“I’m going to check it out from the inside,” Trent said, startling me.
“I’m starting to think you like the smell of burnt amber,” I said, and he surprised me with his sudden flash of embarrassment.
“It’s more to do with not having Quen lurking about,” he admitted as he strode right into my line, reminding me that he had one running through his office and probably was used to the idea. “The ever-after is very . . . I don’t know. Clean in a way? Uncluttered?”
That’s not how I’d describe the ever-after. It was uncomfortable, the sun was too bright, the wind too cutting, and the grit got into everything. And it smelled. The only things able to survive on the surface for any length of time were the indigenous gargoyles, who slept during the day, and surface demons, who weren’t really demons at all.
But the nasty things wouldn’t be out in the daylight, and I watched Trent look over Loveland’s lush setting, knowing he was seeing it as if standing in the ever-after himself.
His thought-provoking harrumph pulled me closer, and I dipped my hand right into the line to feel the energy push against it, sort of like wind except that the flowing sensations came from all directions, not just one. I played with it, cupping the energy and trying to pull it from the line only to have it spill back into its course as if it was magnetized.
Trent turned at my intrusion, a startled look on him. “There’s someone on the surface.”
“Surface demon?” I blurted, stepping into the line so as to see better. Immediately the sensation of gritty wind strengthened as the clean, moist heat of the summer meadow was entirely replaced by the sucking heat of the desert.
“No, it’s a girl!” he said, and my concern focused to a sharp point.
Newt, I thought even before I saw her. “I don’t see . . .” I hesitated, finding a dancing figure in white just across the shallow riverbed, jumping to catch something over her head. “Oh. Ah, I think that’s Newt.”
Trent’s attention jerked to me. “Newt?” he said, clearly doubtful. “Mmmm. Maybe we should show our respects.”
Jeez Louise, he wanted to go over? I’d just gotten the burnt-amber stink out of my hair. But my immediate refusal to shift realities faltered. If anyone could give me an answer about wild magic, it might be Newt. As the ever-after’s only female demon, and not entirely sane all the time, she was a font of information—if you could figure it out.
“Why not,” I said, reaching out to find his hand. “I’ll do it.”
He started, his grip becoming firmer as he gave me an appreciative smile. Shifting realities wasn’t hard when you were standing in a ley line. Any trained elf could do it, and witches. No one did because up until recently, it usually resulted in being kidnapped and forced into slavery. It was like stepping through a door where line jumping was like a transporter. This, I could do. But so could Trent.
Eyes closed, I felt the line’s resonance, making minute changes to my aura to match it exactly. A weird titillating feeling raced through me as I tried to hold on to everything and shift Trent’s aura at the same time. With an odd inward sensation, I felt my insides shrink to nothing, taking us with it. The line became my world, and I snapped a protection bubble into place, the shimmer on it the same as the line’s.
All that was left was to artificially shift my aura to push us back out, and with a jerk, reality re-formed. My balance was off, and I lurched until Trent caught my arm. The red glare of the ever-after sun slammed into me, and the gritty wind lifted through my hair. “I love it here,” I whispered sarcastically.
Trent was smiling, making me wonder why until he tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “Most shifts like that would cost someone their soul,” he said softly.
Uneasy, I scanned the horizon, watching the heat shimmer up from the rocks. “It still might,” I said, then began to walk toward the lithesome shape Newt made dancing in the heat. As I watched, a lump of dusty rock seemed to shake itself, evolving into a tall figure in a top hat, crushed green velvet tails furling as he spun to see us. Al. Great.
“Is that . . .” Trent said as he slid down the shallow incline that was the river in reality.
“Yep.” This was so not what I wanted, but we’d been spotted, and leaving would only bring him barging into my church. “Don’t tell him about the wild magic following me, okay?” I whispered as Trent scrambled up the other side and extended a hand to help me up.
“Not a problem.”
My pulse hammered as we closed the gap. I didn’t like Trent’s eagerness, nor that Newt had seen us and was energetically waving. She looked like a fourteen-year-old girl, verging on womanhood in a long nightgown that did little to hide what was underneath, her figure slight with early adolescence. Clearly not one of her better days. I’d seen Newt as a child before, and she gave me the willies. “You do know she’s nuts, right?” I said as Trent hustled us forward. Al had his hands on his hips, looking nothing like Jenks, and was frowning at me.
“Yoo-hoo! Did you come to catch fireflies?” Newt called, and Trent’s pace bobbled when a black film of ever-after slithered over her and her thin, childlike shape grew to the more usual, androgynous, hairless, barefoot, martial-arts-uniform-clothed Newt that I’d once found hammering holes in my back living room. “They make fine night-lights for when the world ends,” she added, and then, as her eyes traveled over me, she gave herself hair, a sundress, and a big, wide-brimmed hat. “Hi, Rachel.”
Crap on toast, she looked like my mother, and I dropped my eyes before she could see my shock. Trent valiantly struggled for words, pulling himself together to extend his hand to Al. “Algaliarept. Well met,” he said, and Al all but bared his teeth.
“Call me Al,” he said, clearly not liking that we’d found him up here with Newt. “I insist.”
“Al,” Trent said simply, his hand falling as he turned to Newt. “Newt. Good to see you.”
Newt beamed, seemingly coy as she focused on him. “Hello, Trenton Aloysius Kalamack,” she said, and he stiffened at her seductive tone. Beside me, Al sighed. “You’re very dapper out in the ever-after sun. I’d forgotten how the light hits elven hair.”
She sidled up to him and I backed out of her way. “I’d advise not moving,” Al said, and Trent froze.
“Ooooh, so soft, even when it’s full of grit. Come home with me and I’ll wash it for you.”