He was a good kid, and his ears pricked as the soft voices of Trent and Landon became more obvious. “You okay now?” he asked, and when I nodded, he stretched his wings and looked at the nearby open door. “I’ll be outside when you’re ready to go,” he added, and Landon’s horse tied to the door shied when he flew out like a huge bat.
Trent’s voice raised, his anger clear as he said, “I didn’t ask you here to test her morality. I asked you here to help solve a problem.”
“I think she is the problem,” Landon said, not a hint of remorse in his voice. “She is covered in smut. Smut caused by demon magic. She admits it.”
“She admitted to doing black magic?”
“No, but that’s the only place smut comes from.”
What part of our conversation weren’t you listening to? All of it? I wondered, feeling icky as I strained to hear Trent say, “I watched her use a demon curse this week. It created a ball of light. It hurt no one, not even herself, and it caused smut. It was not black. Your logic is unsound, Landon. And I will stand in the enclave and say the same thing. Back. Off.”
But my relief was short-lived. “Sa’han, if I may be candid, the reason the dewar is insisting on this marriage is because of your continuing association with demons.”
“Rachel is—”
“Not a demon? Yes, she is, and you can’t pull her back once you have pushed her across that line. I’ve seen all I need. Drop this association or you will lose what little support you still have. Marrying Ellasbeth is no longer enough to maintain your standing, living heirs or not.”
Shocked, I slipped back into the stall as I understood what he was saying. Trent was being forced into this marriage because of me. To maintain control of the enclave and elven society, he had to marry Ellasbeth. He’d helped me survive, and I helped him in turn, and now he was going to lose everything.
“Landon!” Bancroft bellowed, and Red stomped, wanting to be out in the night.
“Your master is calling,” Trent said, tone collected, but I could hear his anger.
I turned my back as the sound of Landon’s boots went faint, not moving until the clop of another horse’s hooves pulled me back around. Trent stood with Tulpa, the big animal watching Red with pricked ears. Trent’s face looked as frustrated as mine, serious in dismay. I wasn’t a black demon, but all the masses saw was perception, not truth.
“There’s been a change in plan,” he said, and I cinched Red’s saddle tight and led her out. “I’m going with you, not Landon.”
“Fine with me,” I said, handing him Red’s reins and swinging up onto Tulpa as if I’d ridden the huge animal every day of my life. I gave him a nudge, and he leaped for the door, his sudden burst of speed breathless. Trent was right behind, and we took the fence at the end of the paddock together, the wind in my hair and the darkness spilling through me as we ran for the hill, oblivious of everything as my thoughts churned.
Three months ago I might have simply shaken Trent’s hand and walked away. Now . . . it wasn’t that easy.
Fourteen
Tulpa was a sweet, biddable horse, and I gave the old stallion a little pat as Trent came up beside us. Both horses shunned the tall, whispering grass, already having sampled it to find it as distasteful as everything else in the ever-after. The harsh landscape had a dusky red sheen, the nearly full moon nearing the western horizon. It was just shy of midnight and we’d been riding for hours. I could tell Trent was tired, but he didn’t say anything as he brought his binoculars up, looking like a thief in his black pants and jacket with a matching black knit hat, scanning for a landmark that might be mirrored in reality where we could take simultaneous readings with Landon and Bancroft. I didn’t really know why we were doing this anymore, except that if there was a chance that me parking it in the ever-after might wake the masters up, I’d do it.
Grit ground between my fingers as I wiped my face. A lot had changed since I’d traveled the ever-after that night with Trent. I glanced at Trent’s closed expression—a lot hadn’t.
Surface demons had found us almost as soon as we’d gotten the horses snorting and prancing across the realities. They had to be interested in the horses because Trent and I were clearly able to protect ourselves and surface demons preyed only on the weak.
“Where do you think we are?” Trent said, his expression lost behind the binoculars.
I shrugged, forgetting he couldn’t see, then took my foot out of the stirrup to push Tulpa away from Red. He was making eyes at her even though she wasn’t in season. “The industrial park, maybe?” I said. “That rise is probably in reality.”
Trent’s binoculars shifted to it. A rock clinked behind us, and he dropped them to rest on his chest. Expression grim, he nudged Red into a tight spin so we could watch each other’s back. The horse’s nostrils widened as she breathed in the scent of the surface demons. They were close—and becoming bolder.
“Bis?” I called, and the little gargoyle dropped to a nearby rock jutting from the surface. Red shied, but she calmed almost immediately under Trent’s hand.
Bis’s eyes seemed to glow in the shadow light, his black teeth glinting as he smiled. “You’ve six surface demons trailing,” he said, and Trent’s frown deepened.
“How close?”
“Not close. Not since I dropped a rock on one.” Bis chuckled, which sounded like rocks in a garbage disposal. “They’re curious about the horses, I think.”
Curious, or hungry? We had to get moving. “Bis, could you tell Bancroft we want to take a reading on that hill?”
His wings opened, and Red snorted at Bis’s rapid flapping and sudden liftoff as he made the short jaunt in mere moments. He hovered over the hill until I waved to tell him that was the spot, and then he winked out of the ever-after.
“Ready?” I prompted, and Trent spun Red around, neck arched and wanting to run. Bis would take Bancroft and Landon to the hill in reality, and then pop back so we could all take simultaneous readings. Trent was working the meter, but I was writing the results down as well.
We went to the hill in a slow canter, Trent fighting Red all the way. The mare was showing an increasingly dangerous alarm at what scuffed, trilled, and clinked. Once at the top, we settled in to wait, looking out over the wide expanse of basically nothing.
Before us and to the left were the remains of Cincinnati. The ever-after wasn’t altogether real, and definitely not its own identity. Buildings rose when a new one went up in reality, but they broke even as they ghosted into existence, which was why the demons lived underground where their caverns remained untouched by what we did in the real world. The ever-after was a shadow of reality, populated by surface demons who were not demons at all.