Ellasbeth and Lucy trailed along behind him, leaving Al and Newt staring expectantly at Trent and me. Trent took my elbow, his expression grim as he angled us to his office.
Ivy . . . “Trent, you don’t think Cormel has Ivy and Nina, do you?” I asked. “He wanted to see you.” See Trent, not me. The slight difference was the only thing keeping me here and not stealing one of Trent’s faster cars, bad leg or no.
“That’s what Quen is going to find out.”
It was going to be a long night, and I almost cried when we finally got to Trent’s office. Dali was in there, and I tried not to lean on Trent as he opened the door. The couch Trent had put in last week for short catnaps never looked better, and I gave Dali a swift nod, heart pounding as I moved as fast as I could and almost fell into it. Leather-scented air puffed up around me, and I thought it smelled wrong without a little vampire incense in with it.
“Dali,” Trent said cautiously, and the older, somewhat fat demon turned from where he’d been looking at the colorful saltwater fish in the wall tank behind Trent’s desk.
“How very elven,” Dali said softly, eyes flicking behind Trent to Al and Newt. “Keeping all his beautiful captives on display.”
The rims of Trent’s ears went red. “Everything in that tank was captive bred. Nothing came from the wild.”
Simpering, Dali settled himself behind the desk as if it was his. “That makes it worse.”
I could tell Dali sitting at his desk bothered Trent as he rubbed the side of his nose and went to feed the fish, his motions slow as he took a canister of food from a drawer inches from Dali’s foot. “Why are all of you here?” Trent said, his back to everyone as he sifted the food in and the rest of his fish came out of hiding.
Newt settled herself gracefully in the remaining chair, leaving Al and Trent standing. “Last in, last out,” she said cryptically. “Dali’s line was the last formed, so it was the last to go.”
I tried to shift my leg up off the floor, deciding to let it stay where it was when I almost passed out. “What about my line?” I asked when I could think again.
Al harrumphed, fists at the small of his back as he stood before the big vid screen showing an empty paddock at night. “Last line formed while fleeing the ever-after,” he explained. “Which might be why you are able to perform magic, and we can’t.”
“My line still exists?” I said, and Al shook his head. The lines were dead. There was no question as to how I could still do magic, and Dali wasn’t happy—even with Al’s lie as to why.
“Now, Gally,” Newt almost pouted, shifting her robe to hide the welts the makeshift cuffs at the square had given her. “You know that’s not why Rachel was able to do magic.”
“It wasn’t mystics,” Dali growled.
“I didn’t have any choice,” I said in a rush, seeing Al stiffen. “They’re dead. All the lines.”
Oh God, the lines were dead. I hadn’t seen Bis since yesterday. He must be in agony. Ivy was missing, probably in one of Cormel’s bedrooms awaiting my arrival so he could kill her and make me save her soul.
“I have to go,” I said, leg throbbing as I gripped the arm of the chair and lurched to a stand reaching for my crutch. “I have to get back to the church. Trent, I’m sorry, but I can’t do anything, and I need to help who I can.”
“Don’t be stupid.” Newt leaned across the space between us to yank my crutch from me and throw it at Dali. Trent reached to catch it before it hit his fish tank, but Dali was faster, and he glared at Newt as she settled back, pleased with herself for keeping me on the couch and getting Dali’s attention all at once. “Dali, you know as well as I that Rachel’s line went down first. The Goddess hates her. Rachel can do magic because the tiniest mote of mystics are looking to her, swarming her and creating a field she can tap into.” Newt’s eyes rose as she looked speculatively at me. “Filling her chi with wild magic . . .”
I sat back down, pinned to my chair by Dali’s fierce look.
“That is a lie!” Dali insisted, and Newt looked to the ceiling in false idleness.
“Or any she cared to share it with,” Newt finished. “She’s like a little ley line hot spot.”
“Enough!” Dali shouted. Trent inched in between me and the incensed demon, and Newt bobbed her foot like a twelve-year-old, delighted to rub the demon’s nose in something that would get me into trouble and distract Dali from realizing she’d once practiced elven magic, too.
“It’s the mystics, you decrepit old demon,” she said saucily. “The lines are dead, and the ever-after has until sunrise before the tides shift and it’s sucked out of existence, taking everything with it.”
Jenks . . . , I thought, looking at the door but helpless to walk to it. He couldn’t survive long without magic. Bis either. And the vampires. Their souls would have nowhere to go when they died their first death. Something was going to snap.
“You freed the familiars, yes?” Trent asked, and Dali’s expression went sour. “Your slaves? You’re abandoning them?” Trent exclaimed, outraged. “Your contract says you’ll keep them alive. You can’t just forget that because it’s difficult.”
“Difficult?” Dali snapped.
“And the undead souls,” I said aloud, thoughts on Ivy. She’d kill herself twice to keep her soul and consciousness together, even if she believed that would send her soul straight to hell.
Dali leaned forward over Trent’s desk, a thick finger pointing at me. “Failure to uphold any contract here isn’t my fault. I held to the undead curse as well as can be expected.” Lip curled back to show his teeth, he glared at Trent. “You and your species are to blame for the vampires’ soul destruction, not me.”
Soul destruction? I wondered, then pounced on that because it seemed to distress Dali the most. “You promised the first undead that his soul would be waiting, didn’t you? That promise falls to all who followed him. And now you can’t fulfill it.”
“This is not my fault!” Dali shouted, and the fish behind him dashed into hiding.
“You oversaw the curse,” Newt said sourly.
“This is intolerable,” Trent said, beginning to pace. “An entire population of living, breathing people trapped in the ever-after to die?”
Dali laughed, the bitter sound chilling. “Funny. That’s what you had intended for us.”