Chapter 31

Chapter

31

The coffeehouse was right across the street from the morgue downtown, which meant it was noisy with people meeting up for lunch or on their phones and laptops playing office—though there were fewer now than when Elyse and I had stumbled in, both of us bedraggled and tired after not nearly enough sleep. Yawning yet again, I sat with my back to the wall at a table tucked into a corner and my phone plugged into a socket. I had an extremely large cup of coffee in my hand, and it still didn't feel like enough to wake me up. A bag of miniature pastries was open between me and Elyse's empty chair, and after glancing at the door to the bathroom, I ate the last one. You snooze, you lose, babe.

The shop was nice, with high ceilings and big windows that looked out onto the street, but it wasn't Junior's and I felt out of place, nervous as I pulled my stinky bag and everything I'd brought with me on this magic carpet ride closer: my never-used splat gun, Al's broken necklace to mark our exit from the curse, the curse book and all my modifications that got us here.

Elyse had her stasis ley line charm in her pocket. It seemed prudent for her to have it, and it gave the woman a needed feeling of control.

My gaze shifted from my charging phone to the barista at the far side of the shop, and I made a stupid wave when she stared at me. Clearly annoyed, the dark-haired woman returned to her work. She'd been eyeing us since we'd stumbled in like two bandits off the desert. I figured she thought we were homeless, which we kind of were, but we had paid for our food so she couldn't kick us out—even if Elyse had been in the bathroom for the last twenty minutes using their sink to try to rub off both a trip to the ever-after and a night spent in the library basement. And I still stink like burnt amber, I thought as I plucked my shirt and winced at the puff of air.

Focus distant, I sipped at my coffee, startled when my phone hummed. I glanced at it out of habit, breath catching. It was my mom.

Tuesday, I mused, looking at the time. I was probably bawling my grief out in my room as my heart broke to make room for Trent, the girls, hell, maybe even Ellasbutt. I loved Kisten, but I couldn't go back to what I had been.

The phone, though, just kept buzzing. My other self was probably too engulfed in grief to pick up, and my mom would keep calling. I missed her, and knowing it was a bad idea, I hit the accept icon. "Hi, Mom."

"Rachel? Oh, honey." Her voice was living comfort, and my chest tightened. "I heard about Kisten. Are you doing okay?"

My throat closed. It was one of her good days when I didn't have to be the smart one. "It hurts," I whispered, feeling her loss twine with Kisten's. She was right there, a few minutes away by bus, not on the other side of the continent. And yet I could do nothing but grip my phone and press it harder against my ear.

"I'm on my way," she said hurriedly. "You're at the church, yes?"

I blinked fast, trying to remember. "I think so."

"Oh, sweetheart. Give me five minutes. I can't make it better, but I can help you bear it. You'll be okay until I get there?"

She knew what I was going through, had walked it alone when my dad had died. "Mom?" My God. She is the bravest woman I know. "I love you, Mom. I don't tell you that enough." Because in my grief, I would forget to say it as she rocked me, whispering things to make me feel connected, to convince me that I might be whole again someday.

"I love you, too. Five minutes."

The phone clicked off and I closed my eyes, squeezing them tight so the tears wouldn't start. She was the best mom, having the bravery to let me make my own mistakes and the courage to be there with a Band-Aid instead of a lecture.

My eyes opened, pulled by the rasping whirl of the blender. "Yeah, that was a mistake," I said as I yanked the cord from the wall and put the phone in my shoulder bag. The door to the bathroom squeaked as Elyse came out, the young woman clearly in a better mood than when she'd gone in there. Her hair had dried flat and her shirt was spotted, but she met my forced smile cheerfully as she sat down and reached for the pastries.

"Man, I'd kill for a toothbrush." The paper bag rustled, and then a frown crossed her face when she found it empty.

I stood and tugged my shoulder bag closer. "Ready? I think I saw the morgue van go by while you were in there." My bag was heavy with both the book she'd stolen from Trent and mine, the faint scent of burnt amber coming from the one I'd brought stronger now for having been in the ever-after again. "I'm going to take the image of the barista, and then we can go."

Elyse glanced at the woman still watching us from behind the counter. "Really? Yesterday you wanted to be yourself."

"Yesterday I was stealing a body. This time I'm cremating one."

She chuckled. "Fair enough."

Crap on toast, she was in a good mood. All I felt was a growing sense of impending destruction. We were going home, but without the mirror, it wouldn't be the happy-happy, joy-joy moment that she thought it was going to be. They would kick her out if she told them to drop their plans to make me their unwilling muscle.

I fumbled for the stone about my neck as I sent a stray thought out to the nearest ley line. Sure enough, my no-spell, no-product hair frizzed, making a veritable halo as energy ran a delicious thread through me. "A priori," I whispered as I glanced at the woman. "A posterior," I added as I then looked at myself reflected in the shiny stainless steel wall. "Omnia mutantur." I whispered the words through the hole, aiming them at my middle.

A shudder rippled over me, and the world seemed to fade for a moment as the glamour took hold. "Good?" I asked, and Elyse stepped between me and the woman behind the counter.

"You should have waited until we were outside," she said as she shoved me to the door. "Go. I'll be right there."

It felt good to be moving, and I went to stand among the street-grimed tables and tattered umbrellas. Motion made things better. Motion always made things better. Maybe that's why I always seemed to be going somewhere. But moving meant changing, and that usually hurt.

Tired, I faced the sun and let it warm me until I heard the door open and felt Elyse sidle up beside me.

"Light just changed. Let's go," she said, and I took a long step to keep up with her as she headed for the street.

"What's with all the coffee?" I asked, seeing as she had four cups in one of those single-use trays. "We can't take it down there. I was told the scent might wake someone up early."

Elyse smirked and handed it to me as we crossed the street. "You look like the barista from the coffeehouse. You're making a delivery."

"You stole someone's coffee—no, you stole four people's coffee to further a glamour?" I resisted the urge to glance behind us.

"I didn't steal them. I bought them." The woman seemed embarrassed. "If you weren't going to lift her image, I was going to ask you to lift it for me."

She bought them? A chuckle escaped me. "Be careful, Elyse. You might be developing a conscience."

"Shut up," she muttered, and my grin widened.

"Don't listen to me. It was smart." I paused. "If I'm the barista, who are you?"

"I'm a coincidence wrapped in a mistake and rolled in luck sprinkles."

"Got that right." We took the building stairs fast. I hadn't seen Slick, but I figured her familiar was around. Bold as brass, we walked in the front door. No one even looked at us. It was late afternoon, and the tall-ceilinged lobby had a moderate amount of activity, both in and out.

"Stairs," I said, looking at the fire door, and Elyse nodded, scanning the lobby as she held the door for me…and then we were in the echoing stairwell, the door slamming shut behind us.

I took a breath, my skin tingling as I pulled armfuls of energy off the line and spindled them in my chi.

"You okay?"

I glanced at Elyse, wondering how we had gone from antagonists to partners in a mere three days. I liked her, and there was nothing but misery waiting for her back home. She thought she could make a decision and the rest would follow…but I knew better. "Ah, I took a call from my mom," I finally said, and her expression scrunched up in sympathy.

"Ouch. How did that go?"

She didn't know it, but she needed the mirror as much as I did now, because breaking Brad's curse was the only way she was going to keep me out of Alcatraz and her leading the coven. Trusting me was going to ruin her career. "Mmmm, about what you would expect," I said lightly, and she chuckled, almost bouncing as she went to get the door at the landing, slamming her weight into the heavy metal to shift it.

The hallway was its usual cool emptiness, and the scent of the coffee seemed to become stronger. "You want to play this same as before?"

Elyse bobbed her head. "I've got ley line. I'll go first. Save your ergs."

"Right. Try not to break anything."

She put a hand on the door, her smile mischievous. "Unreasonable expectations seldom make for a happy life."

Eyes closing in a strength-gathering blink, I gestured for her to have at it. She seemed eager enough, and after seeing her in action, I had no qualms about her doing the heavy lifting. Me, though? My gut was in knots. I was going to cremate a perfect stranger, take any closure his family might have away from them. It bothered me.

Rachel, you need to think a plan through before you commit.

Elyse, though, was boldly pushing through the swinging doors, ready to do whatever I said if it would get her home. My God. The woman had gone to the ever-after, made a bet with a demon, slept in a library basement, and stolen a body. Why she trusted me now, I didn't know.

Tense, I listened to her feet scuff on the disinfected tile…and then nothing.

I started when the door shifted and she poked her head out. "There's no one in here. Or the morgue area," she said.

"Huh." I followed her in, slowing as I studied the waiting gurney with its locked wheels and carefully folded modesty blanket. Senses searching, I set the coffee on the disorganized desk and felt the chair. It was warm, and a frown furrowed my brow.

"The back is empty, too?" I whispered, hoping we hadn't gotten Iceman in trouble.

"Key," Elyse said, and I took the naked doll from the hook on the wall.

"I don't like the feel of this," I said as I yanked the top drawer open, shuffling about until I found the oversize key to open the furnace. Elyse was waiting by the second set of double doors, and together we pushed through them. The sound of fans and the scent of disinfectant grew stronger as we looked the space over. "I've never seen the morgue without an attendant. There are undead here undergoing self-repair. What if one of them wakes up?"

Elyse swung her arms as she strode between the rows of drawers, an almost cavalier attitude flowing from her. "You said Kisten was cremated before you could identify him. Clearing the room would facilitate that, wouldn't it?" She turned at the end of the long room. "We're good. I don't sense anyone."

"Yeah, but I have been working under the assumption that we were responsible for it." A sigh slipped from me. She was the one who could connect to a ley line, and after a last glance at the empty reception area, I let the door swing shut behind me. "Let's get this done," I said as she flounced to the door to the furnace and punched in the code.

"We're good. It's clear," she said as she peeked inside.

Good, she said, but it felt anything but. Uneasy, I moved down the truly dead side of things, searching for Kisten's name. A pang of anticipation hit me when I found K. Felps , and I set my bag on the floor to wrangle the key-draped doll forward to unlock his drawer. Someone ought to put some clothes on this thing, I thought as the Bite-Me-Betty doll hung upside down, the key fastened to her foot in the drawer lock.

I pulled it open with a rasping rattle. As expected, it was Johnny draped in a modesty sheet, a little worse for wear from his night out at room temperatures and his ride in the back of a truck, but just the fact that he was in the drawer marked Felps meant that the glamour was holding. I hadn't liked leaving him on the boat. But almost as fast as it had come, my relief shifted to guilt. His family would never know what happened to him.

"Elyse, can you get me that gurney?" I called, and the young woman came out from the furnace room.

"Sure."

I winced at the metallic clang of the gurney, but the outer lobby remained quiet as she locked the wheels and we shifted Johnny onto it with a precision born from necessity. The toe tag with Kisten's name on it fluttered, and I stared at it, a lump forming in my throat.

"You want me to…" Elyse's words tapered off and I followed her gaze to the open door.

"Yeah. Wheel him in." I dug into my pocket and handed her the oversize key. "This opens the furnace itself. If you take care of him, I'll get Kisten in a chair."

"You got it."

I pushed the empty morgue drawer shut, leaving it unlocked and stuffing the drawer tag with Kisten's name into my pocket to help confuse anyone who might come looking for Kisten's ashes.

"Hey, Rachel!" Elyse's voice was faint. "How do you move them from the gurney and onto the rack? You just roll him over onto it? They don't process them face down, do they?"

"Be there in a sec." Her nonchalance was not inspiring, and I went to the drawer I'd left Kisten in, unlocking it and pulling it open with a soft rattle.

"Hi," I whispered as I saw Kisten's placid expression. His face was white, but you could tell he was still there, peaceful under his modesty sheet. My gut clenched. He wouldn't make it home, but his body would, and with that demon ley line stasis charm, he would look just this beautiful. No one would care if a John Doe Vamp vanished, and I took the drawer tag and stuffed it into my pocket along with Kisten's.

And then my head snapped up, every thought vanishing when the double doors pushed open with a little squeak and Scott stepped in, the light shining on his bald head and a purple haze of power filling his hands.

"Drop the line and step away from the corpse," he intoned. "I won't ask twice."

"God bless it," Elyse swore as she appeared at the door to the furnace. "How many times do I have to flush this turd?"

My eyes never left Scott as I reached for Kisten, skin prickling when Elyse yanked on the line through her familiar.

"You are both being detained for questioning by the coven of moral—"

"Teneo!" Elyse shouted, and I yanked Kisten from the drawer, slipping as his heavy weight pulled free. We hit the floor, most of him atop me.

Scott ducked, a short-lived protection circle snapping into place around him. It absorbed Elyse's spell, and then it was gone. Brow furrowed, the man pulled himself to his full height, Latin spilling from him to make the very air shimmer.

This was so not good for the sleeping undead, and I tugged Kisten's legs free from the drawer, almost losing it when he took a breath.

"Go!" Elyse stood, a weird mix of deadly skill and slovenly dress in her institutional sweats and demon slippers as she shot tiny little balls of pure energy at Scott. "Get him in the back! We have what we need. We do the spell here. Don't you dare leave without me."

Scott shifted from one side of the room to the other, avoiding the fiery balls from hell until one tagged his shoulder and he realized they held no magic and weren't a real threat. "Who are you?" he shouted as he began to gather her energy like thrown apples to use for himself.

"Teneo!" she shouted gleefully, and Scott yelped, his reach for her next energy nugget faltering as he dove out of the way. The coven's go-to hold spell hit the drawers and sputtered, working its way inside to invoke on whoever was in there.

She was doing my job again. Teeth clenched, I dragged Kisten to the furnace room, his toe tag making a ridiculous hiss as it scraped along. My skin tingled from the spent energy filling the room, the little rills of power racing from my fingertips to my chi demanding I do something or simply explode from it.

Johnny's gurney was taking up most of the room, and I propped Kisten up in a corner and tugged his sheet to cover him. "Stay here," I whispered, jumping when a thunderous boom shook the dust from the ceiling. So much for harassment charms and passive deterrents… She was going to wake someone up if she didn't cut that shit out.

"Sorry, Johnny." Gut clenched, I rolled the long-dead body from the gurney to the rack. The door to the furnace was heavy as I pushed it shut, but I hesitated at the last moment, taking a hair from him so he could be identified later before I locked it and pocketed the key. I had to thank his family. Tell them Johnny helped save another. It might help when his body went missing.

Out in the main room, Elyse shouted a curse…and Scott gagged, an ugly, dry-heaves cough sounding as he struggled to breathe.

"Don't kill him, Elyse," I whispered, and then the reek of decay washed over me, pungent and thick. My eyes teared, and I held a hand to my face, trying not to pull in the stench. Sweet ever-loving pixy piss…

"One-spell wonder, huh?" Elyse shouted as Scott gagged. "Choke on it, old man!"

I could hardly see as I pushed the buttons and got the furnace going. The burners came on with a soul-shaking thump, and I turned, shoving the gurney out into the room to make space. "Let's go!" I fumbled in my pocket for my chalk and drew a huge circle, taking up almost the entirety of the floor space—big enough for three.

"Almost home, Kisten," I whispered as I made sure he was safely in it. Al would frown at me, Jenks would laugh his ass off. Ivy would…

Elyse's shriek of pain cut through my thoughts like a cold slap.

I looked up, chalk in hand. "Elyse…"

"Who the hell are you!" Scott shouted at her, and I lurched to the door.

Anger flared. Scott had her down, his hand fisted about her shirt under her chin. "Get off her," I threatened, and he almost laughed, judging me weaker.

I had two good pops, maybe three if I chose my spell well, and my pulse quickened as Scott did foolishly nothing. "Visio deli!" I shouted, flinging a tiny amount of ley line at him.

Eyes wide, Scott flung himself from Elyse, thinking if it hit him, he'd be blind. In truth, there wasn't enough energy in the spell to cloud his vision. But he didn't know that.

"Implicare!" I paced forward like a vengeful spirit, the remnants of Elyse's stink spell furling about my feet.

Face white, he skittered away from the black curls snaking about where he had been, coils that would tighten about him and choke the words from his throat—if I had put the energy behind them. They were so weak, they hardly had any form.

I had reached Elyse, and I stood over her as she held a hand to her neck. Her eyes were wet, her anger a quick flash as she broke the spell Scott had put on her.

"Parvus pendetur fur, magnus abire videtur," I intoned, feeling the dark curse crawl over me like spiders as I threw first a tiny pop of nothing at him to make him shy to the left, right into the real charm waiting for him—the one that I had saved all my energy for. It was illicit magic from the demons' vault, the curse designed to twist his next spell against him. If he did nothing, he'd be fine. But I doubted that's how the next five minutes were going to play out. Whatever he dished out, he'd get himself.

Scott gasped as he felt the curse take him, and he froze, energy gathered to combat whatever it was. But nothing happened. Nothing would until he acted. "Who are you?" he said, and I snapped my fingers for Elyse to take my hand. I didn't dare look away from him, and relief filled me when her cold fingers gripped mine and I hauled her to her feet.

"You cannot hide from the coven," Scott said, his confidence returning as two people burst in, their attitude more than their I.S. insignia telling me we were in trouble. That and the power sparking through their auras.

"I can't fight three alone," Elyse whispered, and my determination swelled.

"You don't have to." My hand was still in hers, and her breath caught as I pulled on a line through her and Slick, my hair cracking with the sudden influx.

"Fire in the hole!" Scott dove for the swinging doors.

But it was too late, and I shouted an exuberant "Detrudo!"

Scott escaped, but the two I.S. agents were shoved to the walls, arms flailing and spells sent awry.

"That was a demon curse!" Elyse said as I dragged her into the furnace room and slammed the door shut.

What did she expect? I was a demon.

My gut hurt. I let go of her to hold in the nausea. On the other side of the door, a rhythmic pounding began.

Elyse stood in the middle of my circle, shaking as she looked at Kisten, the roaring furnace, then the door. They had stopped hammering. That did not bode well. "Soon as they get the code, they'll be in here," she said, and I tugged Kisten to the circle's center.

"Then we go where they can't follow. You still have that stasis ley line charm?"

She felt her shoulder, wincing as she nodded. "Yes. But your bag…"

Crap on toast. It was out in the main room. "I have everything I need here. If they don't kick you out of the coven when we get home, you can give me my book back. 'Kay?"

"Rachel…"

"You're in the circle? Sit," I directed.

"Rachel, where's the broken stirring rod? Do you still have it? How are you going to know when we go far enough?"

She looked scared, even when I reached into my pocket and found the pieces. "We're good." Please, God. Let this work, I thought as the ceiling shook when the three witches tried something. "You're right. We aren't getting out of here." I held out my hand. "Give me the stasis charm." I couldn't look at Kisten. He wouldn't make it home as an undead, but I wouldn't have to watch him decompose in front of me when Art's virus finally killed him twice. Thank you, Trent.

White-faced, she took the charm from her pocket and handed it to me. "If he wakes up and bites me, I will have your head on a platter."

Oh, if only, I thought, fingers cold as I took it.

"You are brave, Rachel Morgan," Elyse said as she nervously resettled herself. "You are strong in spirit, and you are good. If this doesn't work and I die in front of you, it wasn't your fault. Don't let anyone tell you different." She took a slow breath. "I give you permission to pull on a ley line through me to perform a possibly illicit curse to get us home." Her brow furrowed. "Be careful. Slick means the world to me."

I took her hand when she extended it, tasting her fear and trust through the line as I linked to it through her. "I will see you when we get there," I said.

She opened her mouth to say something, and I pulled the pin. "Receperatam sol. Ta na shay," I whispered, and the ancient demon charm twisted by an elven slave invoked, spilling a reddish-green haze over her and Kisten like a blanket.

Elyse went still, her eyes open and her lips parted, her next words frozen in her mind. Worried, I tucked the circlet of charmed silver into my pocket, pin and all, praying that it worked as it was supposed to. She looked…not dead, but like a thing. Kisten, too, looked about the same, but unlike Elyse, he wouldn't wake up when I broke the curse at the end.

A muffled shouting had begun behind the door, and I stood between Kisten and Elyse, fingering the ends of the broken stirring rod. When it mended, we'd be home. I hope.

My breath shook on my exhale and I closed my eyes. I was going to have to join the demon collective to access the curse. Every other time I'd done it, I'd been noticed. The only saving grace was that both instances were in the future. I would have the element of surprise today.

One hand holding the broken rod, the other on Elyse's shoulder, I reached out a ribbon of awareness, tapping into the nearest ley line through her and Slick. The lines felt different in the past, more convoluted, more complex—more familiar. The soft hum of energy tingled to my extremities and rebounded, and with a careful thought, I slipped a sliver of myself into the demon collective.

Immediately my shoulders slumped as I soaked in the myriad background conversations. It was very much like being in a crowded restaurant, the anonymity of your conversation ensured only by the multitude of other discussions. And like a restaurant, if you strayed too far from accepted norms, you'd be noticed.

Using one of Newt's spells was like standing on the table and singing " Non, je ne regrette rien ." Using this one would be doing the same, but naked.

My eyes opened and I steadied myself as I checked one last time that both Kisten and Elyse were in the circle. The door panel was beeping, and adrenaline pulsed. They had the code. I had seconds.

Ab aeterno, I thought, and with a little jolt of connection, the circle and everything in it went indistinct, as if viewed through a fog. We were separated from reality, though still connected to our current time.

The Goddess take it, came a bitter, jaded thought as a ripple of awareness went through the collective. Whose turn is it to check on Minias? She's spelling again.

They thought I was Newt, and a splinter of fear tripped down my spine.

Regressus, I thought, to link the stasis spell to the curse that held my stored energy, the one that would keep me from starving to death on the way home. Sensing it, the slow alarm in the collective became razor-sharp. Outside my circle, a widening crack of light showed.

Who is using my curse! thundered through the collective, scattering the increasingly worried thoughts like dry leaves. I did not put that in as fee-for-use. That's my private store!

The door slammed open. Scott stood there with my bag in his hand, his bald head shining and two angry witches with him. "I'm sorry," I whispered, and all three seemed to freeze.

You again! Newt snarled, her thoughts reaching to crush mine.

Prospice! I shouted within my mind, invoking the curse to send everything in the circle forward in time. With a mental lurch, the collective was gone, the beginning of Scott's shout was gone, everything but what existed in the circle was gone, melted into a gray haze. Agony lanced through my head. Hunching, I slowed the energy influx until the pain was tolerable. My gaze fixed on the broken stirring rod as I held my breath.

Alien and uncomfortable, my stored energy rippled over me. Snippets of conversation flitted just under my awareness, whispering to leave traces of feeling: joy, boredom, frustration, ecstasy.

Elyse? I wondered, my grip on her shoulder tightening. The emotions were familiar, but the fleeting images joined to them were not.

I stared at the broken length of redwood, my synapses beginning to singe as bloodlust poured through me and vanished. An image of a child on a swing in the sun, blond hair and blue eyes. But it wasn't Kisten. Nor was it his joy that filled me. Thoughts burning, I looked at Elyse's empty expression. Kisten, too, was unmoving as the days turned to weeks, turned to months outside my circle. Emotions too fast to realize cascaded like ice through me with the roughshod clang of a bell rolling down a hill. It was overwhelming, and I groaned, my grip on Elyse spasming as I hunched over her and Kisten.

"Mend…" I groaned as the scent of burnt amber filled my world. It was my mind burning. I could not shut my eyes, gritty with stardust. I could not breathe, bands of time clamped around my chest. I could not stop. I would make it home. I would make it home to Ivy and Jenks and Al. And Trent…

The rod refused to mend as a faint haze of auratic rainbows pulsed painfully through my leg pressing against Kisten's back. Kisten was glowing, a glimmer of what I would swear was aura pulsing like a heartbeat as more bloodlust, more heartache, more guilt, more joy flooded through me almost too quickly to be perceived.

That is not my energy, I suddenly realized. These were not my emotions, my life. They weren't one person's, but many. The collective? I thought, but it made no sense, even if my energy had been stored there.

And then the broken rod in my violently shaking hands magically became whole.

"Stet!" I exclaimed, the word escaping me in a rough croak of sound.

I sagged as the pain in my head vanished. I fell into Kisten, scrambling to find a ley line through Elyse. Utter silence filled the room, and it was chill. Numb, I tucked the mended stirring rod into a pocket, my gaze coming to rest on Elyse's slippered foot.

No noise came from beyond the closed door, and the furnace was cool.

"Elyse…"

I fumbled for her shoulder, my tension easing as the energy slipped in through her, rough and painful over my singed synapses. "Surrundus," I whispered.

"On the other side," she said, her clear words almost painful in the absolute silence. It was her unvoiced thought, the one that the spell had caught and suspended. And then her eyes met mine. "Did it work?"

"I think so." I blinked fast, refusing to cry. She was all right. We'd done it, and she was okay. I bobbed my head, and she pulled her gray sweatshirt from her chest and looked down.

"My tattoos are back!" she said, grinning, as she rushed to get to her feet. "Oh, my God. I never want to be eighteen again. Are you okay? That didn't hurt at all. How are your synapses?"

"Singed, but workable. I took it slow." Kisten was slumped at my feet. He looked the same, thank the Turn. We were home, but my elation was tempered with the knowledge that, without the mirror, nothing had really changed. It had been a big waste of time, one that was going to cost Elyse her career when she tried to convince them to cut me some slack. I couldn't stave off Ivy's grief, but maybe I could do something about Elyse's coming heartache.

"Elyse, about your promise to stand up for me."

Elyse's expression went empty. "Eden Park," she blurted, grabbing my hand and pulling me to the door. "We have to get to Eden Park! We have to stop them fighting."

"Elyse…" I glanced at Kisten, unwilling to just leave him there. Jeez, he still had Johnny's toe tag on him.

She flung open the door, and we hesitated for a moment, half expecting to see Scott and two I.S. witches. But it was only an empty room. "We have to call a car!" she shouted, tugging me into motion.

My hand slipped from her as she raced to the end and blew through the double doors.

"Holy shit!" Iceman bellowed faintly. "Who the hell are you? You're not an undead."

"Be right back," I said as I shifted Kisten to look more comfortable, arranging his hair and giving his cold forehead a soft kiss. "I have to stop the coven from destroying itself."

I stood, gathered myself, and strode out into the receiving room with a confidence I did not feel.

Iceman might let me borrow his car. Maybe.