"Testing the waters!" I echoed him, ticked. "You almost had me on the floor." I'd be furious if I hadn't given him back as much as he gave me. God! Men were pigs.
Al frowned, having to look over the couch between us. "You looked like you were enjoying yourself. I know I was."
"And that's why you were screaming like a little girl, right?" I barked, then hunched into myself and held my ribs. Ow. Yeah, I had liked it. But not with him, never.
"Is it a pajama party, Gally?" Newt asked, and a wash of black ever-after coated her. My chi ached as Newt shrank until the ever-after fell away, showing her looking like a child in bright red pajamas. Her hair was gone, and her eyes were hollow. She looked ill, and in sudden shock, I realized she was one of the kids in the brat pack at the hospital-the one who had forgiven me for doing black magic. She'd died with one of my stuffed animals clutched to her. And Newt wore her image as if it meant nothing.
"That's not nice," I said, and Newt smiled like a beautiful bald angel with the wisdom of the world in her, hurting me even more.
Newt laughed again, this time with a high, childlike innocence, making me shudder and forget what I was mad about. She was coming toward me with her little hand extended to help me up, and I got to my feet, not wanting her to touch me.
"I was trying to provoke you into defending yourself," Al said loudly from the couch. Rubbing a hand over his hair, he looked both sheepish and worried. "I'm worried about Ku'Sox. Newt, since you are here, what's your opinion? Is she reasonably safe?"
"Seeing as she was halfway to killing you, I'd say she has a sporting chance," Newt said in her child voice, and I stifled another shudder.
"That's great," I snarled, limping away from Newt and toward the fire. God, my life sucked. "So I can go back now, right?" I said sullenly as I picked up my scrying mirror and sat down. Crap, I was sore. I was probably going to have to get my ribs wrapped. This was going to look swell tomorrow at the trial.
"Oooh! Marshmallows?" Distracted, Newt almost skipped to the overflowing bowl beside the fire, the visage of a dying child somehow suiting her.
"Al?" I prompted, holding my ribs. I think he'd about crushed my knee, too.
Al slumped in his chair until his butt almost slid off the cushion. His robe had fallen open, and I couldn't help but look. Dude... He was hung like a horse, his ruddy complexion almost black down there. No way was he getting his tackle anywhere near me.
"Fine," he grumped, oblivious that he was waving in the wind. "If Newt says you're reasonably safe, you can go," he said sullenly. "You'll be back in twenty-four hours anyway."
Yes! I thought in victory. I was going to have to take a long shower to get rid of the burnt-amber stench, but I imagined they'd bring up more shampoo if I called down.
Newt turned from where she was kneeling in her pajamas before the fire, a lightly browned marshmallow at the end of her stick. "Bring a ruler with you when you return," she said, her voice high and childlike. "The ever-after is shrinking. But I can't prove it unless I have a tape measure from reality. All the ones here are shrinking, too."
Scrying mirror pressed to me, I watched Al cringe. "Shrinking?" I asked.
"Slowly," she said, her pinky sticking out as she tentatively squished the marshmallow to test how done it was. "The rate will quicken exponentially as we have less and less to lose. The ebb and flow of energy between reality and the ever-after has shifted. It's not all coming back. There's a hole somewhere."
She looked at me with her black eyes, and I shivered.
Al sat completely up and tugged his robe closed. Thank God. "The lines have been balanced for eons. Nothing has changed," he said, but his voice was too sure, too confident.
Smiling with a dead child's face and beauty, Newt awkwardly sat cross-legged before the fire. "You haven't been to the surface lately." Turning away, she put the toasting fork back into the flames, unsatisfied with the puff's doneness.
"I try to avoid it," Al huffed.
"The buildings," Newt continued as if he hadn't said anything, "are falling at an astounding rate."
Remembering the buildings in Vegas's ever-after, I took a breath, and Al shot me a look to keep quiet. Worried, I felt the bumps of the lines on my scrying mirror. "Buildings always fall," Al said, his eyes darting to his books.
"Yes, Gally," she said, her voice having a childish lisp. "But now they are on fire."
Crap, had it been me? I'd made a ley line. Maybe I hadn't done it right. "Um, Al?" I said, scared.
Again Al grimaced, telling me to shut my mouth. "It was probably your brat Ku'Sox," he said, and I clutched my mirror, feeling the cold soak in. Al was lying. He was lying to Newt. It hadn't been Ku'Sox. It had been me, and Al knew it. Shit. What had I done?
"Ku'Sox is not my brat," Newt said as she pulled her marshmallow off the stick, her little-girl pinkie stuck way out. "I was against giving him the ability to hold that much energy. You all vetoed me. Remember?"
Holy crap, Al was outright lying to Newt, and it scared me in a way that Al making a pass at me never could.
"Have a marshmallow, Rachel," Newt said, leaning over the coffee table to hand it to me. "Consider it a prize for almost killing Al."
Numb, I took the perfectly browned puff. Okay. Let me see if I have this right. Al provokes me into defending myself. I nearly kill him. Then Newt tries to kill me, thinking I'm Ku'Sox. Al stops her, saving my life. And now we're all going to have s'mores together? What in hell is wrong with these people?
"Thanks," I said softly, sticking the puff into my mouth. The ugly taste of burnt amber hit my tongue, and I gagged, spitting it out into my hand. "Oh my God! What is wrong with your marshmallows?"
His ears red in embarrassment, Al handed me a napkin that hadn't been there a moment ago. I wadded it up with the marshmallow inside, leaving it on the low table between us. "The real ones cost too much," Al said with a sigh. "That's why I burn the hell out of them."
"So if there's a hole in the fabric of time, how do we find it and fix it?" I said, wondering what they were made from if they weren't real. The coffee wasn't any good, either. Brimstone?
"You can't." Pinkie high, Newt plucked a marshmallow from the bowl and stuck it awkwardly on a stick before handing it to me. "Your turn."
The toasting fork was warm in my hand. "You can't pinpoint it, or you can't fix it?" I asked, thinking that was an important distinction.