Ever After. Kim Harrison

have to find Ceri and Lucy. They could be hurt and unable to respond.”

      His leaving wasn’t a good idea, and I resettled Ray on my hip when she reached for him, small sounds of distress coming from her. “Trent . . .”

      Jenks’s wings clattered. “Stay here,” he said, hovering between both of us, Quen silent at our feet. “I can cover more ground faster than you can.”

      Trent looked awful, his grace mutated by fear. “No.” Turning, he broke into a jog for the nearby trees. I took a hesitant step, but Jenks was faster, and before Trent could even get past the horses, the pixy was in his face, dripping a silver-tinted red dust.

      “Hey!” the pixy shouted, and Ray’s whimpering cut off. “I said stay put! Whoever did this might still be out there, Mr. King-of-the-World, and I can cover ten times more ground than you. You got me?” Wings clattering, he stared Trent down. “Stay here and call your ambulance. Quen’s aura is freaking out. He needs help!”

      My heart thudded, but Trent hesitated, and finally with a groan of frustration, he spun back to Quen, his head down to hide his eyes as he returned. He held his hand out for his phone, and I swear I felt a tingle of magic as he took it in his cold fingers.

      “Do you know a healing charm?” I asked, not knowing one myself. I’d been afraid to learn, and Al wouldn’t teach me lest I do something worse to myself than the burn or cut I would use it to fix.

      “I did it already,” he said, flipping his phone open as he dropped down to kneel beside Quen. “That’s when his aura started cycling, but it did get his pulse to even out.”

      Not even a bird disturbed the silence, and, awkward with Ray on my hip, I knelt as well, reaching for Quen’s wrist. “His pulse is thready,” I said, and I shifted Ray’s weight when I leaned to pull Quen’s lids back. “Dilation is normal,” I said, at a loss. My hand was tingling, and disconcerted, I pulled back. Ray began to protest, and I stood.

      “It’s Trent,” Trent said into his phone, his voice iron hard, all hint of his fear hidden. “We’ve had an accident. I need the med copter out at the stables. Now.”

      “You have a medical copter?”

      He didn’t even look at me, his eyes scanning the nearby trees as if wanting to be among them searching. “Inform the university hospital we might be bringing Quen in. I suspect a demon attack. Yes, in the daylight. Ceri and Lucy are missing. I want the dogs in the woods running a rescue pattern as soon as possible. Focus on the river path.” He hesitated, and I saw him struggle to keep his face steady. “I will be out of contact for several hours. Questions?”

      He closed the phone, breathing raggedly. “Hurry up, Jenks . . .”

      I stood, my shadow covering Quen’s pale face. It made his pox scars stand out. I couldn’t do anything. If he was bleeding, I could stop the blood. If he had a concussion, I could treat him for shock. If he was delusional, I could sit on him until help arrived—but this? I didn’t know what to do, and I found I was rocking back and forth with Ray. She was silent, her beautiful dark green eyes scared.

      “Maybe Ceri made it back to the stables,” I said, turning to the burn marks. “The horses are gone.”

      Trent was taking Quen’s pulse again. “I called before you got here.” His voice was even, distracted. “The horses came in riderless. Ceri never would have left Quen.”

      And yet, she was gone. Damn it, Quen had tried to stop them. I should have been here. I could have helped. “It doesn’t mean that demons took them,” I said, flushing when Trent looked up, his anger obvious.

      Ray turned, her eyes tracking Jenks as he darted back from under the trees. His dust was almost nonexistent. “I did a circle two hundred yards out,” he said. “No sign of them.”

      “Then do a wider one!” I said, and he frowned.

      “I didn’t go out any farther because there’s a circle burn. We’re in the center.”

      Shit. Quen couldn’t make a circle that big, even under stress. Neither could Ceri. It was demon made.

      “If there’s a demon circle, then they’ve been taken,” he finished, and Trent’s hands clenched.

      Ku’Sox. I needed to talk to Al, and I turned to the horses, thinking of my scrying mirror, hours away. I’d been promising myself I’d make a compact version, and I cursed myself for having put it off. I was completely out of contact with the ever-after. “It couldn’t be Ku’Sox,” I whispered, just wanting it to be anyone else. “It’s daylight, and he’s cursed to stay in the ever-after.”

      “He’s working through Nick.” Trent stood up. “This is my fault.”

      Fault? It was no one’s fault. “Don’t start,” I said harshly, and Jenks hummed his wings nervously. My tone brought Trent up short, and his eyes narrowed as he focused on me. “No, I mean it,” I said, jiggling Ray on my hip. “Ku’Sox could have as easily been going for you. Maybe he didn’t because I was with you, in which case it would be my fault they were taken.” Oh God, Ceri and Lucy with Ku’Sox was too terrifying to think about.

      “You don’t understand. This is my fault,” Trent said, his voice angry. “I never should have left them. I thought I was his target. I sent them into danger, not away from it.” He looked at me, anguish in his green eyes. “He took them. Why? I was right there!”

      “Because you’re an emancipated familiar,” I said, numb and almost sick to my stomach. “Ceri was freed, but you were emancipated. The papers had been filed and there was no way he could get away with it like he can with Ceri. Trent, give me a chance to look into it and get Ceri’s papers signed and filed. Lucy is my godchild. I think that comes under the leaving-me-and-mine-alone deal we have.” I hope. “We can get them back.”

      Teeth clenched, he turned away. Another look of guilt slithered over his face. “I’m the only person who can make the Rosewood cure permanent,” he said, head down so the sun couldn’t reach his eyes. “It should’ve been me. I was ready if it had been me.”

      His voice cracked and he stared at the river. It flowed uncaring before us, like the chaos that was running through his mind, always moving, never silent. I hovered over Quen as I remembered that hug last night. It had been unusual, especially in front of the newspeople. Had Trent known this might happen and had been trying to keep me from being a suspect? Up until recently, I would have loved to see him in jail.

      “He took her to make me comply,” he said flatly. “Rachel, I can’t do that. I vowed to see to the survival of the elves. A resurgence of demons might be our end.”

      “Maybe not. There’s the—”

      “I can’t!” he shouted, and I became silent. “I was ready to give my life to keep the secret of the demons’ survival out of their hands. I was not ready to give theirs.”

      “We’ll get them back,” I said as I shifted Ray’s weight, but even I knew it was only something to say. The doing would be harder. A faint thumping of a helicopter’s blades sounded in the late morning air, and Trent looked at his watch, then the woods. I touched his shoulder, finding it rock hard. “It’s going to be okay.” He jerked from me, and my resolve strengthened. “I’m telling you, if Ku’Sox has them, they will be okay!” God, please let them be okay.

      He spun, the sound of the chopper blades growing. “How?” he barked. “The demon is sadistic and psychotic! He does things because he enjoys it, not for power or money, but because he enjoys it!”

      Then maybe you shouldn’t have let him go from under the St. Louis arch, I thought, but to say it wouldn’t do any good; he’d freed Ku’Sox to save me. “Trent, I’ve been where you are now. It’s going to be okay. Give me a chance to talk to Al. We’ll get the papers filed and get them back. In the meantime, they will be safe. Will you look at me?”

      He finally looked up, the anguish he was trying to