Kim Harrison - The Witch with No Name

Jenks’s wings clattered as he left Trent. “Yep. She’s at her folks with Nina.”

“Everything okay?” I questioned.

“You think I’d be hanging out here waiting for you if she wasn’t?”

True.

“Cormel knows you’re not dead, too,” Jenks added, and I jerked to a stop. Mr. Fish’s water sloshed and Trent almost ran into me, his attention fixed on his phone. “Don’t look at me!” Jenks shouted. “I didn’t tell him! He came over about an hour ago. Told me to tell you not to interfere with the undead souls.”

The unsaid “or else” was obvious. My frown deepened as Trent’s phone went dark and he slid it away. “If you didn’t tell Cormel I was alive, who did?” I muttered.

“Your mom?” Jenks hovered just a little in front of me as I headed for the tall gate, his eyes darting nervously to Trent and back again. “She’s having too much fun arranging your funeral. The news has a wake watch going. Tink’s tampons, she’s a little scary, you know?”

Yeah, that sounded like my mom. Frustrated, I shoved the gate open with my foot. Bis left, making widening circles until he found the steeple. Jenks went with him, the pixy talking so high and fast I couldn’t follow it.

“Landon isn’t going to be happy you’re still alive,” Trent said softly.

“Too bad,” I said, tired, and Mr. Fish shuddered at the bottom of his glass.

“One thing an elf hates more than giving something for nothing is when a plan falls apart—and it’s falling apart. I doubt freeing the real demons from the ever-after was his intention. Cormel saw what we had to do to keep Felix’s soul bound. He knows this spontaneous melding isn’t going to stick.” He hesitated as I dug my car keys out. “Rachel, you’re not a tool.”

I jerked to a stop, shocked at the quick topic shift. Trying to smile, I met his eyes. “I know.” But my heart ached, and seeing it, he pulled me close, careful not to spill Mr. Fish.

His arms were warm, and he smelled of burnt amber. Tears threatened as his hand found the back of my head and he held me close, sighing heavily. “Al is trying to drive us apart,” he whispered, and I nodded, needing this. “He’s jealous that we made a stand and he didn’t.” He leaned back, smiling at the track of a tear on me. “I’m not going to walk away from you. I never wanted to see the elves destroy everyone, just not go extinct.”

“I know,” I said, voice wobbling. The “I’m not going to walk away from you” hit me hard. “But Landon does.”

“What Landon wants doesn’t mean anything. He’s not the Sa’han.”

I was starting to wonder if Trent was either, anymore. Maybe that was why he’d agreed to reopen relations with Ellasbeth. Damn it, he wasn’t using me, but I wasn’t going to come out of this where I wanted to be either. He couldn’t be both.

Jenks rose up from the carport, his dust an impatient red. I swallowed down my heartache, disentangling us and starting back to the front walk. Trent’s hand stole into mine immediately, and my chest hurt. “Thanks for coming back with me,” he said. “I know it’s going to be hard with Ellasbeth there, but I love you, Rachel, not her. This is for the girls, not me.”

For the girls? Yes, I’d put up with Ellasbeth for the girls. Somehow I managed a smile.

“And don’t worry,” Trent said, his hand trailing deliciously along the small of my back as we passed the untouched trash cans, “I won’t make you cook or anything.”

“I can cook,” I said, then louder, “I can so!,” when he arched his eyebrows.

“I’ve never seen it,” he muttered, and Jenks darted to us.

“Hey! You mind if I ride over with you?” he asked. “Jumoke, ah, he said I could bunk with him and Izzy. This is so weird.”

He was leaving the garden unguarded? I turned to look behind me at the destruction. Oh God, is it over?

“Bis is going to watch the church along with Belle,” he added, and my breath came rushing back. “He wants to talk to his dad if that’s okay with you.”

Squinting in the dark, I tried to find Bis, looking scary and solemn on the very top of the steeple, his red eyes glowing. “I think that’s a great idea,” I said, again wondering how much I’d messed the kid’s life up by being in the wrong place at the right time. But Mr. Fish’s water was showing little rings from my trembling hands. It wasn’t over. We weren’t going to live at Trent’s. It was temporary until we sorted everything out. I didn’t think any pixy or fairy would mess with the garden in the meantime. It was Jenks’s by law, and even the pixies respected that, in awe that humanity recognized one of their own as having rights and responsibilities.

“Rachel, are you okay?” Trent asked, and I nodded, gazing at the church as if I’d never see it again. The streetlight was brighter here, and I could just make out our names over the door. The I.S. tape across the door moved, and an official-looking paper fluttered under the bell.

“Mind if I drive?”

“No, I got it.”

Trent sighed as we headed for the carport, and my smile slowly faded. He is not using me. I knew it to the grit in my soul. But the end result might be the same, especially if the elves continued to refuse to follow him—because of me, because I was a demon. Landon’s fairy tale was one they could get behind, easy and satisfying. Learning to understand those you hate and fear is harder. I was pulling Trent down. Making his life impossible.

My boots were silent on the stone walk. Three streets over I could hear shouting. Sirens were coming from downtown. Maybe we should take the long way to Trent’s. “Some things shouldn’t be changed,” I whispered, meaning the vampires but thinking it related to me, too.

Trent’s hands dropped to my lower back, and I shivered. “Convincing Cormel of that won’t be easy.” Head tilting, he eyed me. “That’s not my phone.”

Starting, I pulled my bag open, surprised when I found my phone glowing. I hadn’t even felt it ring. Six calls? I hadn’t been in the ever-after and out of service that long. My eyes flicked to the DON’T CROSS tape as I read Edden’s name.

“It’s Edden,” I said, setting Mr. Fish on the hood and flipping my phone open. “I gotta take it. It might be about the church.”

“I’ll drive,” Trent said, his worry obvious, and I handed the keys over. “Edden!” I said as Trent went to open the passenger-side door for me and I hustled around the front of the car. “What are you doing calling a dead woman?”

“No,” his preoccupied, muted voice said. “Yes. Yes!”

Settling into the seat, I held the phone closer. “Edden?”

“Rachel!” Edden’s voice became stronger. “Don’t you ever look at your messages?”

“Not when my answering machine is melted,” I said, and Jenks snickered, the pixy having parked it on the rearview mirror where he could hear.

“I’ve been trying to reach you for an hour,” the FIB captain complained. “Why did you let the demons out?”

“I didn’t let them out, and I didn’t take your calls because I’m supposed to be dead!” I said, echoing the irritation in his voice. My jaw clenched at the thought of Al running around Cincinnati. But if he was truly free, wouldn’t he go somewhere sunny?

“If you didn’t do it, who did?” Edden said, and I heard a door shut and a new silence.

Grimacing, I wrangled the phone as Trent handed me Mr. Fish. “Landon,” I said, pleased when the brandy snifter fit perfectly into the cup holder.

“On purpose?” Edden barked, and then sighed, realizing how dumb that was. “You don’t happen to know where he is, do you?”

Trent settled behind the wheel, and we exchanged a worried look. “No.” Landon was AWOL? Great.