"Rache?" Jenks said suspiciously when my eyes closed in a strength-gathering blink.
"Fine," I said, then choked when Bis tightened his tail around my neck.
"Sorry," he said as he loosened his hold. The little guy was the size of a cat but had the weight of a bird, smelling like cold stone, leather, and feathers from the pigeons he ate.
"My God," I said as I stared at the line, a sharp pain starting just over my right eye. "This is awful. Bis, can you show me what one of the line signatures you've learned looks like?"
Trent cleared his throat. "You want to use that safety net, or keep it in your pocket, Ms. Morgan?"
I jerked, sheepish at Jenks's severe look as I wiggled the rings out and extended them to Trent on my palm. Bis wiggled his toes as they glinted in the lantern's light. "I think you'd have more control if you took the bigger ring," I said, and as Trent reached for it, I closed my fist. "No funny stuff," I warned, opening my fingers again.
Trent put his hand under mine to hold it steady, jerking back in alarm when the full force of the lines hit him through Bis. "Holy . . . ah, wow," he said, eyes wide in the low light, distress clear on him. "Is that what the line feels like to you?"
Bis's feet tightened on me. "It kind of hurts. Can we hurry up?"
Immediately Trent took the larger ring. I put the smaller one on my pinkie, but if it was like our practice run earlier, nothing would happen until he put his on. It bothered me that the only way I could take off my ring now was if Trent slipped his over mine, nesting them on my finger to remove them both at once. It had been a scary five minutes figuring that out.
"Here we go," Trent said as he took his gloves off, and Jenks frowned, still not convinced. The glint of the pinkie ring twin to my own caught my eye, and I wondered at the connections we had. I still wore Al's demon mark. Was it the same thing, or different?
My shoulders wiggled as the ring fitted about Trent's finger and a weird sensation of entanglement sprung up around me. Bis actually sighed in relief as the connection to the discordant line dulled. It was still there, but it felt diluted-the best I could put it was that the energy was now going through a maze of passages to find me. It was the chastity ring, and when I nodded, Trent eased the grip of it until the flow was again its normal self, almost as if he had lifted me above the maze and I could connect normally.
Trent's presence was faint in my uppermost thoughts, sort of like a teacher walking the aisles during a test. We were ready, and I closed my eyes.
"Okay." Bis loosened his tail about my neck and shivered. "Ah, I'm going to sing you Newt's line first."
My concentration shattered. "Newt's!" I exclaimed, heart pounding.
"Newt has a gargoyle?" Jenks exclaimed, and Bis's tail tightened until I nearly choked.
"Rachel, will you listen? I think I'm going to spew pigeon feathers. Newt's was the first one I learned, okay?"
I nodded, closing my eyes again, which made me feel dizzy. "Give me a sec," I said as I sat down in the puddle of lantern light, but then it only felt like the world was tilting.
"Rachel?"
Trent's voice was close, and I put my palms on the ground for balance. "Dizzy," I said, smiling at him. "We're okay."
Jenks's wings clattered. "This is as smart as sleeping outside in November," Jenks grumbled. "You sure you got her, cookie maker?"
"I've got her. Just watch the woods, pixy."
"Listen," Bis demanded as he resettled his wings, and I closed my eyes, feeling the pure ting of a rise and fall of sound, glittering in my mind's eye like a silver thread of light, a bare hint of jagged red and gray and silver, half a beat out of step with the glorious hum. It sounded sort of familiar, comfortable. Like the line in the graveyard . . .
"Got it?" he asked, and I mm-hmmed. "This is what it sounds like now," he said, and I jerked as if struck when the world seemed to hiccup. The feeling of the line I was looking at with my mind shifted slightly, and sure enough, the ragged half step was gone.
"No way," I whispered, and my eyes opened. Trent was standing guard with his eyes on the forest line. Jenks was hovering at my eye level, his angular features pinched. Behind him, the line glowed like a deranged fair ride, dangerous and unreliable.
"Rache . . ." he warned, and I held a hand up to forestall his next words.
"Trent has me, and I'm not going to do anything Bis doesn't want." I reached up to touch the gargoyle's feet. "Bis? You want me to try to find that ragged half step in the imbalance?"
Bis jumped to the ground before me. The expansive backdrop of the lines in my mindscape had vanished along with his touch, and my shoulders relaxed. Bis shifted from foot to foot as his tail whipped about until he curved it over his feet and sat like a little lion. "I'm sure this is how to fix the line," he said, and I heard a big unsaid however.
"I'll be careful," I said to Jenks, then looked at Trent. "I won't do anything until Bis tells me I can, okay?"
Jenks squinted at me, and when Trent nodded, the pixy gestured sourly to Bis to get on with it. A four-inch man ruled us all.
"Maybe you should bubble yourself first," Trent suggested. "In case Ku'Sox shows."
It was a good idea, but as I sketched a small, easy-to-hold bubble around Bis and myself, Jenks's dust went an alarmed red.
"Okay! That's it!" Jenks shouted, hovering before all of us. "I didn't like this before, and I like it less now! Rache, there has to be another way!"
Bis met my eyes, shaking his head so narrowly it was almost no movement at all. I looked past him to Trent, his stance stiff and his expression fixed. Ku'Sox was stronger than me. If we couldn't fix the line and prove that Ku'Sox had made it, then how would we ever get Lucy and Ceri back?
"Jenks," I said softly, and he hummed irately at me. "It's going to be okay. Trent will yank my butt out if I get stuck."
"I'm going to do a perimeter," he muttered. "You and Trent do your magic thing."
He buzzed off into the dark, and my gaze went to Trent. I didn't think Jenks was jealous, but it had to be hard to bear that I was putting myself in a narrow spot where anything bad could happen, and probably would.
"Circle?" Trent suggested, his expression holding both determination and frustration for not being able to do this himself. I didn't have a problem helping him. I loved Ceri and Ray, too.
Feeling odd, I reached a hand to the informal but securely scratched circle in the dirt. It was small, but I was sitting. Rhombus, I whispered within my thoughts, and a molecule-thin sheet of ever-after sprang up. It wavered as Trent tested his hold on me through the rings, and at my nod, the circle sprang up strong again. We were good.