Pale Demon. Kim Harrison

red bow around your neck, and you were a commodity. I’m sorry, but you were!”

      Scowling, Trent looked past me to the yellow grass.

      “If it helps,” I said softly, “the only reason I was able to get the familiar bond between Al and me annulled was because it couldn’t be enforced. And before you ask, if you want to go that route, I’d have to complete the familiar bond, use it, and you’d have to successfully beat me down. After that little stunt at the arch, I think we can agree that that is not going to happen,” I added, not sure if I had the right to be so confident anymore.

      Looking as if he were swallowing slugs, Trent gazed past me. “I will be a freed slave.”

      I winced in sympathy as I rubbed at one of the candles to get the dried frosting off. “The upside is that no demon can ever claim you. Even Al. At least as long as I’m alive,” I added, watching him as he took it in and his frown eased into a thoughtful expression. It was a serendipitous bit of CYA, but it was true, and it felt good knowing that he wouldn’t be trying to kill me again. Ever. Na-na. Na-na. Na-a-a-a. Na.

      His response was a quiet “mmmm,” and I wondered if he thought I was making it up.

      Leaning forward, I wiped the glass clean and pressed the candle at the tip of the pentagram to Trent’s right, wiggling it a bit to get the wax to melt a little and stick. “So-o-o-o,” I drawled, not looking up. “You want to tell me why the Withons want you dead so badly that they’d drop the St. Louis arch on us?” I said, and his knees shifted.

      “I’d sooner tell you what I wanted to be when I grew up,” Trent said sarcastically, then frowned when our eyes met. “It could have been the coven.”

      My hair was getting in my way, and I pushed the nasty curls behind my ear to make them less obvious. “Come on, Trent,” I said. “We all know the Withons were after you. They said as much after you left.”

      Trent looked at the holes in the ceiling, silent. I pressed the second candle into the mirror on the point counterclockwise from the first, surreptitiously eying him from under my tangled hair as I took in his tells. He was nervous. That’s all I could determine. I’m doing demon magic at an abandoned gas station within sight of I-44. God! No wonder they shunned me.

      I moved to the third candle, rolling it between my fingers before I wiggled it into place. “Quen was so scared that he picked me up from the airport, ready to send us out right from there in the hope of shaking the Withons’ assassins,” I said, and Trent cleared his throat. “They attacked us on the interstate, risking dozens of lives, and then again under the arch. And you knew they would,” I said, suddenly realizing it, “or you wouldn’t have gone to that bunker, looking for that ley line when I told you to find Ivy.”

      His head came up, and he glared at me, still refusing to say anything.

      “That’s why you were so adamant that we stop there, wasn’t it,” I said, leaning forward. “And why you went to ground. You knew they were after you and you didn’t trust Ivy and me to hold them off. You had your magic all prepped, with your little hat and ribbon,” I accused, and he held his gaze, angry. “And after you did your magic, the arch fell down.” It fell on us, and children, and dogs playing in the park.

      Trent’s eye twitched. “I didn’t make it collapse,” he said, his beautiful voice strained.

      Feeling used, I set the fourth candle, my hair falling onto the mirror to meet its reflection. “I never said you did,” I said. “But they want you dead, and they want you dead now. What are you trying to do that the Withons will sacrifice a park full of people to prevent?” I looked at him, thinking he appeared sharp and cold in the shadow with me. “People got hurt because of us. Killed. Kids, Trent. If I hadn’t gone to St. Louis, the arch would still be standing and those kids … those kids would still be okay. I deserve to know why!” I said, not wanting to get back in the car without an answer.

      Trent, his expression a blank nothing, looked into the field where the pixies were showing off for Jenks. “It’s something between Ellasbeth and myself,” he finally said reluctantly.

      The fourth candle fell over when I let go of it, and it rolled almost off the mirror before I caught it. “You going to kill her?” I asked outright, my heart pounding.

      “No!” I felt better at the horror in his voice, and he said it again, as if I might not believe him. “No. Never.”

      The wind shifted his hair, and I couldn’t help but think he looked better now than in a thousand-dollar suit. Silent, I waited. Finally he grimaced and looked at his feet. “Ellasbeth has something that belongs to me,” he said. “I’m going to get it. She wants to keep it, is all.”

      “We caused a pileup on the interstate and hurt a bunch of kids over a family heirloom ring?” I guessed, disgusted. “A stupid hunk of rock?”

      “It’s not a hunk of rock.” Trent’s green eyes lowered as he looked at his hands in his lap, fixing on me fervently when he looked up. “It’s the direction the next generation of elves is going to take. What happens in the following days will shape the next two hundred years.”

      Oh, really? Thinking that over, I tried to get the candle to stick, holding my breath as I let it go, watching it carefully. I didn’t know why I was helping him. I really didn’t.

      “You don’t believe me,” Trent said, his anger showing at last. “You asked why they want me dead. I told you the truth, and you haven’t said anything.”

      My gaze coming up from the mirror, I looked at him from under my straggly hair. I was so friggin’ tired it hurt. “The Withons are trying to stop you from getting this thing so they can shape the next two hundred years of elfdom, not you, eh?”

      “That’s it.” Trent’s shoulders eased at my sarcasm. “Our marriage was supposed to be a way to avoid this. If I can claim it by sunrise Monday, then it’s mine forever. If not, then I lose everything.” His expression was empty of emotion. “Everything, Rachel.”

      I stifled a shiver, trying to disguise it by wiggling the last candle into place. “So this is kind of like an ancient elven spirit quest, rite of passage, and closed election all in one?”

      Trent’s lips parted. “Uh, ye-yes,” he stammered, looking embarrassed. “Actually, that’s not a bad comparison. It’s also why Quen couldn’t help and why air travel was out. I’m allowed a horse, and the car is the modern equivalent.”

      I nodded, jumping when the fifth candle fell over. “And me? What am I?”

      “You’re my mirror, my sword, and my shield,” Trent said dryly.

      I looked askance at him to see if he was serious. Mirror? “Times change, eh?” I said, not sure what to think. The candle wasn’t sticking, and I was getting frustrated.

      “I have to be in Seattle by Sunday or it means nothing. Rachel, this is the most important thing in my life.”

      The candle went rolling, and Trent jerked his hand out, catching it. I froze in my reach, eyes narrowing as Trent breathed on the end and quickly stuck it to the mirror. My gaze went to the moon, pale in the sunlight. Maybe that was his deadline. Elves loved marking things by the moon. “I don’t have to help you steal it, do I?” I asked, and he shook his head, unable to hide his relief that I believed him. And I did believe him.

      “If I can’t claim it on my own, then I don’t deserve it.”

      Back to the coming-of-age elf-quest thing. “I want a say,” I said, and Trent blinked.

      “Excuse me?”

      I lifted a shoulder and let it fall, carefully spilling a bit of primed transfer media onto the mirror. “If I’m your mirror, sword, and shield, then I want a say as to how it’s used. I’ve seen you work, and I don’t like your way of getting things done. Maybe Ellasbeth’s family would be better at directing the elven race than you.”

      Trent’s eyes were