25
Fatigue was a heavy, wet blanket as I got out of Trent’s sports car. Quen had driven it and me back to Trent’s house after meeting Ellasbeth and the girls at the front gate on the way in, and I jumped when his door slammed shut with an unexpected loudness.
It was nearing noon. I was finally waking up, but Trent looked awful as he got out of his big-ass SUV and began helping Ellasbeth with the cranky girls, his temper showing as the need to sleep grew. Zack stood beside them in his elegant suit, yawning and worrying his empty finger until Trent handed him the girls’ diaper bag. A bunch of store bags followed, all emblazoned with the names of upscale children’s clothing stores.
Their twined voices echoed in the low ceiling of Trent’s underground garage. Jenks was getting in the way, distracting the girls and making a nuisance of himself as Zack tried to handle the numerous bags and ogle Trent’s other cars shining under the garage’s artificial lights. Bis had opted to return to the church. “To keep the squatters out,” he had said, but as the high-pitched voices of the girls became louder, I thought he had other motives.
“Got that okay?” Trent asked Zack, and the kid nodded and fell into place behind Trent and Ellasbeth, each holding a nap-ready, sleepy girl as they headed to the underground entrance.
I sighed as I reached into Trent’s car for my bag before shutting the door by leaning back on it. Quen cleared his throat, and I met his accusing dark gaze. He hadn’t said a word on the long drive from Trent’s gatehouse, but I had a guess as to where his thoughts were.
“Don’t look at me like that.” I pushed up from Trent’s car and followed them in, low heels scuffing on the cold cement. “Zack isn’t spying for Landon. You should have seen how he treated him. He belittled him, Quen. Tried to bully him into slug paste. Trent knows what he’s doing.”
“He’s dangerous.”
Quen’s low, warning voice rumbled, darkness incarnate, as shadowy as the elf himself, and I stifled a shiver. “Trent knows that, too,” I said, eyes on the beautiful family making their way through the kitchen entrance, their finery looking at home among the subdued wealth.
“He’s not acting as if he does.” Quen frowned, watching them as well.
“Keep your enemies closer?” I offered, and Quen looked askance at me. “How are the girls?” I asked, trying to change the subject. “Is Ellasbeth . . . ?” My words trailed off as he quickened his pace and left me behind. Okay, touchy subject, I thought as he caught up with them and held the door as Buddy ambled out to greet me.
“Hey, Buddy,” I whispered, feeling alone as I came in last, which was about where I felt I ought to be. “How you doing, old boy?”
But Buddy left me, too, as I shut the door and sealed out the scent of damp cement. I’d been added to the house’s security ages ago, and I hesitated to code the system to lock. Trent stiffened at the audible thump of the house-wide defense falling into play, and then his shoulders eased.
Alone, I trailed behind them past the ground-level industrial kitchens that Trent used when entertaining on a grand scale. Deeper in was the bar hidden under a long overhang, and after that was the three-story ceilinged great room, still holding a sliver of moving sun. They were already on the stairs as I paused to take in the soft hush of the waterfall, audible through the enormous ward. The sound of Trent and Ellasbeth talking as they rose with the girls was beautiful, and I was glad that Ray and Lucy could hear it and know that they were loved. Quen had engaged Zack under the excuse of taking some of the packages, and the feeling that it was time to go grew heavy.
Except that the job wasn’t done yet.
If we couldn’t destroy the baku, we had to find a way to catch it, even if it meant jerking it out of Landon and—yuck—saving him. Trap it, maybe, in a bottle like a soul. There had to be a way, or the baku wouldn’t have been afraid of being caught.
My head jerked up at the sound of dragonfly wings, and I blinked, startled when Jenks was suddenly before me. “You okay for a few minutes? I want to check in with Jumoke.”
Quen had turned on the stairs, his thoughts unreadable as he waited for my response to the impatient pixy. “Sure,” I said, talking to them both, though Jenks didn’t know that. “I have to talk to Trent about something, but I’m going to wait until they go down for their naps.”
Jenks’s dust shifted to a bright, cheerful gold. “Okay, back in ten,” he said, and then he was gone, only his slowly drifting dust arrowing to the conservatory saying he’d ever been there.
Alone, I trudged up the stairs to the top floor, steps slow from more than fatigue, though there was plenty of that. By the time I reached the top, the girls were sitting in their high chairs, pulled up to the small table against the kitchen’s half wall. Ellasbeth was behind the counter pouring Cheerios into two brightly colored bowls as Trent sat between Lucy and Ray, “debriefing” their stay with their mom. Lucy’s voice was strong and clear as she told her dad about the park and the pirates they’d made of the ants they’d found. Ray stoically made a hat, or maybe a boat, of her napkin. Buddy sat panting under them, waiting for the inevitable fallout. It was beautiful, and I felt like an intruder, doubly so when Quen and Zack came out of the girls’ room, their hands now empty of bags.
“Have you had breakfast yet, Trent?” Ellasbeth said pleasantly as she puttered in the kitchen, and Trent shot a look at me, sandwiched between his two girls with his tie undone and looking so domestic, it made my heart hurt.
“Yes. We ate at Carew Tower,” he said, not a trace of anything in his voice.
Ellasbeth ran her eyes over his suit and loosened tie, gaze rising to Zack in his borrowed finery. Her attention landed on me last, and I flushed. “That must have been pleasant.”
“It wasn’t,” Trent said as he helped Ray with her napkin boat. “It was a business meeting with Landon.”
Ellasbeth’s motion to put the box of Cheerios away hesitated, and then she smoothly closed the cupboard door. “Did it go well?” she prompted, a fake smile in place.
God, no. I came in closer so it wasn’t so obvious that I didn’t belong. “We learned a lot,” I said as I half-sat against the back of the couch. “Trent, before I go, I want to talk to you about catching the baku.”
“Go?” Trent’s attention jerked up, completely missing Ellasbeth’s flash of unease. Not to mention Quen’s frown. “I thought you were going to . . . ah . . .”
I shrugged, smiling thinly at Ellasbeth as she brought the girls two small bowls of dry cereal. “I didn’t want to assume,” I said, and Quen snorted as he settled himself in the living room and brought up something security-related on his phone.
“You can’t leave,” Trent said, and Ellasbeth colored. “What if you fall asleep?”
“Why?” Ellasbeth said, still standing behind the girls. “What happens if she falls asleep?”
I ran a hand over my mouth, very aware of Ray watching me. “Perhaps we should . . . mmmm . . .” I turned to look behind me at the living room. It wasn’t so far from the table that the girls would feel alone, but distant enough that they wouldn’t be likely to listen in.
Trent nodded, a hand on each of the girls as he rose. “Zack, will you watch Ray and Lucy?”
“Sure!” Zack sprang from the couch, long legs eating up the distance to settle himself at the head of the table, where he could see them and us both. I wasn’t sure what had happened on the five-mile drive from the gatehouse to the garage, but it was clear the girls liked him.
“Zack.” Lucy giggled, spilling her dish as she reached for him. “Why are your ears short?”
“Uhhh.” He flushed as Lucy eyed them. “Because I don’t have a demon godfather,” he said, and I smiled when Ray pushed one of Lucy’s spilled Cheerios off the table to Buddy.
“Ray, no!” Lucy cried when Ray pushed another. “That’s mine!” and I looked away, my smile fading as I found Quen frowning at me.
I spun where I was, not caring what anyone thought as I scooted down the back of the couch to land with my skirt in disarray. Trent watched in unabashed appreciation as I tugged everything where it belonged, then he settled carefully beside me to make me feel both awkward and loved. Ellasbeth glowered at Quen, willing him to move, then finally sat in Ceri’s rocker, where she could stare balefully at Trent and me at the same time. Whatever.
“Why shouldn’t you sleep?” Ellasbeth asked again, and Quen put his phone down.
Trent took my hand in his, and my shoulders eased as his fingers twined with mine. “Because Rachel, and anyone with a similar aura resonance, is potentially under the threat of a baku attack,” he said, setting our clasped hands where Ellasbeth could see them.
Ellasbeth’s gaze flitted between Trent and me as if unsure. “What is a baku?”
Lucy’s sudden squeal of delight shocked through me. Apparently Zack had caught the Cheerio that she’d thrown at him with his mouth. At least, it seemed as if that was what had happened, since Buddy was busy vacuuming the floor of the misses.
“A baku is a spirit being,” Quen said, his low voice pulling my attention back. “One that can invade your dreams and cause you to act out your nightmares.”
“Oh.” Ellasbeth frowned, clearly not seeing the problem, and I winced.
“Landon is using it to try to get me to kill Trent,” I said bluntly, and Ellasbeth’s eyes widened in horror. “But it could be used to get Trent to kill me,” I added to be fair.
Trent made a soft sound of annoyance. “Or anyone for that matter,” he said.
“It’s a weapon,” Quen said. “One our ancestors created to kill demons.”
Trent shifted to set his ankle atop his knee. “But by the amount of carnage it’s been causing in Cincinnati this last week, it has a much farther reach.”
I faced Quen as Ellasbeth came to whatever conclusion she wanted. “Landon’s aura shifted when the baku, ah, left him,” I said, not wanting to admit that it had attacked me. Again. “It, er, said that I was too alone to hold it, which means that maybe with two people we could. We just have to figure out how,” I added, not liking Quen’s sudden frown. Clearly he’d put two and two together and gotten baku attack.
“It’s vicious,” I continued, “but not that smart, so . . . I’m thinking that maybe if we talk to it, it might let slip how it was caught before.”
“Talk to it?” Quen said. “How many times have you been attacked, Rachel?”
“A couple,” I admitted, and Zack’s face went white.
Trent’s grip on mine tightened in understanding. “No,” he said. “You’re not talking to it. If it takes you over, it will make you kill me. I’ll talk to it. Not you.”
My head snapped around. “You? Trent, no.”
“I agree,” Quen said. “This is a bad idea.”
“Trenton?” Ellasbeth’s voice quavered. “I’m taking the girls and going home.”
Trent stiffened. “Lower your voice,” he said softly, a harsh counterpoint to Ray’s singing about a spider. “There is no need for them to leave.”
“The Turn there isn’t,” she insisted, hands clasped tight in her lap as she sat in Ceri’s chair, and suddenly I didn’t feel like the outsider anymore. “Until this is finished, your house isn’t safe.”
Trent’s eyes narrowed, and the scent of spoiled cinnamon grew. “Whether the girls are here or across the city makes no difference if Landon decides to target them. But you’re welcome to stay with them in the safe room while they nap.”
Quen jerked, and even Ellasbeth caught back her forming protest.
“Here?” she asked, and a thread of alarm pulled through me.
Mood bad, Trent said, “I doubt very much that Landon will target the baku to you. You can stay and watch over them as they nap. Here,” he added firmly.
“Sa’han . . . ,” Quen protested.
I didn’t like it, either, but if they were arguing over where Ellasbeth was going to take her noon nap, they weren’t thinking about how many times I’d been attacked.
Trent turned to Quen, his eyebrows high in challenge. “You should stay with her. Your aura isn’t anything like mine or Rachel’s,” he snipped.
Quen’s expression hardened to show his offense. “I’m not staying in the safe room when you’re playing with a predator, Sa’han.”
“Zack too,” Trent continued as if Quen had said nothing. “He might benefit from a locked door that can’t be opened from the outside while we talk to the baku.”
Zack looked up from the table, and Lucy clapped her hands when the Cheerio on his nose fell off. His expression was a mix of bravado and fear. Which one will win? I wondered.
“Rachel and I can contact the baku,” Trent said, drawing my attention. “If elves created it as a weapon, there is a way to contain it.”
“There isn’t,” Quen said stoically. “Not anymore. Your mother and I tried.”
“Pity you don’t remember how,” Trent said with what I thought was an unusual amount of gall, but Trent was tired, too.
Quen’s lip twitched. “The failure was likely not at our end, but the Order’s. Which might be why they saw fit to wipe the memory of it from us.”
I inched forward and tugged my skirt to cover my knees. “What do you remember?”
“Almost nothing,” he said, voice low. “The baku is like the wind or water, but even wind and water obey rules of gravity and pressure, and the baku does not.”
Trent eyed Quen with a new mistrust. “Did my mother contact Al for help?”
Quen took a slow breath. “No, Sa’han.”
I slumped into the cushions. At first glance, it looked easy for me to tap into the demon’s wisdom—easy, and with little apparent cost. But sticking up for a demon wasn’t easy, getting others to accept a demon wasn’t easy, learning to live among people as a demon wasn’t easy. Perhaps I paid my dues another way. Here’s hoping it didn’t claim my life in the end anyway.
“At least, I don’t think she did,” Quen said, voice introspective. “She knew I didn’t like her talking to demons, so she hid it from me. Until it was too late.”
Quen suddenly rose, startling me. “Excuse me,” he said, an odd, surprisingly pained expression on him before he banished it. “I have a tent to set up in the safe room.”
He strode from the sunken living room, leaving me frowning in thought. That had been rather abrupt—and there’d been a definite hint of long-hidden heartache. Eyes narrowed, I looked from Trent to Quen for any signs of similarity. Then I shook my head and dismissed the notion. Even with genetic intervention, they looked far too dissimilar to be related. It was obvious that Quen had loved Trent’s mother, but it didn’t follow that they had had, er, relations.
“A tent?” I asked, and Trent’s focus sharpened.
“Indoor camping,” he said, thoughts realigning. “We’ve never done it for naps, but it should make sleeping in their closet seem normal.”
“Lucy, Ray,” Quen said as he crouched at the table to put his eyes even with theirs. “Your mother would like to nap with you. Would you like to make a camp?”
“Tent party!” Lucy exclaimed, her eyes brightening.
“What’s a tent party?” Zack asked, voice loud to be heard over Lucy, now demanding to be let down out of her chair.
“Tent party! Tent party!” the little girl chanted as Quen expertly wrangled her into his arms. “Zack, open it,” she demanded as she pointed at a kitchen cupboard. “Get the marshmallows!”
Ray didn’t look nearly as happy, but I had a feeling it was because she was watching Trent, and Trent was frowning. “You’re telegraphing,” I warned him, and he shook himself out of his mood, smiling as he went to the little girl.
Ellasbeth, too, stood, but she wasn’t nearly as adept at hiding her emotions. “Trent, if you’re compromised, let the Order handle it,” she said, telling me exactly what their conversation in the SUV had been. “You don’t have to save the world.”
“I’m not saving the world,” he said as he lifted Ray and brushed the Cheerios from her. “I’m saving myself and my family. The Order doesn’t care if Landon dies as long as they capture the baku. The entire world knows that Landon and I have a personal war going on. If he were to end up dead, who do you think will be blamed? Landon would have his success from the grave.”
“But you don’t have anything to do with it,” Ellasbeth protested.
“When has that ever mattered?” Trent asked, then turned to Ray, setting her down and asking her to get a nap-time book. Eyes on Trent, Ray reluctantly took Quen’s hand and went into her room with Lucy.
“Tent party!” Lucy shouted again, and Buddy trotted to join them.
“You do this a lot?” I asked, and Trent’s easy mood returned if only for a moment.
“Ah, yes,” he admitted, seeming embarrassed. “But we usually set the tent up downstairs. Maybe someday, Quen will let us sleep under the stars. Excuse me. I need to talk to Quen.”
I nodded, but he was already moving, and I smiled at the sound of Ray’s cheerful demands.
That left me alone with Ellasbeth. My smile slowly fell as she began to clean the high chairs. She was trying to be useful. I knew the feeling. “Ah, sorry about this,” I said as I brushed the remaining Cheerios into my hand and dropped them in one of the bowls.
“The baku?” Ellasbeth took the bowls and went into the kitchen. “It wasn’t your fault. I appreciate you taking an interest and helping Trent with it.”
Interest? I thought, wondering if she’d been listening to any of this. “No, I mean everything,” I said, and she went still, turning the running water off with an abrupt motion.
“Is that remorse?” she said, her perfect eyebrows high and mocking. “Tell me, Rachel,” she said, color high, “what would you have done differently? Not goaded me into acting like a jealous child by leading me to believe you were a paid whore and then an old girlfriend? Not arrested Trent at our wedding? Not encouraged him to go to the ever-after, where he was put on the auction block as a slave? Or perhaps opting to not help him cross the continent to steal my child?”
Oh, that. “I am an old girlfriend,” I said, thinking of our time at camp. I’d been, like, eleven, and Trent thirteen, but the more I remembered from it, the more I thought we’d been sort of like friends. Or enemies with a common cause, perhaps. “I never encouraged him to go into the ever-after to retrieve the ancient elven DNA to revive your species,” I added, not sure why I was defending myself. “And if I hadn’t helped him reach the West Coast, you would’ve killed him by Albuquerque to soothe your bruised ego. You were the one to place that ancient demand upon him to steal his own child back instead of settling custody like civilized people. But as for arresting him at your wedding? You deserved that. It was all you, you, you. Did you ever even think to ask him what he might have wanted? Excuse me.”
Chin high, I strode to the girls’ room, not surprised to find the heavy door behind their closet wide open. Lucy was dragging her comforter into the space, Buddy wanting to play and dancing beside her. Inside the room, Zack was busy clearing space. Ray stood beside Quen, holding his leg as he used binder clips to fasten a second blanket to one of the cabinets. “What can I do to help?” I asked, thinking the large room looked more like a vault than a closet with its airtight cabinets of books, shelved artifacts, and paintings stacked on end.
But I stopped stock-still when I saw the small glass baby bottle sitting among the rest. I reached for it, my fingertips tingling as I took it in hand. I knew without asking that this was the bottle that had once held my soul, an impromptu container when my body was too broken to keep it intact. “You kept it?” I said, and a shiver ran through me as my finger traced the rough spiral Trent had etched into the bottom to confuse and direct my soul.
Trent looked up from fastening the other end of the tent to a shelf of ancient elven knickknacks that could probably fund the college educations of an entire high school. “Do you want it?” he said. “I couldn’t throw it away, and I always thought it felt as if it had a shadow of your soul in there, like a reflection.” He hesitated, wincing at Lucy now running back and forth to bring her stuffed animals in, one by one. “Ah, can you organize Lucy? Help her winnow it down, maybe? Ray needs to pick out a book yet, too.”
“Sure.” I set the bottle back with a small click. It was probably more secure here than on Kisten’s boat. Lurching, I snagged Lucy with one hand and wiggled my fingers for Ray. Lucy laughed and giggled, swinging as she half-dragged me and Ray out of the safe room. Ray looked scared, and I picked her up, thinking she smelled like a snickerdoodle. “Lucy?” I said as I sat on one of their low beds. “Your dad says to pick three.”
“All of them.” Lucy pulled the animals on her bed to a blanket on the floor to drag in.
“But why?” I said, thinking my momitude needed work. “There won’t be room for you.”
“All of them,” Lucy said again, turning to the toy box after she emptied her bed.
“Any ideas?” I said to Ray, and she clung to me, a book about a black horse in her grip.
I sighed, my eyes going to the open closet door when Trent’s voice rose in unusual anger. “It’s the only space contiguous to our current living situation. I’m sensitive to you wanting to leave my mother’s rooms as they are, but if she doesn’t have her own space here, I’m going to lose everything I’ve gained. I know you have a way in. If you don’t tell me, I’m going to blow the fireplace apart and make my own door.”
Fireplace? I thought, thinking he must have meant the monster of a hearth on the first floor. I swear, the hearth was big enough to park my MINI in. What had they done? Bricked up a wing with it?
Then I winced, flushing as I realized Ellasbeth was standing at the doorway, having heard it as well. Opening an unused wing of the estate? Ellasbeth staying over for naps, albeit on the floor? My shoulders slumped, and I felt more alone, even with Ray on my lap, patting her book as if to distract me. I knew Trent was trying to find a way to pacify everyone, and Ellasbeth moving back in, into a closed wing or not, might be enough to buy a few enclave votes.
Chin high, Ellasbeth crossed the room. “Knock, knock,” she said brightly as she halted in the doorway to the safe room. “Oh, that is a fine tent. Lucy, Ray, come and see.”
I didn’t care if she was better at this mothering stuff than me. It sucked. “Lucy,” I called, catching her hand as Ray slid from me. “Lucy, wait. Why so many?” I asked in a last-ditch effort to prove I could work with little egos, too.
Both Lucy and Ray hesitated, Lucy wide-eyed and Ray thin lipped as if she already knew and wasn’t happy about it. “Gerry isn’t afraid of thunder,” Lucy said, touching the giraffe, and Ray’s grip on me tightened. “Bruno isn’t afraid of the dark,” Lucy added, looking at a tiny bear. “Pettie isn’t afraid of mean dogs. Spot isn’t scared of snarled hair.”
I suddenly realized Lucy was terrified. Her lighthearted giddiness was an act. She was scared, not of the safe room, but of why they were being asked to nap there. Ray too was afraid, though her fear was both more obvious and more obscure as she clung to my hand. They knew something was wrong, and they were trying to be brave by pretending they didn’t.
Immediately I dropped down to give them both hugs, all at the same time. “Oh, Lucy. It’s going to be okay,” I said as her arms went around my neck, clinging as if she’d never let go.
“Don’t go,” she said, her small voice whispering in my ear. “Stay with me and Ray-Ray. Stay with Daddy, and Abba, and Mommy in the safe room.”
It just about broke my heart. Sitting on the floor of their room, I wanted to tell them that there were no such things as monsters and that everything would be all right. But Lucy knew. She’d seen it firsthand, having been kidnapped by a psychotic demon. Ray had escaped, but she’d seen what it had done to both Trent and Quen, helpless to get her sister back. And so I sat them both in my lap, rocking them and not wanting to ever let them go.
But I had to, or nothing would ever be better again.
“I have to do this,” I said, ignoring Ellasbeth’s envious glare. “I have to go,” I said firmly as Lucy began to whine. “You will be brave for your mother in the safe room. I won’t say I’m sorry, because I have to do this with your daddy and abba. Understand?”
“Because you’re a demon princess,” Lucy said, playing with my curling hair, and from the closet came Trent’s grunt of surprise. “And demon princesses are brave.”
I hesitated, then gave them both hugs again. “Almost as much as elven princesses,” I said, never having thought of it like that, but it would appeal to them, so I went with it. The demons had spent too much effort trying to kill me to believe that I was anything other than a means to an end, and not one they particularly liked at that. “But mostly because I love you both and your daddy, too, and I can help stop the baku.”
Breath shaking, I gave Lucy a kiss, and then one for Ray as well. “Take your pillows,” I said as I stood them up in turn, and they silently pulled them from their low beds. “You’ll be safe while your daddies and I talk to the baku.”
I felt funny when their warm little hands found mine again and dragged me to the door. Zack was tugging the tent taut as Ellasbeth sat on the floor in front of it, trying to look happy as Lucy and Ray left me to give their daddies hugs and good-nap kisses.
“Thank you for watching them,” Trent said to Ellasbeth when he set Ray in her lap, and the woman nodded, looking lost as she bundled Ray up in her favorite blanket.
“It’s all I’m good for,” she said, voice thin, and Trent put a hand on her shoulder.
“It’s everything.”
I backed out of the room, almost running into Jenks. The pixy had his hands on his hips as he hovered, clearly peeved we’d started without him. I didn’t know what was going on anymore. I knew Trent loved me. I knew the girls looked to me for security. But I wasn’t sure how I felt about sharing that with Ellasbeth. Or perhaps losing it to her. Nothing had changed in the last two months except that there was more pressure from the enclave for Trent to quit messing around and marry the woman as he’d promised, uniting the East and West Coast families.
“You said you were going to wait for me. What did I miss?” Jenks said, and I winced.
“Zack, you’re with me,” Quen said loudly, quickly followed by Zack’s exuberant “Yes!” The kid bolted out, looking both scared and excited. Quen and Trent followed and, after a moment of coaxing, Buddy as well.
“Have a good nap, my ladies,” Trent said as Quen shut the door. “Sleep well.”
In the silence, I could hear Ellasbeth lock it, and then a wave of magic went up, strong enough to feel when I touched the reinforced wood. They were safe. My fingers slid reluctantly away, and I turned to look at Trent, Quen, Zack, and Jenks.
“Anyone want to tell me why you just locked your kids in a closet?” Jenks said, and I sighed, shifting my hair from my shoulder to fill him in as we went downstairs.