Apologies for the wait, it's going to be a busy semester! This one's a bit of a long one, and I'm not totally satisfied with it, but I really liked Al at the end there. I want character growth, but nobody wants Al to turn into a woobie. (Well, Ash either.) Evie…well, she's still having trouble seeing past her own problems right now, but she'll get there soon…promise!

In Which Evie Hits Bottom, and Al Steps Up

Kill Al? The idea had barely formed when I dismissed it as impractical, unrealistic, and impossible. Besides, I still needed training. It wasn't like Ash would—

Where am I?

The room was dark, and the acrid stink contained far more than the usual burnt amber. It was burnt everything- hair, fabric, flesh and bone. And under it, an even more familiar scent.

No. Please, no.

I spoke the charm that would light the eldritch globes throughout the room. Only one remained intact, but its sickly light confirmed my fears. Ash's trophy room. The Demon of Wrath had lived up to his name. He'd obliterated everything. My numb mind cataloged the damage, one mechanical snap shot after another. The leather couch, slashed and burnt. The china and porcelain, smashed. Artwork, slashed and defaced. Tapestries, shredded and befouled with some foul black substance that didn't warrant closer scrutiny.

The worst was the fur, the one near the fire on which we'd made love. Near as I could tell, he'd…brought it back to a semblance of life. It lay in a corner, shuddering and oozing blood and worse, and it was still just a fur, and I had to turn away before the sick horror bubbled out of me and splattered all over the floor.

Newt had done a fine job of distracting me from the weight of my grief, which made its return a far more crushing blow. Why had she sent me here? I guess I had said, "home," hadn't I? Petty cruelty or simple absent-mindedness on her part, it didn't matter. If Ash discovered me here, still shackled in my charmed silver cuffs, I'd soon be in the same state as the rest of the junk. I couldn't fool myself into thinking that anything I could say to him would make a difference. Not now. Not after seeing the contempt in his eyes.

He'd never trusted me, not really. What else would account for how he'd turned on me so completely? Everything he'd done, he'd done for his own gain. I was such a blind idiot to think that he was even capable of love, let alone that he could love me.

And that brought the darker whispers back, those I'd spent a lifetime drowning under alcohol and harsh study and a prickly persona that guaranteed isolation, as if it were my choice instead of the inescapable truth. Who but a demon could ever love me?

Not even a demon, apparently.

Frosty fingers of furious hatred began to claw into my heart through all the hurt, as Therese awoke. Vengeance. Bloody, icy vengeance. He was mine. I'd saved him, and he'd abandoned me for it. His life was mine, and I'd take it back.

Enough, I told her, before she could really work me into a lather. Just…enough. I'm not going to kill him. Al either, even if he deserves it. I may be tainted and unfit in the eyes of the world, but I won't believe it of myself.

And I'm not a killer.

Brave words. I wished I could believe that how the world saw me didn't matter to me. But it did. At that moment, I was even furious with Adrian, for dangling false hope before me. The world would never accept even a good demon living among them, let alone one with a soul as blackened as mine had become. All the sidelong glances of my childhood, all the whispers, all the shame and despair and the new scars I bore…they would be worse, so much worse. There would be hatred, fear…contempt.

At least in the Ever After I'd have some value. But I could already see how I'd be tricked, deluded, flattered and used by those who called themselves allies. I would go mad as Newt, dealing with the empty viciousness of this place, probably whoring out my memories and my soul making tulpas to survive.

Al, I whispered silently, firing up the new familiar bond before loneliness and despair made me lie down in the rubble of my old life forever. Another hook tore at my wounded heart when I felt the comforting, warm link- with the foreign presence at the other end like a dash of icewater to the face. Al. Bring me back.

He did. I melted back into existence in the library, where I found him slouched on the long couch, halfway through another bottle. Nice. I wonder what he needed liquid courage to face tonight- surely he wasn't guilty over his deception? No. Not Al. Earlier I'd have torn into him with reckless abandon. Empty as I felt now, I found it hard to claw back out of the swamp of sadness into the righteous fury this encounter called for. I just stared at him, watched him watching me, watched him take another drink. "So?"

"So."

"Well…? You going to tell me why?"

"Can't you guess?"

"I'm not sure I care. Take these things off. I'm done. I'm going home." I held out my shackles, though of course I knew he wouldn't release me any more than Ash would have.

"Don't be melodramatic."

"I'm not, Al. We're done. How did you think you'd get away with it?"

"I didn't expect to. I knew he'd contact you the moment the curse was complete."

I sat down, stumped. Al stared placidly back, as if he hadn't just stabbed me in the back with a dagger I'd loaned him. "Then why? What was the point? You just like fucking with me? Or maybe you just like fucking with Ash? Because you could? Because you hate me that much?"

He waved a hand. "Please. Hate you? I don't like you enough to hate you. Try again."

Normally I could deal with Al's cruelty, but at that moment his words cut a little too close to the infection that had begun to sicken my soul again. Summoning a modicum of pique, I reached out and snatched his bottle away, slamming it down on the table out of his reach. Tempting as it was to chug it down myself, I wasn't so far gone, not yet. "It doesn't matter, I'm fucking done with you. I'm serious, take these off. Or I'll roast you. Familiar."

Al didn't dignify that threat with anything more than an eye-twitch, though that was probably contempt rather than amusement. "You're not going anywhere. You have a reality to save first."

I blinked at him a few times, while my brain tried to parse that. "I have a what?"

"Rachel broke the Ever After."

"Wait, what? She…broke it? How the hell does anyone break an alternate reality?"

"She burned a ley line into reality. Energy's leaking out with every sunset. The Ever After is dying. We have decades, maybe less, before the place shrinks to nothing, as it was originally meant to do. Only it will suck us down instead of the elves we meant to trap. Go on, say it," he added, rolling his eyes at my smirk.

"Sounds like poetic justice to me."

"Quite." Al steepled his fingers on his lap, though it took him two tries to align them properly. "Rachel can't fix it. You have to."

"Like hell I do. Why should I give two shits about what happens to any of you? It's not my responsibility."

"So you have renounced your demon, then…?"

Ash. Pain shocked through me…pain, outrage, and misery. Al knew exactly which button to push, didn't he? "You…you miserable, cruel, heartless son of a bitch." I wished I knew some better insults, wished I could say something that would grate his own heart just as wickedly. This whole misunderstanding was thanks to Ash thinking I'd forsaken him- how could I let him be right? "How could you? How could you? That is so fucking low, Al."

"Yes," he said. "But effective."

I cursed him and grabbed the bottle off the table, intending to thwack him over the head, or at least toss the contents into his face. But it vanished from my fingers and reappeared in his hand. We grappled with it for an embarrassing moment. I was still unused to my enhanced strength, and ended up with glass in my fingers, again. Al got the lapful of bloody booze and broken bottle bits, though. We were both cursing now, though mine were half pain and half fury that I'd been so easily thwarted. I sat back down sullenly and picked the shards from my skin, but I wasn't about to use my last healing curse on something so minor.

Asshole. Manipulative, heartless, soulless asshole. God, I hated him. Therese glared from my eyes, and Al's lack of emotion only goaded her further. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't christen our new familiar bond by drawing a dozen fucking lines right through you, right now?" I asked in a low, deadly voice.

Al, freshly brushed and washed with a curse, raised an eyebrow. "I can give you three. First, because you can't." He indicated the charmed silver. "Second, because you won't. Third, to whom would you turn for training? Just try returning to reality, untrained. I pity the first mortal fool who angers you- or tries to bed you."

Damn, damn, damn! I tried to slug him anyway, but he blocked the blow. Droplets of my blood spattered across his face and down his white lace. "I don't trust you. I will never trust you again. You can keep me here, but you can't force me to learn. Fuck the Ever After." I pulled my wrist, but he didn't let go. So I kicked his shin instead. "I tell you what: Let's all go down together. It's not me abandoning him if we all go down together!"

Al's face finally registered surprise. Ha. "What about Hope?" he asked, then winced when I kicked him again.

"Newt will send her home. Or not. What can I do about it? Point is, I don't care."

"You're a liar. I've seen your soul."

"Then look again, Al. Take a long careful look at it. I could have survived him being dead, mourning what could have been. But to have it shoved in my face that I was living a lie, that now he's out to destroy everything I am and love? Thanks to you and your little games? Don't you get it? I don't care! If all I have to look forward to a lifetime stuck here, alone in this cesspit, whoring out my soul for everyone's amusement until I end up loonier than Newt, then fuck it! I should have blown us both up years ago back in Colorado. Saved everyone a hell of a lot of trouble. Especially Rachel."

Finally, a dart struck home. Al's grip tightened on my arm, pressure that would have broken my unenhanced wrist a week ago. "Yvette," he said, warning clear in his growl.

"What?" It was all there, my barren future. In my mind, it was inescapable. What had even gotten me this far? Hope? Hardly. Rather, a determination not to let the demons of my past win the battle. Now…they won if I lived, they won if I fell, and the only possible respite I could see was a false dream of normality offered by a Coven I trusted about as far as I could throw. I was desperate, and furious. What's more, I wanted Al angry. I wanted him murderously angry. "What, Al? She'd totally fucking agree with me! She—"

His arm barely moved, but I smacked the wall behind me with such force that the world went wavery and queasy for several long seconds. He rose, faced me with a blank expression that lied as loud as his words. "Enough."

"Not that you give a damn. What about last night, eh? Four days, and you're all ready to fuck another demoness. Rachel's not even in the ground yet!"

Al cursed me. He sent something black my way, something foul and sticky that clung to me, filling my mouth with filth and smut. Therese screamed, gouging her own skin as she tried to pry the damned bracelets off by force. Finding it was as futile as prying off my own arms, she reached for the familiar bond, pulling enough energy to power the counter-curse, then flinging the gates wide and reaching for a line through him. Al's eyes widened at the unfamiliar sensation, but his retaliation was swift and decisive. Fire poured through the bond instead, and I choked off the connection with another shriek. He was my familiar, but he was still in complete control.

As I wretched and spat and tried to clear my tongue of the hideous taste, he hit me with something else, something that filled me with such powerful nausea of the soul that I couldn't move, could barely breathe. It was hatred made into stagnant, trickling black ooze, befouling my spirit and blood alike. I fell limp, unable to overcome the queasy malaise that made my limbs heavy and sluggish. I had to try a few different counter curses to banish this one. Al had already dragged me to my feet and tossed me onto the couch before I had my wits back.

"If you ever say her name to me again," he said in a just-barely-rational voice, knee digging into my stomach and hand glowing with a filthy yellow spell three inches in front of my nose, "I will slice you open in a hundred different places, and defile each cut with a different disease. I'll fuck up your nerves so that ice is fire and pleasure is pain, and beauty grates like broken glass. I'll loop your digestive tract so you'll have to shit where you eat."

I struggled to breathe, unable to reply, still furious even under the revulsion. I'd succeeded in pissing him off, but not enough to do me in. I had no doubt that he could and would do what he threatened. That last suggestion, though, gave me a mental image that was both horrifying and yet somehow so…juvenile. Honestly, really? It must have shown in my face, because his scowl turned even darker. But I guess the distraction was enough for him to recollect that he was supposed to be convincing me to stay here as his pupil. He eased up the pressure on my stomach, closing his eyes. I even saw his throat move during his subvocal counting to ten.

The moment had passed. Having my ass thoroughly handed to me- again- was sobering. I shook with reaction, helpless fury warring with humiliation and general embarrassment for making an ass of myself. "I'm still not staying. I'll never trust you again. You can curse me however much you want."

He sat back, hands clenching and unclenching, still unsteady and obviously regretting his loss of control. He hissed in exasperation, though whether it was directed at himself or at me getting blood all over his nice couch was unclear. "Why did you trust me, anyway…?" he asked after an awkward silence. "It was foolish of you."

"Didn't. I trusted her." I wasn't sure if Al would make good on his threats, but I didn't want to find out just yet. "She…she saw a better person in you. You were training me for her. I thought…" I closed my eyes, tears prickling again at just how much of a stupid, stupid, stupid fool I was.

Al didn't reply, he'd finished the sentence in his head. I'd thought he'd do right by her when she was alive, and so do right by me. And after she was gone, that he'd keep to his bargain and do right by me…to honor her memory? What a complete and utter idiot thing to think. I should have called off the deal the minute after I'd heard about her death. Should have bailed on this whole stupid business, tried to escape to reality.

"Let me go home," I said again. "I can't do this anymore."

"What home?" he asked, though his voice lacked the bite of sarcasm. "You can't return to Ashmedai. You are a shunned witch in reality. Where would you go?"

I don't know. I don't care. Anywhere but here. "Al, why did you lie to me, really? Why go to all the trouble to make me think he was dead? I mean, hell, if you wanted me here without strings, why didn't you just let him die for real?"

"There's so few of us left. Anyway, that would have broken our deal. Can't have Newt getting all testy, can we?" I stared at him until his eyes slid aside. Al hadn't let him die. There had to be a reason, a real one. "And I didn't lie. Ash did die," he insisted. "But I restored his link to the collective first. He came back. Somewhat worse for wear, but he survived."

And Ash had figured out instantly what deal I must have made to save him. And he came back furious with me, so furious that he didn't seek me out even if he knew where to find me—

I pulled my brain back on track. It still didn't make sense. "Why go through with the familiar curse, once Ra- once she was gone? Why be my familiar? Surely you don't expect me to believe this bullshit about me being able to do anything about the Ever After shrinking. Why not just tell me the deal was off, that Ash was alive? Why keep training me? Hell, why try to seduce me?"

"Why indeed," he said, staring morosely into the fire. Silence stretched as logs crackled faintly.

"Al…?" I prodded. Surely it was more than just Al in need of a distraction. Maybe he really had wanted to break us up out of spite and envy. It would explain a lot of his abuse, anyway.

"Good business."

Of course. Business. His former student had just been murdered. Al's reputation was at stake, and he had the last sane female stirring in his kitchen. I clenched my fists, then scowled at the pain in my hand. Once again, my lack of value as an actual person was shoved in my face.

"It was the practical thing to do," he said, resettling himself in the chair furthest away from me. "Train you up. Bind you. Mates. All that shit. Before another demon could nab you."

One demoness is as good as another, huh? So you got her drunk and tried to seduce her. Nausea made my throat burn. How much of his drunken confession had been contrived to soften me up? How lovely. Only he'd done such a half-assed job of it. Not that I'd have accepted him, but still…a girl wanted to feel desirable. Al was doing a lovely job of taking every fucking insecurity I had and baking them into a big gaudy cake. "You couldn't do it. Even when you were completely shitfaced."

Al didn't answer, still wasn't even looking at me. God, I hated him. I hated him even more for having an ounce of decency, for being unable to go through with it. I hated myself for being so fucking gullible, that I had believed that somewhere in there, he had a modicum of respect for me, or at least my talent. Just one more blow to my already pulverized ego. I was so humiliated by everything I'd just learned, by my own weak judgment and my own stupid assumptions, that I just wanted to crawl into a dark room, lie down, and never wake up. Could I learn the curse demons used for sleeping? I wasn't tied to the collective yet. I could just sleep, and sleep, and sleep until I diminished into oblivion. I curled up into a ball around my bleeding hand, stubbornly not healing the damage so that my tears would have a more obvious source.

Minutes or hour later, I heard him sigh. "Rachel got to you, too," he said.

Huh? Startled, I lifted my head to glance back at him. He was scowling, slouched nearly off the chair, looking deeply disturbed. "Stubborn little canicula." I swallowed at the bitter emotion in his voice. "She even forgot she had the mark, in the end. Asked what I wanted. God, those eyes. I knew what she needed. I saw it in her soul when I lifted her out of the tulpa she'd created. I couldn't say it. I should have said it."

Oh, God. I didn't want to hear this, but I couldn't get my brain to work again, let alone my mouth. I turned my face away again, wanting only to stop hearing, to stop feeling.

"Told her instead that she expected too much. That I wouldn't be the one to complete her."

"You chickened out," I said before my sense kicked in, half expecting they might be my last words.

His hiss held more than simple frustration. "Not entirely. She…I couldn't stop myself. I thought…if she…if we-"

I pieced it together from what he'd said the previous evening, the whole tragic scenario. Unable to put it into words, he had tried to show her his soul through a power pull. And Rachel, misunderstanding, had gotten pissed and drawn a line through him instead, forcing Newt to rescue him.

Then she'd left, hurt and angry…and Ku'Sox had killed her.

Fucking Algaliarept. I didn't want to know this. I did NOT want to know this. I turned my face away again, because if he saw me crying for him, for what he might have had with Rachel, he'd make good with his earlier threats.

He cleared his throat and stood, crossing to the sigil on the darker end of the library. It was purely to hide from the light, as he didn't need it to travel. "You, Yvette Therese Sinclaire, are as jaded and cynical as they come. But you trusted she was right about me, and that I would…protect her interests, out of more than just…practicality. The same foolish, unsurvivable trust she had, damn her. Damn you both." He cursed again, a frustrated, miserable sound in a voice heavy with loathing. Even Al couldn't come right out and say that he'd loved her, not even to himself, much less to me. Maybe he didn't. Maybe I was seeing way too much.

I don't anymore, I wanted to say. She was wrong. The words caught in my throat, stuck tight. But it wasn't true. I didn't know what to believe now. I just wanted to escape. No wonder Newt took potions to forget.

Al dropped his folded arms and turned aside, hand absently running over the leather and parchment of the many, many books on his bookshelves. I'm going to regret this was clear in his voice and stance. "Very well, Yvette Therese Sinclaire. If you want out of the deal, I'll let you out, on the condition that you take the night to think it over. But I'll only release you to another's tutelage. That means Dali- he's the only other demon possibly qualified to train you correctly. You're too valuable a resource to us to be left untrained. If you stay here, I'll…I'll try not to abuse your trust…any more than necessary."

My amazement- and skepticism- must have showed when I gawked at him. He huffed, as if this was a terrible imposition. "The key word here being try," he added. "Not for you. For her." He shifted, glancing at the walls of the darkened room as if they would close in on us…as I guessed they would someday, if he were right about the Ever After shrinking. "If we're all to perish…you'll be our only legacy." His mouth twisted into a sneer. "Such as it is."

He vanished, leaving me stunned beyond belief. Had the specter of Rachel just shamed him into trying to be a better man, despite himself? Holy shit. Al wasn't lying, was he? God, I couldn't tell anymore. I couldn't trust him, and definitely couldn't trust my own judgment. How was I supposed to tell? He'd just played me like a fine instrument, stroking every weakness I had. Al was a master; he could make me doubt my own sanity without even trying.

I felt a creeping horror brewing in my stomach, filling my gut with a fresh wave of nausea. I was going to stay here, wasn't I? Because he was right, even if I escaped the Ever After, I would be a walking disaster now. Even the simplest ley lines spells behaved differently, now that the floodgates of my mind had been blown open. Did I really want to end up like Hope, ending innocent lives through inexperience and loss of control? And he was also right: I still had nowhere else to go. He'd seen to that, hadn't he? Maybe I should talk to Dali. Yeah, right. Al couldn't have been serious about letting me leave. If Dali took over my training, Al's reputation would be in ruins. He couldn't have meant it. Could he?

What if he isn't lying?

He couldn't possibly be sincere. Because if he were, it meant that of the two demons who most plagued my life, Al was the one who had taken the first reluctant step toward redemption. Because Rachel was worth it- and she wasn't even alive to give him hope. Whereas Ash…