The line was glowing before me through my second sight, little energies jumping from it to ping against my aura like static electricity. Trembling, Trent helped me back into the line. Al was here. Al was going to listen. And Trent had my back.
Al was waiting with the sureness of a lion having treed its prey, leaning against a rock with the ugly red sun beating down on him. His arms were aggressively across his chest and his angry look went right to my core, strangling my confidence in three seconds flat. He knew that I could step outside the line and be safe - until he summoned me. One way or the other, he thought he had me, and another tremble shook me, making him smile and show his teeth.
"I don't think I like this plan," Trent whispered.
"Promise me this time," I said, not looking at him. "Promise!" I shouted.
"I promise." He was angry, but Al's evil smile now had a hint of pride because I'd forced Trent to do something he clearly didn't want to do. I was alive. I was causing trouble. Al was intrigued. He'd listen, and that's all I wanted.
"Explain yourself . . . student," Al said. His attention flicked to the defunct bracelet on the carpet, and his eyes narrowed.
"I've been hiding," I said quickly.
"You're mistaken if you think your elf can save you," he said, pushing away from the rock. "He's less effective than that witch of yours, though Newt did pay me a handsome sum for him."
Pierce was alive? My breath came in fast, and I exhaled in relief. It didn't last long as Trent shifted backward, tugging at me. I refused to move, the pressure on my leg becoming almost unbearable. I cried out in pain, and Trent's hand fell away and he moved to stand in front of me instead.
"Her elf is going to do just that," he said, the red glow of the ever-after sun turning his hair auburn, almost as red as mine. "I did not work this hard at getting her to accept who she is to let you take your spoiled brat of a little-boy temper tantrum out on her. She stays on my side of the lines."
Lips parting, Al hesitated, and I saw another weight shift from anger to acceptance, one rock against thousands. "You put that putrid elf shackle on her?" he said, his boots whispering in the dry grass as he came forward. "You robbed her of the lines with your lies?"
"She needed to know what she would lose before she would ever accept its cost," Trent said, his chin level and his eyes unrepentant. "Now she knows."
My jaw tightened, but it was true. After feeling the lines in me again, I'd do anything to keep them, whereas before I would have let it go, oblivious, until it was too late.
Unaware of my thoughts, Al wreathed his hand in a dark mist. "You will never enslave us again, and not through Rachel!" he said, and that fast, Trent doubled over, gasping in pain.
Shit. "Stop it! Stop it, both of you!" I exclaimed, my head reeling as I lurched to help Trent only to have my leg almost give way under me. "Al, he has the cure for the demons. You really want to kill him? I could have taken it off whenever I wanted. He was not enslaving me, he was trying to help, and I was not listening! I'm a demon, damn it! Knock it off!"
With a growl, Al dramatically snapped his fingers, turning sideways as if not wanting to see us. Trent grunted softly as the curse broke, stiffly finding his full height. Tugging his suit straight, he stood beside me smelling of ash fires. "You okay?" I asked, almost supporting him as he threw the last of the pain curse off.
"This is a stupid idea, Rachel," he said bitterly, his eyes a dark black in the red light. "Let's trust a demon to be reasonable. Brilliant!"
Al turned. "You lied to me. Ran away. Shacked up with an elf?"
The last was a question, and I think it was what he was most interested in. "I took a sick day," I said, letting him wonder. "I lost my aura in the lines while cursing Ku'Sox. If Trent hadn't put my soul in a bottle till it healed, I'd be dead. Sorry about sending Ku'Sox to you, by the way. Are you okay?"
Al pulled his suspicious eyes off Trent and leaned across the ten feet between us, his teeth bared in a nasty smile. "I'm broke and paying him blackmail. Now that you're alive to take the blame for unbalancing the ever-after, I'll give you the honor of paying him instead."
"Trent knows the cure for the demons' genome," I said quickly, heart pounding. "Al, you don't have to keep going on like this. You can move on if you want."
His steps slow and his hands behind his back, Al crossed the distance, the glint of hatred in his eyes for Trent, the snarl on his face for me. The scent of burnt amber flowed between us. It was as if he wasn't even listening to me - mistrust of the elves ran that deep. "You ask me to trust an elf," the demon growled, looking at his hands in his gloves, always apart, always alone. "You ask too much."
"Al, I think I know what you looked like," I said, not knowing why. "Originally, I mean."
Al turned back to me, his coattails furling and his red eyes finding mine over his glasses. Beside me, I felt Trent take notice. "This is why you came out of hiding? To tell me that?"
I wished I could bring myself to lean on Trent more, but I didn't want to look weak. "No."
Al's attention flicked between Trent and me. "You're in trouble?" he asked dryly. "I can fix that."
He reached out, and I backed into Trent, my leg protesting. "No! I'm not leaving with you. Listen to me."
But he came forward again, even as Trent put an arm around my waist and pulled me into him. "So ma eva, shardona," Trent whispered, and I gasped as the line lifted through me, feeling like light as it flowed, my aura scintillating like dust in a sunbeam.
"What are you doing?" I breathed at the delicious sensation, feeling the stray strands of my hair floating and the warmth of Trent at my back.
"It's not a circle," Trent said, his words a breath on my ear. "I didn't break my promise."
Al, though, seemed to know what it was as his hand clenched and dropped, inches from touching me. He drew back, his expression both disgusted and amazed, and I breathlessly waited as the feeling of rising energy grew in me, a tantalizing zing of Trent's energy mixing with my own.
"Curious." Al's eyes flicked to Trent's, and he backed up another step. "I'm broke, Rachel," Al said in a monotone, as if it hurt to admit that in front of Trent, but his voice grew more animated as he continued. "Tales of an elven cure will get me nothing! You will come back to the ever-after and prove you're alive so you can tap into the funds that have been accruing in your name and I can buy some damned groceries!"