“No. Rachel—”
“How about now?” I said, shifting backward. I could feel nothing from the line, and I suddenly wanted the bracelet off, knowing it for the manacle it was. How had I allowed this? Was I so thoroughly ruled by fear? Oh God. My mom . . .
“No.” Trent stood, and I rocked him to a halt with a raised hand.
“I promised Al . . .” I said, my voice catching when it rose. Taking a steadying breath, I tried again. “I promised Al that I wouldn’t ever summon him into a circle,” I said, my voice low to keep it from breaking. “Trust is going to keep him calm long enough to listen.”
Almost laughing in disbelief, Trent put all his weight on one foot. “I thought you were going to be smart about this,” he said, calm but mocking as he stood before me in his thousand-dollar suit. “Nothing is going to keep him calm. He’s a demon. You can’t trust him.”
“You’re asking their entire species to trust you to give them a cure, not a death sentence,” I said, then glanced at the closed door and the knock that Trent ignored. “I won’t let you offer them a cure in a way that prevents them from accepting it.” Trent was scowling, and I shrugged. “Look, I understand if you want to leave the room and let me handle it.”
“I’m not chickening out,” he said, affronted as he just about read my mind. “I’m pointing out that a little preparation will make the difference in walking or limping away from this. Why are you making this difficult?”
I extended my coffee to him, and he took the half-empty mug as if unsure of what it meant. “Even with the promise of a cure, you’ve grossly overestimated our chances,” I said matter-of-factly, shaking inside. “I’d prefer to contact Al immediately after taking the charm off, but if you can take it off for me right now, I’ll wait and call him when I get home. He’ll probably sense me and be waiting for me in the line by then.” I’m never going to make this work. Never.
Trent set both our mugs on the tray with twin sharp taps, his motions abrupt. My pulse pounded as he said nothing, moving behind me and, in swift motions, shifted my chair two feet back. My hair swung as he jerked the chair to a halt. “Now you’re in the line,” he said darkly.
“Thank you.” I clenched my hands to hide their shaking.
Trent grumbled something I didn’t hear, his head down as he went behind his desk and crouched. I heard a drawer open and close, and when he stood, he had a mirror in his hand. It was my scrying mirror. I could tell from here.
“Where did you get that?” I said, my eyes widening as I reached for it. “I thought it was lost in the quake!” My scrying mirror would make everything easier. How had he gotten it?
Trent shrugged, his eyes not meeting mine as he handed it over. “I asked the coven for it. I knew you were going to want it eventually.”
The glass felt cold on my fingers, empty. The etched mirror still threw back the world in a wine-tinted wash, but it was pale and two-dimensional—dead. God, what have I done to myself? I suddenly realized Trent was standing over me, inches away, the scent of a green woods coming from him to ease my headache.
“Tell me how you plan on staying alive long enough to bargain with him if you don’t use what I’ve prepared,” he asked, his tone telling me he thought I was being stupid.
I looked up, feeling sick. “I don’t really have a plan, but hiding in a spell-proof room surrounded by an arsenal isn’t going to help. He’s got my summoning name.”
His brow furrowed. “So do I,” he said as he went to his desk.
True. My breath slipped from me in a long exhale. I was not going to be their dog toy. I’d seen dog toys, and they were eventually broken and covered in slobber, left in the rain to be forgotten. My faint smile faded as I saw Trent’s worry, his concern . . . his fear under his professional veneer. He would do this with me, and he knew the danger.Rummaging now in his top drawer, Trent said, “Can’t I just—”
“Defense only. Promise me,” I demanded. He hesitated, his eyes never shifting from mine. “Damn it, Trent, promise me,” I said, not wanting him to lie to me. “You’re all about my taking responsibility, well, this is my decision. I have to do it my way.”
Grimacing, he slammed the drawer shut, a bit of colorful silk in his hand. “It’s not that I don’t trust you,” he said as he straightened, stressing it.
I shifted the heavy glass on my knees. It used to be alive, but now it felt dead. Or was I the one who was dead? “Trust me?” I mocked. “He might kill you. I’m not saying he won’t. But if you raise one charm in anything other than defense, I will spell you down myself.” I waited while he frowned at me, his desk between us. “Sure you want to stay?”
His grumble was enough for me, and I looked behind him at the door, feeling like two kids behind the barn playing show-and-tell. Ivy and Jenks were going to be mad. Ceri would be ticked that I didn’t ask for her help. Quen would say I was foolish for not asking for his assistance. But I didn’t want to endanger them. Ivy and Jenks were moving on without me, and that was good. Ceri had her life with her children before her, and I wouldn’t risk that. Quen was a dragon, ready to swoop in and save me, but leaving me still afraid. Trent . . . Trent was good enough to help, and bad enough to not be a crutch. Perhaps more important, I wanted to do this on my own. Trent could help because I needed it and he’d gotten me into this. He was damn well going to be there when I got out.
Goose bumps tingled up my arms when I recognized the cap and ribbon in his hand. “Thank you,” I whispered, remembering the vengeance of the lines running through me with no aura between me and the energy of creation. “Is it going to hurt?”
“No.” His word crisp and short, he put his cap on with a quickness that dared me to say he looked funny. He seemed so different, I didn’t know what to think anymore. The ribbon went around his neck, over his collar and down his front. It swung as he dragged his chair into the line to face me squarely. I should have been able to feel the line, see the ever-after with my second sight, but I was dead inside.
“Why am I even here if you won’t let me do anything?” he grumbled as he settled himself, his knees inches from mine.
I was starting to shake hard enough for him to notice, but I couldn’t stop, and I should be shaking. Why was he here? Because he was strong enough to watch my back, and weak enough that it would be me solving this, not him. But I couldn’t tell him that.
“Give me your hands,” he said, and my eyes jerked to his. His need to do this shone in them. He was itching to give something back to Al for his missing fingers, itching to prove to the demon that he wasn’t a doormat, a familiar, a commodity, but someone the demon needed to take seriously. God, I knew how that felt. How was I going to keep him alive?
My fingers slipped into his, and we clasped hands, my knuckles resting on the cool glass of my scrying mirror. His hands were cool, mine were shaking, and he gave me a little squeeze, jerking my attention back up.
“Don’t let go until I say,” he said as I stared at him, startled. But he had closed his eyes, his lips moving in something that wasn’t Latin, wasn’t English. The syllables slipped through the folds of my brain like slushy ice, chilling and numbing, the musical rise and fall like unsung music, the wind in the trees, the growth of a tree to the sun. Mesmerizing.
Trent’s eyes opened as if having felt it in me. “Sha na tay, sha na tay,” he intoned. “Tunney metso, eva na calipto, ta sowen.”
My eyes widened as my fingers gripped his tighter. I suddenly realized something was stirring in my chi. I stiffened as the sensation of a painful lifting rose through me, the delicious hurt of the old being peeled back to expose new skin, hurting from the first breath of wind. Like liquid light sliding around corners, ley-line energy coursed into me, trickling enticingly slowly as it tripped every synapse one by one.
My breath came in a heave as I suddenly realized it tasted like Trent’s soul, his energy spilling into me in ever-increasing waves. Frantic, I looked at Trent, his eyes shut, his lips moving as he chanted, his fingers starting to shake as they held mine. I could do nothing. He had told me not to let go.
My breath came in, and I held it. I could feel the charm he had bespelled me with begin to unravel, laying within me, still, like a knot that had been loosened and needed only to be pulled apart. His energies mixed with mine, gathered in my chi until there was enough for him to ease me back into alignment with the rest of the universe. It was colored from his soul, both light and dark, mixing without mixing, swirling with my natural energies until the two were one.
And finally it reached the tipping point. With a wrench, I felt a tug, and like two drops of water, my soul was realigned with reality.
Trent’s eyes flashed open, wide and wondering as his chanting stopped. “My God,” he whispered, suddenly tense and shocked. The heat of the charm lay in his eyes, the promise of what could be—what might be if I could trust another with my heart again. And it hurt me knowing it wasn’t mine.
“Is it done?” I said, feeling the pain of unfulfilled passion. I ached for it to be gone.