A jerk of alarm went through me. My eyes flashed open. 'No!' I said, trying to sit up as Ceri pushed me into the pillows. 'I have to go to that party. If I don't, Quen will tell!'
David helped her, and together they kept my head on the pillow and my feet under the afghan. 'Take it easy, Rachel,' he soothed, and I hated that he was stronger than I. 'Don't fight it, or it's going to come back up on you. Be a good little witch and let it work itself out.'
'If I don't go, he'll tell!' I said, hearing my blood race through my ears. 'The only thing I have on Trent is that I know what he is, and if I tell, Quen will freaking kill me!'
'What!' Jenks shrieked, his wings clattering as he rose.
Too late, I realized what I had said. Shit.
I stared at Jenks, feeling my face go white. The room went deathly still. Ceri's eyes were round with question, and David stared in disbelief. I couldn't take it back.
'You know!' Jenks shouted. 'You know what he is, and you didn't tell me? You witch! You knew? You knew! Rachel! You…you…'
Disapproval was thick in David's eyes, and Ceri looked frightened. Pixy children peeked around the doorframe. 'You knew!' Jenks yelled, pixy dust sifting from him in a golden sunbeam. His kids scattered in a frightened tinkling sound.
I lurched upright. 'Jenks—' I said, hunching into myself as my stomach clenched.
'Shut up!' he shouted. 'Just shut the hell up! We're supposed to be partners!'
'Jenks…' I reached out. I wasn't sleepy anymore, and my gut twisted.
'No!' he said, a burst of pixy dust lighting my dim room. 'You don't trust me? Fine. I'm outta here. I gotta make a call. David, can I and my family bum a ride from you?'
'Jenks!' I tossed the covers from me. 'I'm sorry! I couldn't tell you.' Oh God, I should have trusted Jenks.
'Shut the hell up!' he exclaimed, then flew out, pixy dust flaming red in his path.
I stood to follow. I took a step, then reached for the door-frame, my head swinging to look at the floor. My vision wavered and my balance left me. I put a hand to my stomach. 'I'm going to be sick,' I breathed. 'Oh God, I'm going to be sick.'
David's hand was heavy on my shoulder. Motions firm and deliberate, he pulled me into the hall. 'I told you it was going to come back up on you,' he muttered while he pushed me into the bathroom and elbowed the light on. 'You shouldn't have sat up. What is it with you witches? Think you know everything and never listen to a damn thing.'
Needless to say, he was right. Hand over my mouth, I just made it to the toilet. Everything came up: the cookies, the tea, dinner from two weeks ago. David left after my first retch, leaving me alone to hack and cough my way into the dry heaves.
Finally I got control over myself. Knees shaking, I rose and flushed the toilet. Unable to look at the mirror, I rinsed my mouth out, gulping water right from the tap. I had thrown up all over my amulet, and I took it off, rinsing it under a steady stream of water before setting it beside the sink. All my hurts came flowing back, and I felt like I deserved them.
Heart pounding and feeling weak, I splashed water off my face and looked up. Past my raggedy looking reflection, Ceri stood in the doorway, her arms clasped about her. The church was eerily silent. 'Where's Jenks?' I rasped.
Her eyes fell from mine, and I turned around. 'I'm sorry, Rachel. He left with David.'
He left? He couldn't leave. It was freaking twenty out.
There was a soft scuff, and Keasley shuffled to stand beside her.
'Where did he go?' I asked, shivering as the lingering bane and Brimstone churned inside.
Ceri's head drooped. 'He asked David to take him to a friend's house, and the entire sídh left in a box. He said he couldn't risk his family anymore, and…' Her gaze went to Keasley, her green eyes catching the fluorescent light. 'He said he quit.'
He left? I lurched into motion, headed for the phone. Didn't want to risk his family, my ass. He had killed two fairy assassins this spring, letting the third live as a warning to the rest. And it wasn't the cold. The door was going to be fixed, and they could always stay in Ivy's or my room until it was. He left because I had lied to him. And as I saw Keasley's wrinkled grim face behind Ceri's, I knew I was right. Words had been said that I hadn't heard.
Stumbling into the living room, I looked for the phone. There was only one place he'd go: the Were who had despelled my stuff last fall. I had to talk to Jenks. I had to tell him I was sorry. That I had been an ass. That I should have trusted him. That he was right to be angry with me and that I was sorry.
But Keasley intercepted my reach, and I drew back at his old hand. I stared at him, cold in the thin protection the blanket had put between me and the night. 'Rachel…' he said as Ceri drifted to a melancholy stop in the hall. 'I think…I think you should give him a day at least.'
Ceri jerked, and she looked down the hallway. Faint on the air I heard the front door open, and the blanket moved in the shifting air currents.
'Rachel?' came Ivy's voice. 'Where's Jenks? And why is there a Home Depot truck unloading sheet plywood in our drive?'
I sank down onto a chair before I fell over. My elbows went on my knees, and my head dropped into my hands. The Brimstone and bane still warred within me, making me shaky and weak. Damn. What was I going to tell Ivy?
Twenty
The coffee in my oversized mug was cold, but I wasn't going to go into the kitchen for more. Ivy was banging around there, baking more of her vile cookies despite us having already gone over that I wasn't going to eat them and was madder than a troll with a hangover that she'd been slipping me Brimstone.
The clatter of my pain amulet against the complexion charm hiding my bruised eye intruded as I set my mug aside and reached for the desk lamp. It had gotten dusky while Ceri tried to teach me how to store line energy. Cheery yellow light spilled over the plants strewn on my desk, the glow just reaching Ceri sitting on a cushion she had brought over from Keasley's. We could have done this in the more comfortable living room, but Ceri had insisted on hallowed ground despite the sun being up. And it was quiet in the sanctuary. Depressingly so.
Ceri sat cross-legged on the floor to make a small figure in jeans and a casual shirt under the shadow of the cross. A pot of tea sat beside her, steaming though my own mug was long cold. I had a feeling she was using magic to keep it warm, though I had yet to catch her at it. A delicate cup was cradled reverently in her thin hands—she had brought that from Keasley's, too—and Ivy's crucifix glimmered about her neck. The woman's hands were never far from it. Her fair hair had been plaited by Jenks's eldest daughter that morning, and she looked at peace with
