Chapter 32

Chapter

32

Iceman's car was a burnt-orange Dodge Charger, immaculately clean and smelling faintly of morgue disinfectant: sunroof, heated seats, monster hemi, stick shift—no problem. It cornered like a Thoroughbred and was just as fast. Elyse had grabbed the chicken strap at my first quick start and hadn't let go as I wove through Cincy's streets, taking the fastest, but not necessarily shortest, route to Eden Park.

I wasn't sure when we had arrived exactly as the car clock was clearly not set right, but it was dark and the streets were moderately busy. I used the stick shift with an aggressive force, finding relief in the extra task. Motion, motion, motion. It was the only thing keeping me halfway sane at the moment. I couldn't believe I had left Kisten in the morgue—even if it was the best place for him.

Elyse fidgeted as she scanned the sky for Slick. Ten minutes ago, it had been late July. Now it was November, and I was cold, having left my jacket at Sylvia's two years ago.

A faint boom echoed between the buildings, and I looked up through the tinted windshield. A pale glow of magic had blossomed over Eden Park. My grip tightened on the steering wheel as Elyse studied the light slowly fading on the cloud bottoms.

"That was Yaz," she said in excitement. "I'd recognize her magic anywhere. Her spells always have that faint purple haze."

I nodded. One's aura invariably colored one's magic. It was how the I.S. caught illicit magic users. I had brought us to the right day, the right time, but my worry grew no less as I made a tight right and entered the park, heading for the overlook. Trent was up there. And Ivy. Al, Jenks, Bis. Everyone I cared about was fighting to give me the chance to find that damned mirror so I could stay in reality—and I had returned with nothing. Less than nothing, seeing as Elyse was going to ruin her career to keep me out of Alcatraz.

A deep foreboding took root as she gripped the strap and leaned to peer out the window in anticipation, waiting for the next blast of magic. "Ah, Elyse, it might be better if you don't spring your decision to ignore me on them right away."

She lifted her gaze from the road. Her face was a little leaner, a little more careworn, but all I saw was the same enthusiastic young woman who, for all her wisdom and knowledge, didn't yet understand how fear rules most people, makes their decisions.

"I'm the lead member," she said confidently. "They'll listen."

But she'd been leading children and hotheaded teenagers, not peers whom she had spent a lifetime building trust with.

"Elyse…"

She stiffened, pointing into the park. "There they are. Merlin's beard, they're still at it."

"Whoa, wait!" I protested, pulling to the curb when she reached for the door, forcing me to halt as she got out.

And then my heart seemed to stop. Ivy was down, kneeling under Trent's protective bubble as she tried to shake off a spell. Al was with them, but neither of them could effectively fight from inside a circle. Magic hazed Trent's hands, and Al was grim, that cane of his held at the ready, the length of wood clearly an oversize wand holding a spell or two.

Scott, Orion, Yaz, and Adan stood at the four corners, the haze connecting them probably something to destroy Trent's circle. Scott might appear like a towheaded child under his curse, but power dripped and hissed from him, embers of energy pinging off Trent's bubble like sparks from a stirred fire as Orion, Yaz, and Adan supplemented his spell. If there had been five, they might have managed it, but as it was, Trent was holding his own thanks to Jenks and Bis dropping squawking, wing-flapping ducks on them.

Even as I watched, another hapless animal struck Yaz, and the young woman's arch of magic went wild, hitting an overhanging tree, where it exploded. Sparkles sifted down, burning when they touched Trent's bubble. But Trent's circle remained secure and the duck half flew, half ran away.

"New target!" Scott shouted, a new spell forming between his hands as he followed Bis's looping, erratic flight.

Oh, hell no… "Bis!" I flung the door open, watching Scott's charm arch through the air after Bis as the gargoyle spun wildly to avoid it. A thin trail of pixy dust from him said Jenks was with him.

Cold. It was too cold for Jenks out here. If Bis was hit, they might both die.

"Spells off the gargoyle!" Al shouted, a premade spell tearing through Trent's bubble.

The curse was headed right for Scott. Jaw clenched, the magic user blasted the curse to nothing, then rose, smug with satisfaction. In his effort to save Bis, Al had taken Trent's circle down.

"Stop!" Elyse demanded, and Bis did a somersault in the air, my breath catching as his red eyes found mine and widened. Trent spun, magic hazing his hands. Ivy, too, looked up, blinking to focus. Al seemed to catch his step, emotion blanking his expression as he pulled himself to a magnificent stance of confidence…and relief.

"She made it!" Bis shouted as the coven circling them seemed to hesitate. "She's back!"

"And she's got a bitching car!" Jenks exclaimed, the clothes-heavy pixy wiggling out of Bis's grip in a burst of blue dust.

"Stop! Everyone stop!" Elyse called again as she came around the front of the car, pace fast and looking innocuous in her gray institutional sweats. "We're all right!"

"Hey!" I exclaimed as a dark shadow dove at me, but it was only Slick, the crow cawing and flapping his wings as he landed on Elyse's shoulder, demanding attention and warning everyone off all at once.

Jenks struggled to hover before me, weighed down by layers of woven spider silk. "Tink loves a duck, where did you get the car?" he said as he landed on my hand. "You okay? You stink like burnt amber. Where's your bag? What did you do to your hair?"

"I'm okay," I said, wishing I was four inches tall or that Jenks was six feet in height. "Crap on toast, I missed you." I jumped when Bis's feet found my shoulder, his feet clamped as if he would never let go. "Both of you."

Ivy slowly got to her feet. Heartache swelled as I remembered Kisten, and feeling it, Bis's wings drooped. The coven members had knotted together, and the need to be with Trent, Al, and Ivy almost hurt. "Where's Laker?" I asked. My God, Trent looked every part the elven warlord, his straw-blond hair staticky with mystics and his aura flicking in and out of existence as his next spell flitted through his mind at the ready.

Jenks shifted to my shoulder, his wings cold as he plastered them to my neck to warm up. "The lunker left thirty seconds after things got gnarly. You've been gone for like fifteen minutes."

Whoa. I did good. "Fifteen minutes?" I started across the field with Elyse, the woman's attention utterly on soothing her familiar. Shoulder to shoulder, we must have made an unsettling sight, both of us ragged, tired, and inappropriately dressed for kicking ass. Both of us easy with each other's company…

Bis's grip tightened on me. "The longest fifteen minutes of my life," he said, glancing at Slick in mistrust when Elyse told the bird to leave him and Jenks alone.

"You owe me a jar of honey, old man," Jenks said proudly. "Where is it, Rache? Where's the mirror?"

My gut hurt, but I didn't shift my pace, didn't change my expression. Even at this distance, Al could read my mood and he slumped, knowing that I had not gotten it. I took a breath to tell Jenks I'd failed…hesitating when Elyse's expression flicked from annoyance to alarm.

"Down!" she shouted, and energy zinged over my skin as she yanked on the ley line. I dropped to my knees, trusting her as she flung out a hand with a dramatic "Sisto!"

Bis's feet clamped tighter, and Jenks rode it out on my shoulder as well. I peered up at Elyse as the coven spell fizzed in a shower of red and purple sparks.

"Knock it off! Stand down!" Elyse exclaimed in annoyance. "I'm fine, Scott. The entire thing was a mistake." She extended a hand to help me up and I took it. "It was my fault I got caught up in Rachel's spell. If not for her, I wouldn't have made it back."

"Back?" Scott shouted, his childlike voice high. "From where? She can jump the lines?"

Oh, if only, I thought. The anger on his face looked wrong on someone so young seeming. But as Orion, Yaz, and Adan clustered behind him, lending him their strength, Scott's aura flickered into existence. He was pulling on the line. Heavy.

"Mother pus bucket, he's going to do it again," Jenks whispered.

Fear tightened my gut—not for me but for those who would stand between me and the coven. Angry, I pulled on the line as well, and Trent's attention shot to me.

"Stop, all of you!" Elyse shouted.

"Detrudo!" I exclaimed, my hair flying as a huge wave of aura-laced air pushed from me, rocking the trees and shoving the twin ponds sloshing out of their confines and onto the grass. My lips parted, not at the coven members rolling ass-over-teacup across the park but at the new, obvious tracings of smut among the usual gold of my aura. Al alone stood tall, his cane held out to part the force around him as Trent knelt with Ivy. Bis's grip on me tightened and Jenks held on to my ear, his madly fluttering scarf tickling my neck.

I looked down at my hand, my thumb rubbing against my fingers as I gauged my new level of smut before my aura vanished. It was more than I had expected for the trip back, and I winced as the cold water sloshed back into the pond, dragging sticks and leaves and candy bar wrappers. Sorry, Sharps. Still, it felt good to be home, where I could throw spells around and not worry about changing the past—only the future.

"Damn, girl," Elyse said as the leaves settled. "Why didn't you do that with Newt?"

I touched Bis's feet in apology. "Because she would have hit me harder," I said, and then louder, "Elyse is right. You all need to knock it off and listen!"

Scott picked himself up with the stoic pain of the sixty-year-old that he really was. "Save it for your trial," he said, his little-boy voice at odds with the anger in it. Behind him, Orion, Yaz, and Adan stood tall. "You are done, Morgan." Scott wiped the blood from his nose. "By order of the coven of moral and ethical—"

"Oh, for Medusa's apples," Elyse interrupted, her arms wrapped about herself from the cold. "Rachel was not fleeing. She went to get a mirror to break the curse."

Al harrumphed as he came to stand behind me with a pompous air. Not a hint of magic wreathed his hands, but I knew Trent, at least, had a thought in the lines. I could feel it.

"And did she?" Scott asked as if already knowing the answer.

Elyse scuffed to a halt, the two of us making the tip of the triangle as we all faced off. "She did better than a mirror," she said, and Bis's wings slumped. Jenks, too, made a small sound of worry. I hadn't gotten the mirror, and now everyone knew. "She saved my ass, Scott."

"And Elyse saved mine," I added, touching Bis's foot in reassurance.

"Huh." Al glanced at Trent for a telling moment. "You saved a coven member's life, itchy witch?"

"It happens," I said, and the demon guffawed as he cautiously eyed Elyse beside me, his opinion clearly wait-and-see.

Scott shook his head, his hands confidently on his hips. "Nothing has changed."

"Everything has changed." Elyse looked away from Al's goat-slitted eyes. "Let go of the line, Scott. I just spent three days with Rachel. We are dropping our case on her."

"Tink's teacups, Rache. What did you do?" Jenks asked.

Orion stiffened. Yaz, too, obviously disagreed, but Adan seemed relieved. Scott, of course, shook his head.

"That man is going to be the death of us all," Elyse said darkly. "Okay. I'm going to talk to my guys. You talk to your guys. Maybe we can all go home tonight. I am so sick of sweats, I could scream."

"Right there with you," I said, and her expression brightened. Besides, if they were talking to Elyse, I could talk to Trent and Ivy, and I desperately needed to.

"Good luck." She touched my elbow and walked away—far too confident. She was headed for a fall.

Al was hunched when I turned to him. "I know how you work, Rachel, but you can't make friends with the coven," he muttered as Trent helped Ivy limp closer. She'd taken a beating in the fifteen minutes I was gone, and my guilt doubled as I remembered leaving Kisten slumped on the morgue floor.

Bis shifted to Al's shoulder when I reached for Trent, but Jenks refused to leave, swearing as Trent yanked me into a hug.

"You're okay," I whispered, glancing over his shoulder to the nearby ley line. It wasn't safe for him to be here. But even that thought vanished when his arms went around me, holding me to him with a fervent relief. His grip shook as he caught his emotions, and his eyes were wet when I pulled away to give him a quick kiss.

"If you hadn't come back…" he whispered, and I nodded, not surprised when he shrugged out of his coat and draped it over my shoulders, surrounding me in his warmth and the electrifying scent of spent magic. Never again. I would not move through this world alone. I would face my trials with him, and he would face his with me.

"Tink's tampons, Rache," Jenks grumped as he made the quick, scarf-fluttering flight to Bis. "You were gone fifteen minutes."

I stifled back any hint of tears and let Trent go. "Try three days," I said, then spun to give Ivy a hug. Her arms were cold, and her grip was fleeting for all the unsaid questions in it. "We, ah, landed two years ago, not five."

Her expression went still as she thought about that. "Two…"

"That explains a few things," Al muttered. "Let me guess. The span of days I spent in Stanley Saladin's body? Perhaps Newt was not as crazy as we believed."

I felt my face warm. "Elyse interfered with the spell. I had to stop early." I fumbled in my pocket for the spent stasis charm and handed it to Trent. "Ah, this is yours. Thanks for letting me borrow it. I think the coven might have one of your books, too."

Trent took it, a proud smile quirking his lips as he recognized it. "That was you? My God. Quen was furious. That was when I put the door in. What good is a vault if your security is too afraid to use the door when someone else breaks in?" He fingered the charm. "Not that I blame them. Demons would have snagged them halfway there."

"Yeah, um, I only took it because I knew you'd want me to," I said, and he grinned, fingering the defunct circle of metal. "It was the only way to get Elyse back safely." My gaze went to Ivy, not sure how I should break the news to her. She'd dealt with Kisten's death, but now he was here and she would have to do it again.

From the coven, Scott exclaimed, "And you trusted her?"

"She didn't spell me," Elyse tried to explain, and everyone sort of zeroed in on her. "She saved my life. Got me out of the ever-after twice."

But Scott was putting it all together, and his stare at me was cold. "That was you," he said, and then spun to Elyse. "And you. It wasn't a look-alike. It was you."

She was going to get kicked out of the coven. I knew it.

"No, listen. It was Elyse!" Scott said, shutting down everyone's questions. "Two years ago, right here in Cincy. Remember when I was called in—"

"That was when you cursed yourself," Orion interrupted, and Al stiffened, knowing I had lost my book, not just tucked it somewhere to take the long way home.

"You did that to yourself ?" I said, and Scott flushed, angry and embarrassed. "You tried to follow us, didn't you." And then I went still. Crap on toast. He'd tried it right after I'd set that magic-knotting curse on him. No wonder his body was moving through time with the sun. Is this my responsibility or his?

Jenks's wings rasped as he resettled himself on Bis's shoulder. "Dumbass."

"None of this is Rachel's fault," Elyse said, but it only made everything worse. "I interfered with her spell. She found a way to get me home. At great cost to herself, I might add."

"Ah, guys?" Jenks said, peering over his scarf to the townhomes across the way. Bis drew himself tall upon Al's shoulder to follow Jenks's gaze, but I couldn't look away from Ivy rushing headlong into heartache.

"I can smell him on you," Ivy whispered, her face going white as she fingered my hair.

My throat tightened into a lump. "I'm so sorry," I whispered as I took her hands in mine. "I didn't look for him. He found me. By accident. At a stupid bar. He was going to run." I couldn't look at her. "I didn't tell him anything, but he could see I was different, and he thought the world was better without him in it so he went back to his boat. He went back because of me. He was going to run, and changed his mind because of me."

Adan was whispering something to Yaz, the two of them watching whatever Jenks and Bis were staring at. Al, too, the demon taking his glasses off before turning to me in shock.

"Ivy, I'm so sorry," I said as I squeezed her fingers, but she wouldn't look at me.

"Oh, my God," she whispered, eyes tearing as she stared over my shoulder, shaking.

"He went back to the boat to save your life," I said. "And mine. I couldn't change it."

"Kisten," she breathed, her expression empty as if she hadn't even heard me.

"Please," I said when she pulled from me. "I didn't want to tell you like this, but I know how you bottle everything…up." I stopped talking. She wasn't listening to me. No one was.

I turned, expecting the worst, surprised to see only two figures coming across the grass. One was in a lab coat, his hands in his pockets. He moved with a stilted quickness, holding himself a little apart from the other. The man beside him was taller, dressed in a simple but timeless outfit, his jeans tight and his shirt open at the collar. His pace was confident, his head up as he walked barefoot over—

Barefoot? Oh, my God. It's Kisten.

"Tink's tampons, it's Felps!" Jenks shrilled, his voice muffled behind his scarf.

Ivy swayed, balance gone.

"How…" Elyse said, her jaw dropping. "How did he survive the trip?"

"You brought him with you?" Scott exclaimed. "You risked the timeline to rescue your boyfriend ?"

"No." I blinked fast as my vision swam. "He was undead, suffering from biting Art. I put him in a stasis charm so I wouldn't have to watch him…uh…I don't know how he survived." Because there he was, a hint of deviltry in his gait as Iceman touched his elbow and veered off to check on his car.

Al sighed. "I can't wait to hear this," he said as he thumped his cane thrice on the ground and a tattered book with the spine falling apart appeared in his hand.

"Me either," Trent muttered, worry crinkling his brow.

"I don't understand," I said, gobsmacked. "I used a demon stasis charm so Elyse wouldn't die on the trip back, but that wouldn't help him survive Art's virus." And yet there he was, smiling as he tossed his head to get the hair from his eyes.

"Perhaps two years is enough time for one virus to overcome the other," Al said as he put his glasses on so he could look over them at the book. "My question is how did a stasis spell keep him from auratic starvation?" Engrossed, he turned a page. "Demon based or not, that's not how that spell works."

"He's got an aura," Jenks said. "It's not his, but he's got an aura."

"I don't understand," I said as I remembered the fleeting feel of thousands of selves when I traveled back. But even that thought failed me when Kisten cheerfully waved and we all moved to make room for him.

"Kisten?" Ivy warbled, and then I jumped when she flung herself at him, burying her face in his shoulder as she gave him a fierce hug, holding him in a white-knuckled grip. "You're here!" she exclaimed. "How? You were twice dead."

His arms were around Ivy, but his gaze was on me. "I don't know," he said, voice melodious as his attention dropped to her. "I would have gotten here sooner, but I had to find some clothes and it took a while to get a cab."

My God. I had left him on the floor of the morgue. "Where are you getting your aura?" I whispered, and then I felt the world shift as I put it together. The fee-for-use had sustained him. Dr. Ophees had indeed been using the curse I'd given her, the ten percent of the auras she gathered stored in the collective and funneled to Kisten in the same way I'd taken back my own energy—for two years. Somehow he had fought off Art's virus.

Kisten was alive, or undead, rather. And he was here. Right now.

Shocked, I looked at Al. The demon stared at me, gaze flicking to Kisten before he snapped the book in his hand closed, knowing I had the answer even if he didn't.

"Where did he get the aura?" Trent asked as if Kisten wasn't standing in front of him.

Jenks's dusted a cold blue. "It's not his. It's got too much yellow in it."

Clearly concerned, Trent dropped back as the coven clustered together, each of them trying to get their opinion heard. Al alone stared at me, that book of his tucked under his arm as he waited for my explanation. It was Kisten, but it was not. He had always been graceful, but now his every motion held the smooth, unhurried refinement of the undead, an unsettling innocence. It pulled at me…until I saw Trent's worry, his outright fear that he would lose me…and any bloodlust I might have felt vanished to the last tingle.

My breath shook as I exhaled, and I felt for Trent's fingers, seeing the light in Kisten's eyes dim when Trent grasped my hand tight and pulled it to his chest. This, I knew, was love, and I felt my throat close for what I was leaving behind; what I had with Trent summed far greater.

"Ah, I could use some context," Kisten said as Ivy stared at him, touching his arm, his face, his brow as if he was going to evaporate.

"Me too," Al said dryly.

Kisten put his head against Ivy's for a moment. "I woke up on the morgue floor," he said softly, and I winced in guilt. "In the furnace room. Naked and with a John Doe Vamp toe tag. Scared Iceman." Bare feet shifting on the cold ground, he drew a manila tag from his pocket, the scuff it'd gained from my dragging him across the floor standing out against the otherwise clean paper as he showed it to me. "I know I'm undead, but how? I should be twice dead. I bit Art. Where did the aura come from? I don't remember biting…Did I…bite someone?"

"Ah, about that," I said, and everyone turned to me, coven and friend alike. Elyse winced and gestured for me to have at it. Maybe she thought it would help my case. "Um, I taught Dr. Ophees the spell to pull an aura from donated blood. She wouldn't use it if it left smut on her aura, so I put a ten percent royalty use fee on it, storing my share of the take in the collective." I stifled a shiver as the remembered feeling of other people's auras tripped down my spine. "It went right to you. You've been getting a portion of every aura she collected."

"That's where your aura got smutty," Al said, and I nodded.

"For two years?" Trent said, and I gave his fingers a squeeze, glad he wasn't looking at me in disgust as the coven members were.

"I didn't want you to starve as Art's virus killed you," I said, and Kisten's smile softened as he put the toe tag back in his pocket.

"If he's here, who is on Ivy's closet shelf?" Jenks asked, and Ivy blinked fast, still not believing it.

"We never had any conformation that the ashes were Kisten's." I touched my pocket, hoping Johnny's hair was still there. "Elyse and I put a John Doe Vamp in Kisten's drawer. That's probably whose ashes Ivy has."

"You're an undead," Ivy whispered, and Kisten focused his entire self on her.

"Yeah, sorry, love," he said, hitting his fake British accent hard. "I know you wanted to go first." He smiled to show his long teeth. They were new, unstained by anyone's blood, and I stifled a shudder that might have its roots in ecstasy. "Where's Piscary?" he asked, a flicker of anger marring his beauty, and Jenks snorted.

"Two years dead," the pixy said from Bis's shoulder, as proud as if he'd done the deed himself, and Kisten looked at Ivy for confirmation—but she was still lost in trying to figure this out. "We got some crazy nutjob named Constance running the city. Rachel is her brains, and Ivy and Pike are her muscle."

Kisten spun back to me and I added, "Constance is a figurehead. Everyone is helping." I didn't like that the coven was hearing this. My throat closed, and I touched Trent's fingers again. Cincy was safe, even if I had to leave it. "I can't leave Cincy to Constance. She's not ready to solo yet. Ah, Kisten—"

"No one is putting Rachel in Alcatraz," Al interrupted, and Scott pushed forward, clearly peeved that he had to look up at everyone.

"The farce is over," he said, the jaded sixty-year-old man shining through his ten-year-old visage. "You don't have the mirror, and you won't by June. Come quietly, or you will drag those you care about into the same cesspit."

Jenks outright laughed, and the coven member flushed as Orion, Adan, and Yaz drew closer to Scott. "What part of Rachel doesn't go to jail don't you get, moss wipe?"

"She's wanted for illicit magic," Scott said, undeterred. "She can't untwist that curse. She goes to jail. Time is up."

"Time is not up ," Al said haughtily. "Nor is it down. Time is relative."

"Rachel doesn't need to do anything," Elyse insisted. "I spent the last three days with her trying to get that damned Atlantean mirror. Survived a bet with a demon. Stole from an elf."

Trent's fingers tightened in mine. "You really need to stop doing that," he whispered, and a delighted shiver rippled over my skin.

"But you make it so easy," I whispered back. Oh, man. Quen. I have to talk to Quen.

"The coven's position should be hands-off from here on out," Elyse continued. "We will leave her alone as Vivian told me to do. Not in Alcatraz. Not leashed to the coven. Rachel doesn't need a leash. She needs a license to spell." She took a slow breath. "I intend to give it to her."

"Oh, my God," Yaz whispered, one hand clutched around an amulet. "She cursed Elyse. Morgan bewitched her."

"Rache did not bewitch anyone!" Jenks exclaimed, and Al's grip on his cane tightened.

"Ley line. Let's go," Trent whispered, a hand at the small of my back.

A chill raced from his touch to light my entire existence. Kisten jerked as if on a string, and I shook my head, both at Trent wanting me to leave and at Kisten for reacting to my surge of emotion. He was an undead. I couldn't…I just couldn't. I had loved him, but now…

He wasn't a ghost. Thank the Turn that that curse of Ophees would keep him in auras. He would only have to take in blood because he wanted to, not because he had to.

Elyse stood firm between me and the rest of her coven. "Scott, if there is one thing that I learned in the last three days, it's that it's better to have Rachel as a friend than an enemy. She might be able to untwist your curse. You ever think of that?"

Al tapped his cane three times on the earth, the thumps revibrating to make a distant car's alarm go off. "But not when exiled to the ever-after, and certainly not from Alcatraz," he said with a devilish smile as he peered over his glasses. "Surely we can come to some agreement, honorable coven members."

For a moment the coven held themselves still, exchanging knowing looks as they were faced with something they dearly wanted…and trying to decide if they could get it without paying the cost. Trent's jaw clenched as he tightened his grip on the ley line, energy tinging over my skin like silk. Kisten took note of their silence. Ivy was still too shaken, but she perked up when Bis shifted to her shoulder and whispered in her ear. Jenks, of course, was ready.

"They aren't going for it," I whispered to Trent, his fingers in mine making a delicious path of promise in me. Damned vampire pheromones…

"Then we will convince them." Trent's other hand lay lightly against my back, and our energies rubbed together and became as one.

"Enough!" Elyse shouted. "Scott, Rachel is off-limits until we have a chance to talk this out. I am the lead member, and we will follow protocol!"

"You are only lead member because we voted you in," Scott said, and my heart sank as Elyse saw her position crumble. "And we can vote you out."

There it was, and I winced, seeing Elyse pale as she realized I'd been right.

The coven was moving, the four of them beginning a mumbled Latin as they dropped back, their fingers weaving in unison. Elyse stared at them, shocked by the betrayal, but I wasn't surprised. They would kick Elyse out to get what they wanted. Desperate, I looked at Al's stoic anger as he dramatically gestured to the nearby line. Bis took to the air, Jenks with him, and still I shook my head, even as I understood why he wanted me to leave. He had known the coven would lie, cheat, and steal to enslave me, just as the elves had lied, cheated, and stolen to enslave the demons.

"Elyse Embers?" Magic wreathed Scott's hands, supplemented by the others: Orion confident, Yaz determined, Adan too scared to disagree. "It is the opinion of the majority of the membership that you have been compromised and are hereby—"

"Good God, Scott!" Elyse shouted over him. "Will you—"

As one, the coven members threw a net. Elyse yelped, invoking a protection circle as she tossed Slick into the sky.

"Enough!" Kisten exclaimed, pulling from Ivy with the quickness of the undead to backhand Scott and send him flying into Orion, knocking them both down. The net flickered and went out, spent.

"Kisten! Gentle!" I pushed forward, jerking to a stop when Ivy grabbed my arm. He was newly undead. He didn't know his strength. "They're just afraid!"

That he understood, and Kisten pulled himself to a stiff-armed, scary-ass halt. Like a thrown switch, he had become a true undead, and a chill dropped down my spine as the full force of his existence rippled over me, allure and threat twined together in a delicious promise of ecstasy.

Feeling his draw as well, Ivy yanked away from me, her eyes pupil black.

Scott looked up from the ground, his apparent ten-year-old self safe under his circle as the full allure and power of the undead hit him. My neck tingled, and I held my breath, hating that Trent and all the coven could see the connection that still lay between us. Bis's ears were flat, Jenks cradled in his hands as the pixy was too heavy to fly well. Ivy was alight, her hands clasped so she wouldn't touch me. She knew. Though newly risen, Kisten was a powerful undead. Constance would be safe. It was the rest of us I should be worried about.

"Okay, let's all take a step back," Elyse said, all but ignored.

"I know you now," Kisten intoned, and Scott and the rest got to their feet, the protection circle humming over their heads. "You will leave Rachel alone, or I will find you."

"You have no strength here, vampire," Scott snarled. "Semper frigido!"

"No!" I shouted when his spell tore through his circle, gathering its strength as it headed for Kisten. I'd seen this before. It would tear him apart, shatter him like broken ice.

"Kisten!" Ivy exclaimed, and I pulled on the line, feeling it sing through me.

"Rhombus!" I shook as I dropped a circle around not Scott but Kisten.

The vampire jerked to a halt, his first look of betrayal at me crushing.

And then I groaned as Scott's curse hit my circle, and my blood seemed to fragment.

I fell to a knee, gasping when Trent lurched to catch me. His hands were like hot daggers, and I shook as I tried to put myself back together before I fell apart. With a sodden crack, I took Scott's curse, making it mine. Relieved, I sagged as the magic vanished into the ground with little curls of color.

"Scott, knock it off!" Elyse shouted, her voice sounding as if it was a million miles away. "We need to talk this out, and we can't do that with you slinging spells."

I lifted my head, thankful for Trent's support as I got to my feet. The coven was staring at me in surprise, but it was Kisten my gaze went to. I had taken Scott's curse, but my bubble was a flat orange and red, the telltale aura that made it beautiful frozen in place, like a single snapshot of an aurora borealis.

"You froze her circle?" Concern pinched Al's brow. "And you call that legal?" He turned to me. "Release it."

But I didn't think I could just yet. It wasn't warm enough, and I shook with cold when Bis landed upon my shoulder, a gentle heat emanating from him. Kisten stood within my circle and used his finger as if he was leaving words on a misted mirror to write, Leave Rachel alone, or I will find you.

"Are you okay?" Bis said, his heat finally beginning to reach my core. Still, I could do nothing except stare at the words, fading when the skin of my circle began to shimmer as my soul warmed and my aura became fluid again, rubbing out Kisten's words like the heat of the sun.

"Rachel?" Bis questioned as the background chatter became louder. My expression emptied as the circle became malleable and Kisten's words vanished. The words, I realized, had vanished. Just as they had when Newt breathed upon the table.

I dropped my circle, shuddering when the still-cold energy raced through me back to a ley line. Numb, I turned to Elyse, the woman focused utterly on trying to talk to her peers. I had found the mirror. It wasn't glass or metal or anything shiny at all. An Atlantean mirror were words that were made with the intent to be transient—powerful but fleeting—like the Atlanteans themselves.

"I found the mirror," I whispered, and Bis's wings flashed open. "I found the mirror!" I shouted it this time, and the heated arguments faltered.

"Where is it?" The glow about Elyse's hands flickered as she faced off before Scott.

I shook my head, not willing to tell them the secret. "I found it," I said, and Al peered at me from over his blue-tinted glasses. "I mean, I know what it is now. I figured it out." My pulse quickened as I looked at Kisten. "I can uncurse Brad."

My hand in Trent's was trembling again, but it was in relief. I could uncurse Brad and get the rest of the coven off my case. Maybe save Elyse's career.

Scott's ten-year-old face screwed up in disbelief. "You expect us to believe that you found it this very moment?"

"Newt gave me a riddle," I said, glancing at Elyse. "Ask her. She'll verify it. I didn't understand it until now."

Elyse blinked, and then her lips parted in understanding. She'd been there when Newt had breathed on the table and sketched a pentagram, claiming she'd done her part to fulfill our deal. Dark eyes wide, Elyse jerked free of Orion's grip. "She has the mirror. If she can uncurse Brad, she has fulfilled our original bargain and is free of any taint of illicit magic." Her eyes narrowed in threat. "Or are we going to renege on that as well?"

Scott might as well have been eating slugs, his expression was that sour. "That was the deal," he said, and the others shifted uneasily. "But you will agree to undergo a thorough debriefing with the intent to detox any—"

"I am not bewitched!" Elyse protested, and Scott's gaze hardened.

"No, I think you were bedemoned. A little Stockholm syndrome, maybe."

"Hey!" both Elyse and I shouted, making things worse somehow.

The tension began to rise again, and Al stepped in between us, cane whirling in a not-so-subtle threat at odds with his pleasant expression. "Perhaps we can agree to take a break until Rachel demonstrates the mirror's effectiveness or not? You gave her until June. It's November."

My gaze flicked to the park's entrance, adrenaline clearing my focus as I noticed the blue and gold lights spinning up the drive. Iceman was gone, and I tightened my grip on Trent's fingers. "You should go."

Trent took a slow breath. Hands cupping my face, he gave me a lingering, warming kiss that went straight to my toes. "Keep her safe on this side of the lines, Felps," he said as he dropped back, his gaze fixed to me. "Or I'll find you."

It was nearly the same thing that Kisten had written on the frozen wall of my circle, and by Trent's hard expression, I knew he had put the same threat behind it. One in reality, one in the ever-after. How was I going to balance this? Because it needed to be balanced.

Kisten nodded, holding himself deathly still. "I know you love her. I know she loves you. I gave my life to protect that. I won't encroach upon this love. It is alive, and I know mine is dead…even if it is all I have."

"Kisten…" I breathed, my heartache shifting from having lost him to death to having lost him to time. I would not call what we once had wrong or simple or naive. It had been true.

And yet my gaze left him to follow Trent as he walked away, feeling him take a part of me with him.

Al harrumphed as he watched Trent pace to the ley line and vanish.

"That was fun." Jenks landed heavily upon my shoulder. "You think they will hold to their promise?"

"They will, or they will suffer," Al said, loud enough for the coven to hear.

"I need some coffee. Decaf," I whispered as I turned to see my car right where I had left it three days and three minutes ago. I had the mirror. I had Trent in the ever-after and Kisten in reality and Al in my backyard. Jenks was on one shoulder, and Bis flew above, doing exuberant barrel rolls with Slick until they both landed on my car's top with a thud and scrape to make Ivy wince.

But as I tugged Trent's coat closer about me and glanced at Elyse arguing with her peers, it didn't feel like a win.