My mouth went dry. 'I'm not a demon,' I said boldly. 'You can't scare me.'
The subtle tension in him rose. I saw it in the slight tightening of his fingers. 'Rachel, honey, if you're not scared, you're not going to survive.' His manner turned cocky and bitter. 'Well, you took my name,' he said, his noble British accent perfect and precise. 'Isn't it pleasant, being at someone's mercy? Trapped by a hack in a little tiny bubble. Is it a wonder we try to kill you?' An eyebrow rising, he turned introspective. 'Did Thomas Arthur Bansen escape?'
I nodded, and he smiled knowingly. 'Look,' I said, glancing at the growing light, 'for what it's worth, I'm sorry, and if you'd shut up about poor little you and listen, we might be able to both come away with something. Unless you want to go back to that cell of yours.'
Al was silent. Then he inclined his head. 'I'm listening.'
I thought of Ceri advising me against this, of Jenks ready to risk his life on a run we couldn't win, and of Ivy knowing I was the only one who could get myself out and dying inside as she forced herself to let me do it. I thought about all the times I had brought in black witches, pitying them for their foolishness, telling myself demons were dangerous, manipulating bastards who you couldn't beat. But I wasn't trying to beat them, I was trying to join them…apparently. I took a steadying breath. 'This is what I want.'
Al made a rude noise. As if for a nonexistent audience, he threw a lace-cuffed hand in the air. A hint of burnt amber tickled my nose, and I wondered if it was real or simply my memory inventing the scent.
'I want you to leave the people I love alone, especially my mother. I want Trent, unharmed and free from persecution for stealing the elven sample,' I said, voice low. 'You are all collectively to leave him alone.'
His head moved back and forth, and he eyed me over his smoked glasses. 'I'll say it again. You are not shy about asking for things. I can't bind anyone's actions but my own.'
I nodded, expecting this. 'I want that same amnesty for stealing your sample.'
'And I want to rip your bloody fucking head off, but it looks like we're both going to be disappointed, now aren't we?' he mockingly crooned.
My breath shook as I exhaled. I glanced at the east, and my pulse quickened. He had tortured my mom, not in anger but to get to me. Never again. 'What is it worth to you if I can not only get you out of jail, but have the person who put you there apologize?'
Al sneered. 'If you don't have anything constructive to say, you should let me go back to the ever-after and my cell. I had everything under control until you demonstrated to Minias that you could spindle line energy.'
'That's what's going to save your ass,' I shot back, belligerent. 'I have an idea to benefit both of us. You wanna hear it?'
He crossed his arms over his chest, the lace fluttering. 'And what is that? Buy a trip in to rescue Trent with your soul?' It was mocking, and my face burned. 'It's not worth it,' he added. 'In a few hours, I'm going to be banished to the surface, my belongings raffled off as novelty items and my living space given to someone else—my reputation destroyed. I'd rather have your head than your soul at this point in my illustrious career.'
'Good,' I shot back, 'because you're not going to get it.' My heart pounded as I waited for him to get over his pity party. Sure enough, after about five seconds of miffed silence, he turned back to me. In a very small voice I asked, 'Is there a system in place for a demon to teach another? Sort of a mentoring position?' God, help me. Tell me I'm seeing things clearly and unclouded by pride.
Al threw his head back and laughed. The water surrounding us rippled, and I heard the echo of it come back from the new town houses across the street.
'There hasn't been a demon needing instruction for five thousand years!' he exclaimed. 'I'm about to be exiled to the surface, and you want me to take you on as a student? Teach you everything I know for free just because?'
I said nothing, waiting as he followed my question to the reasoning behind it, and his ruddy face lost all expression. Eyes peering over those damned glasses of his, he stared as my pulse quickened. 'Yes,' he said softly, almost breathing the word. 'There is.'
My hands were shaking, and I wrapped my arms around myself and tucked them under the shelter of my jacket. 'And if you said you had taken me on as a student instead of a familiar—because I could twist demon magic—then you wouldn't be in trouble for letting me know how to spindle ever-after in my thoughts.'
His head moved almost imperceptibly up and down, his jaw tightening.
'You could tell them that you taught me, then left me here because I was learning more fighting you than I could in the ever-after.'
'But I didn't.'
His voice was so lacking in emotion, it sounded dead. 'They don't know that,' I said.
Al's chest rose and fell in a sigh. I could see relief in him, and I wondered what it was like to be a demon and afraid. And how long he would let me live knowing I not only saw it, but had the answer to save him. 'Why?' he asked.
I licked my lips. 'I want Trent. If I'm your student, wouldn't I be entitled to a familiar? Hell, I made one of my boyfriends my familiar before you broke the bond,' I said, attention going everywhere as I tried to hide my shame even though I knew I'd never use another person like that. At least not intentionally. 'Trent is wearing smut that I should have,' I added. 'He took it voluntarily. That's what a familiar does.'
His fingers twitching with a repressed excitement, Al smiled. 'And my reputation is restored.' The demon glanced to the east and adjusted his glasses to hide his eyes. 'They aren't stupid,' he said dryly. 'They will say it's a convenient story.'
This was the really scary part. I had trusted Al to give me a night of peace, but this was entirely different. 'Which is why you're going to bring me through the lines so I can speak in your defense,' I said, fear clenching my heart. 'Then you do what you have to for me to claim Trent as my familiar.'
'Trenton Aloysius Kalamack wears Minias's mark,' he said quickly.
'But he's wearing my smut of his own free will,' I offered, and Al pursed his lips, leaning back until he hit the bubble and jerked forward.
'I would need to buy your familiar's mark from Minias,' he mused aloud. Eyebrows rising, he shifted a hand in a gesture of possibility. 'But I can do it.'
'Then Trent and I come back here, and we all go back to normal.'
Al snorted. 'Sweet innocence be damned. What about my name?' he asked, making a moot face. 'I want that back.'
I met his gaze, refusing to give on this. 'You won't be in jail.'
His eyes narrowed. 'I want my name. I need it.'
I remembered what Ceri had said about how he made his living. Would I be responsible for the people Al tricked into slavery if I gave it back to him? Logic said no, but emotion said I should stop him if I could. But what about me being summoned into Tom's circle? I didn't want that happening again. 'Maybe,' I whispered.
His attention bore into mine as he took a slow breath. I didn't know what he was going to come back with. 'Rachel,' he said, and the simple sound of it made my blood turn cold. Something was there that hadn't been before, and it scared the crap out of me. 'I need to know something before I will bargain with you anymore.'
Hearing a trap, I edged back, my jeans scraping on the grit between me and the cement. 'I'm not giving anything for free.'
His expression didn't change. 'Oh, not free,' he said in a dangerous monotone. 'Insight into another's thoughts is never free. You pay for it in the most…unexpected ways. I want to know why you didn't call Minias the other night. I saw your decision to let me go, and I want to know why you did it. Minias would have jailed me. You would have had a night of freedom. Yet you…let me go. Why?'
'Because I wasn't about to call a mouse of a demon when I could take care of it myself,' I said, then hesitated. That wasn't why. 'Because I thought if I gave you a night of peace, you might give me the same.' God, I had been stupid. To think that a demon would respect that had been dumb.
But a slow, deeply satisfied smile came over him, and his breath quickened. 'So softly it starts,' he whispered. 'Foolishly clever and with an unsurvivable trust. It just saved your miserable life, that questionable show of thought, my itchy-witch.' Al's smile shifted, becoming lighter. 'And now you will live to possibly regret it.'
I shivered, not knowing if I had just saved or damned myself. But I'd be alive, and that was what mattered right now.
'You as my protégée?' he asked, as if trying it on.
