"You want some coffee?" I said to Glenn as my feet moved silently on the cracked sidewalk. Heaven knew I did.
My head jerked up as the church door was flung open and Ivy took two hurried steps onto the stoop before seeing me. Her pace slowed, but she continued on, her arms wrapped around herself as if she was cold. Shadows disguised her face, but her posture held worry and fear. Jenks was with her.
"See?" he said, as proud as if he had pulled me back from the ever-after himself. "I told you! She figured it out, and here she is. Safe and back where she belongs."
Ivy hit the sidewalk and kept coming. Her attention flicked briefly to Glenn, then fixed on me. "You're here," she said softly, her gray-silk voice carrying an entire twenty-four hours of fear and worry.
She pulled herself to a stop a few steps away, and her hands fell to her sides as if she didn't know what to do with them, afraid to reach out. She turned to anger instead. "Why didn't you call us?" she said, finally reaching hesitantly out and taking that stupid paper bag from me. "We would have picked you up."
My heart heavy, we headed to the steps. Jenks flew between us trailing a faint silver dust. "She went by herself to kick some black-witch ass," he said, and Ivy's gaze sharpened.
"You went to Tom's?" she said. "We're a team. It could have waited a few hours."
I took a breath, and then, right there at the foot of the stairs, I gave her a hug. She stiffened for an instant, then her hands went around me and the crackle of brown paper sounded against my back. Vampire incense grew strong, and my eyes closed as I breathed it in. Immediately my muscles relaxed and the prick of tears grew hot. I'd been so scared, with no way home and a lifetime of degradation facing me. She was my friend, and I could give her a freaking hug if I wanted to.
Ivy's stiffness grew, and I let go of her with one hand so that we stood more shoulder-to-shoulder than front-to-front. She was nervously watching Glenn for his reaction, but I couldn't care less. "I didn't go after him," I said as she helped me up the stairs. "It sort of happened."
The door was open, and in the darkness of the foyer and the confusion of two dozen pixies swirling around us and Glenn, I pulled her attention to me by taking her arm. "I'm so glad to see you," I whispered. "I don't know what's going to happen at sunrise. I need your help."
"What?" she said, concern replacing all her fear-based anger.
But Jenks had cleared the room of his kids, and I pressed my lips together, trying to tell her that I had to talk to her alone. Or at least without Glenn listening.
Her perfect oval face went blank, and I saw her understanding. She turned her upper lip in as she thought, and I let go of her arm. "You want some coffee, Glenn?" she asked suddenly.
My shoulders eased. We'd get Glenn out of here fast by pretending everything was okay. And frankly, I needed to pretend everything was okay - if only for a few minutes.
Glenn's brow rose suspiciously at the offer, but he ambled in after us. He did a good job of hiding that he knew we were trying to get rid of him, but he looked like a cop when he settled himself at the table. Telling Ivy he didn't mind waiting for a new pot, he arched his eyebrows at me and crossed his arms over his chest - and stared. He wasn't going to leave until he heard it all.
Jenks was hovering over my shoulder like there was a string between us. My worry crashed down as I slumped into my spot at the table and tried to decide where to start. The familiar noises of Ivy making coffee were incredibly soothing, and my eyes scanned the kitchen, marking the empty spots where I had moved spelling supplies into the belfry.
A sudden clenching of my chest took my breath away. I was a demon. Or so close to one that it didn't matter. That I had made a human my familiar should have been the first clue. I felt filthy, like the smut on my soul was leaking off and staining everything I loved.
And as Glenn eyed the basket of cherry tomatoes with avarice and prattled on about how he liked a good strong cup of coffee while he waited for me to get on with it, I felt the bolts of my life lock the door to my past. I had only one way to go, and it was going to be hard as hell. Logic said there was no way to rescue Trent. He had accepted his failure and asked me to save his species. But I didn't live or die by percentages, and I wouldn't sit and accept it. It would prey on me forever.
"I...I have to talk to you," I said, and the conversation cut off with the startling suddenness of a kite smacking headfirst into the ground.
Ivy turned from the coffeemaker, arms over her middle and her face pale. The pitch of Jenks's wings faded to nothing as he landed on the napkin holder. Glenn's breath slid out of him in anticipation, and I steadied myself, trying to find a way to say what I needed to without telling them what Trent's dad had done to me.
"You didn't get back here on your own," Ivy guessed, and Jenks's wings stopped. "Did you have to buy another mark?" I shook my head, and Ivy's relief turned to a wary suspicion, then horror. "Where's Trent?"
Oh, God, she thought I had bought my freedom with Trent. Everyone would. Vision blurring, I shook my head, my gaze on a series of lines indented into the table, realizing they were Ivy's name in a careful, preschool print.
Why am I here? I thought as I tried to find a way to tell them what I was. I was a demon, and I was likely going to be pulled back into the ever-after in a few hours.
I was a demon, but they were my friends. I had to believe that they wouldn't turn me away. My head hurt, and taking a slow breath, I looked up. "Jenks, could you clear out your kids?"
His wings increased in pitch, and Ivy winced. "Sure," he said, his unease obvious as he made a series of three whistles. A smattering of complaints rose, and the room went silent as the children left. Jenks rubbed his wings together in a harsh discord, and three more darted out from under the sink and were gone.
My gaze dropped, and I pulled my knees up to my chin, grasping my shins awkwardly so my heels almost slipped off the chair. I wanted to be mad at Trent for everything, but this wasn't his fault. I thought of my demon scar, and a bitter anger lifted through me. I'm a demon; I ought to just accept it.
But I wouldn't. And I didn't have to.
I looked up to fasten on Ivy's stillness. Her face was empty of emotion, but her eyes were swimming. "I got out," I said in a monotone. "Trent didn't."
The soft creak of the back door closing brought Ivy's head around, and I looked to the hallway. Ceri was standing in the threshold, her filmy white dress edged in purple and green floating about her bare feet, and her hair wild. Tears marked her face, and she looked beautiful. "Rachel?" she warbled, guilt and fear heavy in her voice.
And with that, I realized that Ceri had known. She had known I was a demon, and that was why she hadn't wanted me to go to the ever-after, lest I figure it out myself.
My face bunched up, and I held my knees tighter. "Why didn't you tell me?" I asked.
She took three steps in and stopped. "Because you aren't," she said, pleading. "You are a witch, Rachel. Never forget it."
It wasn't her words but the vehemence she said them with that convinced me she'd rather believe a happy lie than a harsh truth. Damn it, she had known. I could almost pin the moment she'd realized it. She'd been treating me differently ever since Minias had pulled the focus from me and put it into David. No, it had started before that, with the scrying mirror.
My eyes must have given me away, for she strode across the room with a familiar righteous anger. "You are a witch!" she shouted, spots of color showing and her hair flaring out magnificently. "Close your mouth! You are a witch!"
Jenks was hovering in questioning shock. "Why wouldn't she be?" he asked, and Ivy slumped. I looked at her and bit my lip, tears of frustration slipping from me. I think Ivy had figured it out.
"I'm a witch," I said, continuing the lie. But Ceri hadn't touched me yet.
"I didn't want you to go," Ceri said, standing helplessly before me.
Unable to bear it, I put my feet on the floor and took her hand. It was cold, and she didn't pull away. "Thank you," I whispered. "Am I going to stay here, or will I be pulled back?"
Ivy moaned softly, turning to grip the sink and look into the black garden. Ceri glanced at her, then at Jenks's confusion, and finally, back to me. "I don't know," she said softly.
Jenks rose up high, his wings clattering aggressively. "Someone better tell me what the hell is going on, or I'm going to pix the lot of you."
Blinking fast, Ivy turned, one arm wrapped around her middle, the other holding her head. "You said Rachel twisted the curse. She has Al's summoning name," she said to the floor. "She didn't buy a way back and she didn't learn how to travel the lines. She was pulled back to reality when Tom summoned Al."
"So?" Jenks said acerbically, then hesitated, dropping to the table. "Oh. Shit."
A flash of fear took me, and the shame of being summoned into someone else's circle.
"Rachel is not a demon," Ceri said, and Glenn finally got it, his broad shoulders turning sideways as he gaped at me.
"No," I said bitterly, twisting in my chair and not looking at anyone. "I'm a witch whose blood can kindle demon magic, and who has been integrated into their system so well that I'm bound by their rules of summoning."
"No, you aren't."
I wanted to believe Ceri, but I was afraid to. "Then what am I?" I whispered. She had to know. She had lived among them.
Ceri's face went frightened. "You are what you are."
My gaze met Ivy's to find a sliver of fear.
I couldn't take it anymore. Rising, I ran to the bathroom, slamming the door and slumping onto the closed toilet, miserable. There was a commotion in the hall: worried voices and frustrated accusations. A tear slid down, and I let it. I should cry. I should be crying my freaking eyes out. I think my dad had known, too. Why else would he have asked Cincinnati's top ley line instructor to flunk me, then collect a library of demon texts for me?
"Rachel?" came Jenks's voice amid a close clatter of pixy wings, and I pulled my head up.
"Get out!" I shouted, lashing out with a flick I knew would never land. "Damn it, you stupid pixy, get out!"
"No!" he exclaimed, getting in my face. "Rachel, listen to me. You smell like a witch. Well, you stink like the ever-after right now, but when you wash it off, you'll smell like a witch. And come sunup, you will be here. You won't be pulled to the ever-after. I won't let you!"
His expression was desperate, and I listlessly extended a hand for him to land on. I held my breath and caught my misery back behind a throat-hurting gulp. He landed on it, flying up briefly when Ivy barged in, sending the door swinging into the wall.
"God save you!" I exclaimed, jumping. "I shut the door because I wanted to be alone!"
Ivy's usually placid face was pinched with worry. Tension had pulled her shoulders up, and her movements to tuck her short hair behind an ear were sharp. "You are not a demon," she said, her words precise. "You're sitting in a church. No demon can do that. Glenn said you lied to get out of that circle, and nothing happened to you. You weren't held accountable. You're not a demon, and you won't be pulled back when the sun comes up."
Exhausted in mind and soul, I looked up at her, wanting to believe, but too afraid to do so. "I hope so," I whispered, knowing they wouldn't like what I was going to say next. "But if I was, it would make rescuing Trent easier."