Ever After (The Hollows 11)

Trent took a sip of his wine, a brief flash of worry crossing him. "Mine, too," Trent barely breathed, his sadness obvious.

Al jerked forward in a sudden movement, and Trent started. "That is intolerable!" Al said, his feet flat on the floor and gesturing with his bottle before taking another gulp. "You must put yourself into the collective immediately so that we may converse!"

Poker in hand, I half turned, shocked. Trent, too, looked uneasy. "Ah, no. No, thank you."

Head violently shaking back and forth, Al scooted forward on the cot. "Nonsense! We already have the wine. Rachel, fetch my yew stylus. It will take a moment."

My head came up at the slippery pull on the ley line, and Al frowned as things started popping into reality and falling to the floor. "I need to tell you the circumcision curse if nothing else," he slurred, blinking at the small vial of camphor that appeared in his fingers.

"Al." I jumped at the dull crack of an empty scrying mirror hitting the ground inches from my foot, then ducked when the demon threw a bag of sand from him in disgust. "Al!" I shouted. "Knock it off! He doesn't want to be in the collective!"

"I'm flattered," Trent said with a false calm, the fire flicking eerily behind him, "but I don't think the rest will appreciate it. Would you like another bottle of wine?"

I wondered if he was trying to get him drunk enough to pass out until the sun rose, seeing as Al showed no sign of leaving. Sure enough, his mouth on the bottle, Al nodded. "You helped kill Ku'Sox," he said when he came up for air. "You don't think they remember that? You can handle being in the collective." He reached eagerly for the bottle Trent was extending.

"I'm not worried about handling it. I think they wouldn't approve," Trent said.

"Fiddlesticks," Al said, then cleared his throat. "A-dap-erire . . ." he intoned carefully, and I checked to see that my zipper was up when the cork flew out of the bottle. He might be drunk, but he still had control, and it was right where it belonged. "Elves used to be part of the collective," Al said as he winced at the first harsh swallow. "Just because there haven't been any for the last five thousand years doesn't mean it can't be done. You can access the old curses then. Protect yourself. You're going to need it. The old ways are ending. Embrace the new. Elves and demons living together." He blinked. "Oh God. We're all going to die."

Standing beside the cot, Trent took the empty bottle from Al. "No. Thank you, but no."

"Here." Al reached out for the cracked scrying mirror, and I handed it to him, wishing he would go to sleep. "Draw the figures, elf man. Draw it. Pick a name. We can use your marvelous wine. Ceri, be useful and go fetch some salt."

My heart clenched, but kneeling beside the fire as I was, I didn't question why he'd called me that. "Go to sleep, Al," I said, my own sorrow rising.

"You want to be prince of the elves or not?" Al said, wavering where he sat. "Royalty always conversed with demons before they were wed. It's tradition. It's how I tricked Ceri into loving me. You're not married, are you? On the side, perhaps? In Montana?"

Trent grimaced. "I need to think up a good name. I promise when I get a good name that no one can think of, I will. Why don't you rest for a minute?"

Al delicately belched, and sighing heavily, he leaned back into the shadows until his black eyes glowed from the dark. "Capital idea. Good idea. Clever, clever elf. We will wait. You pick out a name, then call me."

The fire snapped, and then from the cot came a long, rattling snore. Trent cautiously tried to take the bottle from Al, giving up when it began to glow. Leaving it in Al's grip, he turned to me and shrugged. "I think he's out."

"I am so sorry." Embarrassed, I got up from the fire and began to collect the stuff that Al had popped in from his kitchen. "I had no idea he'd feel the curse, much less come and see what I was doing."

Trent handed me the bag of sand. "He probably has never dealt with grief," he said, and I set it with the rest.

"Too much of it, rather. He was married once. Only the demons who knew how to love survived the making of the ever-after."

Shocked, Trent looked from me to Al and back again. "I didn't know that."

A long snore came from behind the curtain, and a soft mumble. Trent sat down in his chair, clearly reluctant to leave Al here alone. "Do you think he can resurrect Ceri? I've tried."

My chest hurt, and I sat in the chair next to him where we could both watch the fire and Al both. "No. I've tried several times, too. Pierce as well. They've moved on. I'm happy for them, but it hurts." I hadn't been able to summon my father or Kisten, either.

Trent was rubbing his new pinkie with his thumb in introspection. "Quen will be hurting for a long time. That's why I insisted he go with the girls. And as a buffer for Ellasbeth."

Hearing more in that statement than he was saying, I turned to him. "How about you?"

"Me?" He looked at the bottle in Al's grip, then topped off his glass with the bottle on the hearth between us. "I'm not the one Ceri loved," he said, but I could hear his regret. I waved off his offer to refill my untouched glass, and when I remained silent, he added, "I liked her, but I didn't love her. She was . . . too proud to love me. Distant."

"And you need someone more earthy," I said, only half kidding.

Al snorted. There was a clunk, and the wine bottle rolled out from behind the curtain. It sloshed to a halt at Trent's foot, and he reached for it. "A little spontaneity would be nice," he said, touching my foot by accident when he set Al's bottle next to ours. "I already miss her and her elegant demands and flashing indignity. You couldn't tell the woman no."

"Not that . . ." Al mumbled in his sleep. "He's going to need that later . . ."

"I'm angry at her unnecessary death. It hurts seeing Quen grieve and know it's partially my fault," Trent added, his jaw tight and his gaze unfocused. The scent of cinnamon was rising, mixing with the scent of burnt amber and woodsmoke. It almost made the burnt amber smell nice. "I'm sorry for this," Trent said softly. "I'm sorry for everything."

This wasn't like Trent at all, but I wasn't surprised to see it. I was upset about Ceri and Pierce, but I hadn't been planning on a life with either of them as Trent had with Ceri-in some disjointed, separate fashion. Alone. He had always planned on being alone, but never this apart. Even with Ellasbeth, he would be alone. I felt bad for him. It wasn't fair. None of it.

"It wasn't your fault," I said, shifting to look at him. There wasn't much space between us, but it seemed uncrossable.

"Maybe someday I'll believe you," he said, his brow furrowed in the firelight. "Rachel, I asked you here tonight for more than getting my fingers back."

Panic slid through me. "What?"

He grimaced, clearly annoyed that Al was snoring in the corner. "We could've done this anywhere, but I wanted you to see me, to see this," he said, gesturing at the room. "I wanted you to know where I came from, what I am under the choices I make."

My heart pounded. "What did you do?" I asked, terrified, almost.

Exhaling, he looked at his watch, the crystal catching the light to make time vanish. Then he scared me even more when he drank his glass dry and filled it again. "I made a big mistake by not telling you why I thought the slavers were the better choice."

"I know," I interrupted, and his brow furrowed.

"By the Goddess, will you shut up?" he said, and from behind the curtain, Al mumbled something. A little rocking horse with wings popped into existence, crashing into the ceiling before falling to the floor to quiver and go still.

"Listen to me," he said, and I swallowed my words. "The Rosewood babies are going to start dying next week," he said, and my breath caught. "If nothing changes, by this time next month, you and Lee will again be the only survivors of the Rosewood syndrome."

"But you fixed them!" I said, appalled.

"Yes and no," Trent said after he topped his glass off again. "I had to fix their genome to ensure Ku'Sox would hold to his end of the bargain and not harm Lucy, but I worked in a small error that wouldn't express itself until it was replicated sufficiently. I couldn't risk that he would get his way if he killed me."

Horrified, I stared at him. He met my gaze levelly. "You killed them. The babies," I whispered, and he shook his head.

"Not yet."

"What do you mean, 'not yet'?" Feeling betrayed, I stood. "Trent, they are all someone's child!" I exclaimed, and Al snorted in his sleep, mumbling.

Trent looked up, agitated. "I mean, not yet. Rachel, the world isn't ready for them."

I cocked my hip, the fire warm behind me. "When is the world ever ready for change, Trent? When?"

Setting his glass down, Trent eyed me, bitter resignation behind his frustration. "What will happen if they live? HAPA knows they exist. The only reason you survived was because you can defend yourself. You want me to give the children to the demons to raise?"

He stood, and I dropped back as he began to pace. "Or perhaps you want me to hide them and their families? I could do it. But you know the demons will find them, and one by one, a demon wanting to see the sun and escape the ever-after will either steal them outright or take over their bodies." Eyes flashing, he pointed at me, his hand wrapped around a wineglass. "I will not allow a parent to love a child who is murdering his pets and performing ghastly magic, not wanting to believe that their child died five years ago and they are raising a five-thousand-year-old sadistic demon until their child's neural pathways are developed enough to work the lines. They are not meant to be." Frustrated, he turned to the window, taking an angry drink, the firelight flickering on him.