Kim Harrison - Ever After

“I’ve not been here in weeks,” he said as I relaxed in the smoke-scented warmth. “Except for earlier tonight, of course. It’s been quiet since Quen took the girls and Ellasbeth home.”

My head came up. “I can’t believe you let her have them,” I said, feeling his depression. “Even if it is short term. You love those girls! Ellasbeth is such a, ah . . .”

I caught my words as Trent took my coat and hung it on a hook behind the door. “Bitch?” he said, shocking me. “It was either that or invite her to stay here, and I’m not ready for that.” His finger twitched, and I bit back my advice to tell her to take a hike. I knew he was going to marry her at some point. Everyone wanted it. Expected it.

“They’ll be back in April, and Quen is with them, in the meantime. We’re doing monthly exchanges until they get older, and then we can start stretching it out.”

He was trying to hide his distress, but I could see right through it as he went to the fading fire and crouched before it. “For now, I get them half the time, Ellasbeth the other.” His motions stirring the coals slowed. “I never knew what silence was before. I go to the office, come back to an empty apartment, go back to the office or the stables.” He looked up. “I hope you don’t mind, but I don’t feel so alone out here. Fewer reminders.”

I nodded, understanding. It still hurt that Ceri was gone. I could only imagine how quiet his apartments were with no one there but the many reminders of her and the girls. The warmth of the place was seeping into me, and I came forward, liking the old wooden planks and the dusty red woven rug. “Sorry.”

Trent set the poker back and dropped a small birch log on the coals. The bark flared and was gone. “Quen will see they’re safe and that Ellasbeth doesn’t warp them too badly. I’ve got my spells to work on until then. And business, of course.”

Hands in his pockets, he looked over the small hut, and I could see the long days stretching before him. That the girls were gone wasn’t exactly what I had been sorry about.

I scuffed the last of the dirt from my feet, not knowing what to do. Trent made a neutral smile and excused himself to go to the small counter set under a dark window. There was a teapot that made me think of Ceri, and I wasn’t surprised when Trent’s reaching hands hesitated. Shoulders stiffening, he drew it closer and took the lid off and looked inside. “You want some coffee?” he said as I faced the fire to give him some privacy. “I’ve got some decent instant.”

“Only if you want some.” I went to the shelves, drawn by a tiny birch bark canoe that I recognized from camp. A trophy with a horse on it was tucked behind it, and a hand-drawn picture of a flower behind that: memories. There was a half-burned birthday candle, a blue-jay feather, and a dusty stalk of wheat tucked into a wide-mouthed handmade pot, again from camp. I frowned, feeling as if I recognized it. Would my fingerprint match the one in the glaze? I wondered, afraid to bring it closer and see.

Uncomfortable, I sent my fingers to trace the spines of the books, a combination of classic literature and world history. The room smelled like magic, the cedar mixing with the scent of cinnamon and ozone. My aura tingled, and I slipped into my second sight long enough to see that the tail end of the line that stretched from his public office to his private one nicked the edge of the little hut. There was a circle there, made of something that glittered black. Beside it was what I had to call a shrine.

Curious, I went to investigate, smiling when I saw a black-and-white photo of his mother tucked beside a lit candle and a small fingerbowl of fragrant ash. On sudden impulse, I set the flower I had found beside the candle. My fingers brushed the candle as I pulled back, and my head jerked up at the wash of warm sparkles that numbed it. Faint in my thoughts, wild magic burbled and laughed, and I curled my fingers under.

“She’s beautiful,” I said, looking at the photo with my hands behind my back.

“You can pick it up.”

The soft sounds of his making coffee were pleasant in the extreme. I tentatively reached for it, finding the ornate silver frame surprisingly heavy. It wasn’t sparking wild magic, so I took it to the fire to see it better, dropping my bag on the floor and sitting on the edge of the seat to tilt the photo to the light.

Trent’s mother was smiling, squinting at the wind that had taken a wayward strand of her long hair. Behind her was a mountain I didn’t recognize. Beside her, looking just as wild and free, was Ellasbeth’s mother. There were flowers in their hair, and deviltry in their eyes. I’d guess it was taken before they had come to Cincinnati. I wondered who’d snapped the picture. I found my lips curving up to smile back at them. “You have her face,” I said softly, then flushed.

Trent noisily put the lid on the teapot. Bringing it to the fire, he set it on the hearth. There was a kettle in his other hand, moisture beading up on it as he set it on a hook and shoved it over the flames. “It’s going to take a while. There is no electricity out here.”

“I’m in no hurry.” No electricity meant no way in or out when a circle was set. This was more than a getaway; it was a spelling fortress. I suddenly realized Trent’s eyes were on the photo, and I stretched to set it back on the small table beside the candle. “Do you bring people here often?”

Trent sat gingerly down in the other chair. His eyes roved over the room, trying to see it as I might be. “Not often, no.”

Not ever, maybe, by the looks of it, and I waited for more, grimacing when it became obvious there wasn’t any. “Ah, so are you ready for the curse?” I said, and his breathing hesitated a bare instant.

“If you are.”

He was annoyingly short-answered tonight, his mood closed and somewhat stiff, but seeing as I was going to curse him, I didn’t blame him—even if the curse was going to fix his hand. I’d stirred it myself under Al’s eye, and I’d admit that I was more than a little nervous.

Trent slid back into the chair as I lifted my bag onto my lap and dug inside for my scrying mirror. My fingertips tingled as I found it, cramping up as I brought it out and set it on my knees. I had prepped the curse over the course of the week, storing it in Al’s private space in the collective. All I would have to do was tap a line, find the collective, and say the magic words to access it. “If this doesn’t work . . .” I started, and Trent waved me to silence.

“Rachel, you turned Winona back into a human guise. You can repair my fingers.”

I wasn’t so confident, and I settled back, then scooted forward, the scrying mirror making my knees ache with the magic taking notice of where I was. Like a slime mold after the sun, it stretched and dove for the tiny sliver of line that ran not five feet away.

“It shouldn’t hurt,” I added, feeling my fingers slip as I started to sweat. “If it does, just say the words of invocation again, and it will reverse as long as it hasn’t sealed yet. Okay?”

He nodded, and his jaw tightened.

I took a breath. Exhaling, I gently reached for a line, my fingers jerking on the glass as it spilled into me with an icy suddenness. The lines had been painfully sharp since I’d dove through all of them, almost as if their clarity had improved a hundredfold. The glass hummed with a myriad of conversations, whispers on the edge of my awareness, drops and swells of power as demons went about their daily grind of fighting boredom. The collective felt warm, peaceful for once, and I felt my eyes slip shut as the heat of the fire mixed with the blanket of spent adrenaline still holding the collective in a muzzy contentment. Oh, if only it could last.