Al sat up with a grunt. “They are what?” he said, and Trent turned our way.

  “Lee would be exempt,” David continued. “He’s not in the demon collective, but you are. If it works, you’ll be stuck here, and everything you worked for will slowly and painfully decay, and I say painfully because no one in their right mind wants Finnis and Lee in charge. And that’s assuming no one has found out your summoning name, in which case, you are in Alcatraz.”

  My chest hurt, and I stared at Al, scared when his expression stiffened.

  “Okay,” David said, knees spread as he took in the fire’s heat. “I get that it’s a challenge to avoid incarceration or death when the coven is out to get you. You have a definite home base. You’re easy to track on social media. It doesn’t help that you haven’t been up-front with the coven. Unfortunately, with Finnis involved, the I.S. is more than willing to bring you in.”

  “I’ve already fought one I.S. death threat and won,” I said. Trent was coming back to the fire, and I shifted on my stone to give him a place to sit down.

  “That’s what I’m saying.” David smacked a hand on his knee. “You got this. But not if you’re camped out in the ever-after eating s’mores and drinking coffee made over an open fire.” His gaze went appreciatively into his cup. “As good as it is. That’s why Quen pushed me through a ley line so I could ask you, one city power to another. What are you going to do?”

  Guilt, anxiety, and a little thread of panic iced through me as I looked from David to Trent, and then finally Al. The question in David’s eye remained, but he knew I wasn’t going to sit here and feel sorry for myself for very long, because he was right. Everything was still there. It was in hiding. As it should have been from the beginning.

  Slowly I nodded, and Al’s furrowed brow smoothed.

  “I need to talk to Dali,” the demon said as he stood. “May I borrow your horse?”

  “If he will accept you,” Trent said dryly, and the horse nickered, ears going flat when Al boldly strode across the field toward him.

  “Al?” I called as the demon stopped four feet from the horse, the aging gray’s lip now lifted in threat.

  “The coven can’t be allowed to exile us from reality again,” Al said as he took a step forward, shifting sharply to the left to avoid a thrown hoof. “Rachel’s efforts to get that curse removed nearly bankrupted me the first time.” Moving like fire, Al snagged Tulpa’s bridle, dragging it off the horse as Tulpa lunged to bite him. Shocked, the horse waggled his head. “I’ll be with Dali. If you need me, call him.”

  In an enviable smooth move, Al grabbed a handful of mane and swung himself atop Tulpa, bareback and no bridle. The horse made one stifled whinny, his alarmed prance quickly dissolving into an even, in-place trot. Even his ears lifted.

  “I didn’t know you could ride,” I said, thinking he looked really good there. Almost as good as an elf.

  “Ride?” Al patted the horse, now standing still and blowing. “I invented dressage. Well, the fighting horse, actually. Dressage is all that’s left.” He hesitated, something new passing through him as he sat atop a horse. “Kalamack, the ever-after is lacking. When you have time, I’d like to talk to you about introducing a semi-wild herd.”

  “Ah, sure,” Trent said, clearly stunned that Al was atop his familiar. And then Al shifted his leg and the horse wheeled around to canter slowly into the woods.

  “Huh,” I said, surprised, but I really shouldn’t have been.

  “Rachel?” David asked. “I’m going to fix what I can. What is your decision?”

  The I.S. truly wasn’t the problem, or Finnis, or even the coven. It was Lee. If I took his power, it would all fall back to me. I couldn’t best a city, but I could best a man. “Can you get a message to Ivy for me?” I asked, and David stood and extended a hand to help me up, his smile wide in anticipation.

  “I can do one better. Find some boots. I know where she is.”

  CHAPTER

  27

  “They usually go down around now and sleep for six hours,” Trent was saying to Al. The demon was holding both girls, a flicker of annoyance on him as we had drawn him out of Dalliance and his conference with Dali to babysit. The demon eatery was currently that vampire strip bar, and the modern, unkempt building with its cracked parking lot and paint-peeling fence was surreal at the bottom of an earthen bowl with Tulpa cropping the tall grass surrounding it.

  “Please don’t keep them up, or they will crash too early tonight and throw off their entire schedule,” Trent added, squinting in the high sun. Between the girls’ needs and finding a pair of Trent’s slippers for me, it had taken us a frustrating four hours to make the twenty-minute walk to Dalliance, and I was antsy to see Ivy.

  “I have cared for elven children before.” Shifting them higher, Al beamed at the sleepy girls in turn. “We will have so much fun at Dalliance, my darlings!”

  Trent’s expression blanked. “Ah, I thought you’d take them back to your wagon to nap,” he said, his hands twitching as if he was having second thoughts.

  “They’ll be fine.” I linked my arm in Trent’s to draw him away, but he resisted even as his gaze went to David, waiting on the crest of the hill. “If the demons can’t find a way to slip the witches’ curse, they’ll be stuck in the ever-after, and if Al isn’t here, he won’t be able to give any input. But you don’t have to come,” I added, and Trent’s focus sharpened on me. “The I.S. and coven still have a warrant out for you.”

  “I’m not staying here,” he said, his attention flicking to the strip bar when the door banged open.

  It was Dali, the portly demon striding across the cracked pavement toward us with his formal black spelling robe furling about his heels. “Rachel!” he bellowed, voice echoing in the cupped valley. “A word with you and Gally. Alone.”

  Trent sighed, and my hands went to my hips. “Trent—” I started, annoyed.

  “Isn’t a demon,” Dali finished, and I scowled.

  Trent took my hands. “It’s not a big deal,” he said as he tugged me forward and gave me a small kiss to make Al stifle a groan. “Actually, I think it’s great. They are seeing you as one of their own,” he added as he tweaked Lucy’s neck to make her squirm and arranged Ray’s hair. “Be good for your uncle Al,” he told the girls, his voice light, and then to me, “Rachel, I’ll wait for you with David.” Pausing, he gave Al a respectful nod. “Al.”

  “Kalamack,” Al said, just as blandly.

  “You don’t have to leave,” I insisted, but Trent only gave Dali an amused smirk before heading for the rise, his long legs taking the hill with ease.

  “You know I’m going to tell him. Whatever it is,” I said as Dali settled in before us. His goat-slitted eyes held worry, but anticipation had tightened his stance, making him seem almost aggressive. Clearly something was up.

  “This doesn’t concern the elves,” Dali said, his gaze lingering on Lucy and Ray falling asleep in the noon sun, their wispy hair shifting in the breeze. “Your recent failure with Kalamack Senior’s lab experiment is embarrassing, but it has brought to light a dangerous situation we need to remedy.”

  “Kalamack Senior. You mean Trent’s dad?” I said, and then, after a moment’s thought, “Hey. I am taking care of Lee. I haven’t failed anything.”

  Dali made a face in a silent rebuke. “In light of the situation, we have decided that we will endeavor to close the lines to simple translocation travel to prevent witches and elves from crossing into the ever-after by standing in a ley line. Their fear of us once kept our reality free of them, but you broke that, and such an action is long overdue. Your presence is both needed and requested.”

  “Lee isn’t an experiment,” I said, annoyed as I watched Trent trudge up the rise, Tulpa following close behind. “Is that what you think I am? An experiment?”

  Al took a breath, but Dali was faster. “Time will tell what you are,” Dali said. “Inside.”

  But I shook my head, arms over my middle to become as unmoving as a salt pillar. “I’m not going to help you close the lines to translocation travel,” I said, and Al chuckled knowingly. Doing so would only stop witches and elves from coming to the ever-after. Demons were not about to give up their oat milk cinnamon lattes and could move from reality to reality without needing to stand in a ley line. That is, unless the witches cursed them into exile. Either way, I was going to be stuck in whatever reality I was in when it happened. “Look, I appreciate the gesture, but Lee is not that big of an issue. I’ve got this. Besides, closing the lines might negate the legislation that Trent has done on our behalf. I lose everything, you lose everything.”

  Dali’s lips pressed together, but Al was clearly not going to side with him, and his eyes narrowed. “You have already lost everything,” Dali said sourly. “Into Dalliance. Go.”

  “I said I can handle Lee,” I muttered, and Al nodded, boosting my confidence. “Once I get him out of Cincy, things will course correct. I already took out his primary muscle, and he’s scared to death of you all. He won’t dare cross the ley lines.” Because despite my cold-morning thoughts, I wasn’t about to stay here for the rest of my life. It was a place to catch my breath, to regroup.

  “I do not share your optimism concerning . . . Lee.” Dali’s lips curled as Al patted Lucy’s shoulder and sniggered. “And despite your lofty opinion of yourself, not everything is about you. If Lee was indeed Hodin’s student, there’s a chance, however slim, that he could tamper with the tulpa that holds him. Closing the lines will prevent Lee from entering the ever-after. He can’t line jump, and no demon will sell him one.”

  “And there’s the sticking point,” Al said softly as I bristled.

  “Neither can I, yet,” I said, feeling a hit. “Nor Al at the moment.”

  Dali’s lips curved into an ugly smile. “Learn?” he said insincerely.

  “No,” I said as Al jiggled on his feet and patted Lucy drowsing in the sun. “I’m not going to help you close the lines. Not for any reason. Isolation is a bad idea no matter what you think you might gain from it.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Dali said. “You are outvoted. We are doing this with or without you.”

  “Hey!” I started, and Al cleared his throat.

  “You can try,” Al said sourly. “But you will not manage it, even with her help. Our collective has become too small for such a curse. Without Newt, we are too few.” He beamed at Dali and hitched Lucy higher up his hip. “Unless you suggest we ask for the Goddess’s aid?”

  Dali’s expression became dark. “You jest.”

  “Of course,” Al coaxed, but I wasn’t convinced, and I doubted Dali was, either. “Regardless, I will not burn what’s left of my synapses tilting at windmills. Rachel is correct. Lee will not cross the lines for any reason, and not to rescue Hodin, the very demon who had been grooming him to perform a lethal curse.”

  I took a breath, then let it slip from me. I had assumed the initial S in Hodin’s notes regarding his potential sacrifice had meant Stef, but it could have been Saladan.

  “Despite Rachel’s convictions, the problem isn’t Lee,” Al insisted. “It is the coven, and Rachel is taking care of that.” His gaze sharpened on mine. “Right?”

  “Ah, yeah,” I said, still trying to figure out who Hodin had been intending to off.

  “Fine.” Dali’s expression soured. “We do this without you.”

  “Dali,” I said, but he had spun away. Five seconds later, the door to the bar closed with a dull thud. In hindsight, I could see why the demons wanted to close the lines, because once you knew how to translocate from reality to reality, it wasn’t that hard. Not like line jumping. Now that the fear of demons was abating, it wouldn’t be long until people would be crossing to take a picnic or ride their four-wheelers over the pristine fields.

  “Everything okay?” Trent shouted from the top of the hill, and I winced, not knowing.

  Al hitched the girls higher, neither of them stirring. “Is it?” he asked.

  “It will be.” Not convinced, I arranged Lucy’s and Ray’s hair as they slept. “You’re okay with them?”

  He nodded. “I will keep them safe,” he assured me. “Do what you need to do.”

  “Thank you,” I whispered, and then I turned and trudged up the hill. The bar’s door closing sounded odd amid the soughing of the dry grass, and I managed a smile when Trent came forward, his horse trailing along behind him like a half-ton dog.

  “You don’t have to tell me,” he said, and I laced my fingers in his.

  “Dali wants to shut down the lines to all translocation travel before the witches can exile them to the ever-after, but Al says they don’t have enough pull to do it,” I said, worried. “Dali thinks Lee might find a way to tamper with the tulpa that holds Hodin, but it’s more than that. Lee is an excuse. Fear used to keep the ever-after free of witches and elves, and the demons have lost that. Maybe Dali is right. If people keep coming over here, demons won’t be able to resist abducting them.” And I’d be right back where I was three years ago.

  “Mmmm.” Trent’s steps slowed as we made our way to David, Tulpa slowly trailing us. “What do you think?”

  “I think Lee likes Hodin right where he is,” I said. “I’m more concerned about the coven.” Because for all my bravado, both the coven and the I.S. had warrants out for my arrest—all of which would make it hard to stop the witches from exiling the demons and to prove I didn’t murder Vivian. But as difficult as it was today, it would be impossible if Finnis took the city.

  “All set,” I said as we joined David, but instead of going to the nearby ley line that came out at Eden Park, he faced north, striding through the waving grass, heading into nothing. “Ah, we’re not going to Eden Park?” I said as I hotfooted it to catch up.

  “The coven is watching all the lines,” David said as he checked his watch. “But we have clear passage at the university’s ley line. That’s where Quen is. He can take us to Ivy.”

  And from there? I wondered, not liking my lack of a plan. But seeing as Ivy probably already had one, what was the sense in making my own?

  Pulse fast, I met them, stride for stride, the grass hissing about my calves as the afternoon sun slowly became lost behind the clouds and the wind picked up. Trent looked good in his black, uniform-like slacks and top. David, too, fit the part in his faded jeans, tidy shirt, and ankle-length duster. As for me? Despite having tied my hair back with one of the girls’ ribbons, I was still a mess, wearing stiff, fire-dried jeans and one of Trent’s black sweaters. The man’s bug-out bag was better equipped than my entire closet. Not that I’m complaining, I thought as I glanced at my feet, a pair of Trent’s slippers between me and the earth.

  My books were safe at Al’s wagon, but Dali still had my bag with all its stuff, and it made me twitchy. Fortunately, the ever-after was a small reality, and the university ley line was a ten-minute walk instead of the hour-long hike that it would be in reality.

  “Hey, ah, could you tell me when we’re getting close?” David asked. “I can’t see the line, but it’s around here somewhere. This was where Quen brought me in.” The Were slowed, eyes on the ground. “You can see where Tulpa trampled everything.”

  “There,” Trent said, pointing, and I scuffed to a halt on the flattened grass, bringing up my second sight to find the ley line a mere fifteen feet away.

  Unlike the narrow, tidy thirty-foot line in my garden, the university’s ley line was huge, the shimmering red haze at chest height spanning almost the width of a road and running at least four blocks. Dali had remade it to match the original ley line that had vanished when the lines had gone down. If I remembered correctly, it had taken Dali a very long time to extradite himself from the nothingness of what lay between realities when they had created the original ever-after, scraping a ley line into existence in the process.

  “I don’t see Quen,” Trent said, and I squinted to bring a chalk line image of reality into focus. Slowly the flat, grassy plain became superimposed with the image of Cincy’s streets. Walls were transparent, and cars and people hazy shadows. Seeing the sun and sky simultaneously made them almost too intense to bear, but the longer I studied it, the easier it became.

  “Ah, this is not a clear crossing,” I said as I spotted an I.S. vehicle at the curb.

  “We have a plan for that.” David took his phone and turned on its flashlight. “All I can see is grass. Let me know when he flashes back.”

  Not sure what I was supposed to be looking for, I watched the passing people and cars, thinking it was a rather busy street to shift realities on.

  “There,” Trent said, and though David couldn’t see the small haze of pixy dust, I could.

  “Jenks,” I whispered, my worry for him cascading through me. “What is he doing here? It will be too cold when the sun goes down.”

  “Not where we’re going.” David put his phone in a pocket. “In a few minutes, an entire pack of Weres will come walking down the street with protest signs. When they hit the line, we are going to cross realities right into the middle of them. With some luck, the I.S. won’t notice you. Once we get to the end of the block, we should be clear. They’re watching the line, not the adjacent streets.”

  “Nice.” I reached for Trent’s hand and gave it a squeeze. Energy tingled against my fingers, and his grip tightened. Still, that hint of worry pinched his brow, and I wondered if the threat of incarceration was bothering him. It never had before, but he had two girls waiting for him now and a jealous, wealthy woman eager to gain custody rights.

  “I won’t let them put you in jail,” I whispered, then stiffened. “There they are.”

  So faint it could have been my imagination, I heard excited voices chanting in unison. The traffic ceased, and hazy, ghostlike images of angry people wavered before us, marching as if in a forgotten war. Weres couldn’t see ley lines, but it was obvious they could sense them. Straight as an arrow, they paced down the street, an open area in the middle waiting for us.