Swallowing, I turned to Trent, but my next words died as the door opened and Quen came in, Jenks riding the ladder he was toting. My face was hot, and I knew I had a panicked look on it. Trent had something they wanted. Something they wanted so badly I might be able to bargain with Al for my continued freedom. Trent could help me, I thought. And this time I believed it. If we could hold Al off long enough for him to listen.The clatter of the ladder being set up was harsh, and both Jenks and Quen looked up when neither Trent nor I said anything. “In the meantime,” Trent said to fill the breach, “Winona is welcome to stay. We don’t have a nanny, and the girls seem to like her.”
Jenks’s wings buzzed, and even Quen accepted that at face value, but I dropped my head, trying to lower my pulse before Jenks sensed it racing. I had to talk to Trent. I didn’t want to be afraid anymore. I didn’t want Winona living her life as a monster. I didn’t want anyone killing for me when I could use my magic and avoid bloodshed altogether. And if someone had to die, then . . . Oh God, I didn’t know if I could do that.
But I wasn’t going to be afraid anymore, and it was the scariest thing I’d ever decided. With a single-minded purpose, I hobbled forward, my hand reaching for the ladder in support.
“What the Tink-blasted hell do you think you’re doing?” Jenks said, and I started, shocked. How did he know?
“You’re not getting on the ladder,” Quen said dryly. “I can tell if the light has been disturbed.”
Oh! I took my hand off the ladder, flustered. Still leaning against the counter, Trent watched me pull back as if stung. Our eyes met over the length of the room, and when he saw my frightened, lost expression, his entire demeanor shifted. His lips parted and he pushed from the counter. Eyebrows high, he smiled faintly, a new excitement making his motions sharp. He knew. I was an open book to him. It had begun, my terrifying, I’m-not-afraid world.
“Um, I have to go,” I said, and Jenks’s wings clattered in sudden mistrust.
“What did you say to her, Trent?” the pixy demanded as Trent came forward and took my elbow, helping me to the door. “Where are you going? We just got the ladder. Don’t you want to know if this is how they got in?”
Oh shit. I was going to take the bracelet off. My heart pounded, and I felt dizzy.
Trent’s grip on my elbow tightened and he slipped his mutilated hand around my waist. “Now?” Trent murmured. The scent of wine and cinnamon filled me, and I closed my eyes, trying to stand upright, but it only made me dizzier. “Let me know what you find,” he said loudly, his voice calm under a lifetime of business dealings, but I don’t think he was fooling Quen. “Rachel has been on her feet too long. I can get her to her chair okay. Ceri will skin me alive if she passes out. I’m going to take her upstairs. Quen, a full report of what you find, on my desk ASAP.”
“I’m fine,” I said breathily, but I wasn’t. I couldn’t meet Jenks’s eyes as I shuffled out, but he was more excited about helping Quen with the light than anything else. I didn’t want him around when Al showed up. At least it was daylight. I’d have a few hours to make a new scrying mirror and try to explain before it all hit the fan.
Unless he jumps me to the ever-after, that is.
“Us,” Trent said as the door shut behind us and I looked up in the cool emptiness of the hall. “Unless he jumps us to the ever-after. Get it right, Rachel. I said I would help.”
“H-how . . .” I stammered, but he just smiled, his grip on my elbow never changing as he helped me to my chair.
Chapter Nineteen
My leg hurt, and I sat in my rolling chair, as I had done for much of the first part of my life, numb as someone else moved me around. Saying nothing, Trent smoothly pushed me through the downstairs labs until we were rising up to the first floors through a different elevator than we’d come down in. The humming, chill silence of the basement labs was replaced by the warmth of neutral carpet and soft conversation as he wove me through the front offices, skillfully evading or redirecting comments or requests from curious employees.
Almost without notice, the noise muted, then vanished. The warmth of the sun spilled in over my feet, and still I sat, doing nothing as the chair halted. I felt Trent slip around from behind me as he took a tray from someone coming in, then his beautiful voice rising and falling reassuringly as he ushered whoever it was out and shut the door with a soft and certain thump.
Then there was silence. Slowly the wonderful scent of coffee slipped into me.
My breath went in and out, and I looked up to see that we were in Trent’s office. The fake sun was coming in the huge video screen showing this year’s foals standing to take in the last of the warming rays, but it felt warm on my feet and looked real enough to me. Trent was sitting behind his desk, his feet up on his daily planner, his fingers steepled as he watched me, a curious tilt to his head, his fair hair almost in his eyes. Between us on a wooden tray was a pot of what had to be coffee and two empty cups with the Kalamack logo ghosted in silver.
“Are you okay? You kind of spaced out.” He put his feet on the floor and leaned over the desk, an excitement I’d never seen before sparking in his eyes, making them almost . . . mischievous? “I’ve never said that before. Spaced out. But that’s exactly what you did.”
Still feeling numb, I looked at the carafe of coffee, then my silver bracelet, the Möbius strip with Latin etched into it wrapped around me, shining in the sun. “Did I?”
My voice trailed off as he got to his feet and came around to the front of the desk, his motions still having a quick edge. “You started to go into shock. I thought my office would be better than a roomful of helpful Ceri.” He hesitated. “Unless you want her in on this, too?”
Having her here would be like asking someone else to take my bullet. No. I was done with that, and I shook my head as he poured two cups and offered me the first. It wasn’t the shock of injury, but the realization that the bracelet was going to come off, that everything was going to change. I was going to be a demon for real, the power, the responsibility . . . If people were going to die from my decisions, it would no longer be because I was too afraid to act. But to kill someone . . . I didn’t know if I could do that. I desperately didn’t want to be that person.
The sound of the coffee chattering into the second cup was loud as I brought mine to my lips, my hands shaking. The mug was warm in my fingers, and the coffee slipped into me, both bitter and rich, shocking me awake. “Thank you,” I said softly as he sat back on the edge of his desk with his own cup.
He inclined his head slightly, looking as fabulous as ever, more appealing than before because I had no idea what he was going to do, what he was capable of.“Don’t do that,” I said, my gaze going everywhere but to him.
“Do what?” He sipped from his mug, one long leg draping to the floor, the other pulled up slightly.
“Sit on your desk and look sexy.”
Trent hesitated. Clearing his throat, he slipped from the desk, fidgeting as he looked at his chair, behind his desk. It was obvious he didn’t want to sit there, and looking somewhat sheepish, he used his foot to shift one of the leather chairs in front of his desk so that it faced me more fully. “I’ve never sat in one of my own chairs before,” he said as he eased back into it, slowly, as if testing it out. His eyes roved over his desk, taking it in from a new point of view. He might not have any idea what it meant to me—that he wasn’t behind his desk and in a position of power—but then again, he probably did.
More nervous yet, I held my coffee with two hands and sipped, afraid of what was coming.
“You’re ready?” Trent said, and I flicked a glance at him.
Crap, he looked even sexier now, more relaxed, more accessible—more off-limits. I swallowed my coffee and rested the cup against me, warming my middle. “Yes.” My voice didn’t even quaver, but I was a wreck inside. Al was going to take me. He was going to take me and stick me in a little box. And that was if I was lucky. This was a dumb idea.
“Mmm.” His foot was twitching, and he stilled it as he saw me notice. “I have a room set up. Lots of circles, protection. We should break the charm now before the sun goes down so we have a chance to prepare for him popping over.”
My breath came fast. If we waited, Ceri would get involved. “No.”
“No?” I felt his eyes land on me, his almost subliminal fidgeting stop as he probably weighed his chances of changing my mind. Sighing, he stretched for his phone. “Give me a moment, then. I’ll get some charms sent up that might contain him for a few moments—”
Alarm was a wash of adrenaline, waking me up almost more than the coffee. I might never see Ivy or Jenks again . . . “We’re not going to trap him when he shows.”
“You’re joking.”
We, I thought, my pulse quickening. I had said “we,” and it had sounded right. Scooting my rolling chair back, I looked up at him, breathless. Trent had a ley line running through his office. I’d used it once to find the resting site of a murder victim in his stables. I could see and talk to Al through a ley line even if the sun was up—and duck out of it if he tried to abduct me. “Am I in it?” I asked him, knowing he understood when his frown turned severe.