Had to retcon a teensy portion of this chapter: I forgot that Ku'Sox killed off half the Coven in Pale Demon. Durr. In case you wondered who "Mary" was, she was Brooke's replacement. I forgot to mention that bit then. In this universe, Pierce didn't fight for a Coven seat. A small detail, but it's been bugging me. Adrian's much more likely to go rogue after getting such a nasty shock from fighting Ku'Sox.

In Which Adrian Does Not Get Maimed. Much.

Appearing in a cloud of stinking burnt amber was really getting old. Especially the expression on the summoner's face- either they back off coughing, or they try to hide their reaction out of politeness and look like a goose laying a giant egg. I should know. I was that summoner for years, and it's just not something you get used to. Unless you lived marinated in it for months. Even the most seasoned summoner can't keep the tears out of their eyes, when that circle falls and the stink hits them—

Adrian's watery-eyed expression was still apologetic, which I suppose I might one day appreciate if I ever got used to this whole summoning thing. But right now I was noticing the one thing that was missing.

"No circle…?" I asked, as he suppressed a cough. At least it wasn't the basement, this time, but the lovely Kalamack Gardens, so the stench would dissipate rapidly. It was the first time I'd ever really thought about it, the reek I now carried with me, and it somehow seemed appropriate, now that my ego had gone down in flames.

Adrian stole a breath through his mouth and looked confused. "Of course not," he said, though he did take a step back. "Do I need one now?"

I folded my arms, wishing I had more capacity for ruthlessness. My ability to maintain a tidal wave of fury was far from demonic and more what you'd expect from your average bunny. "You idiot. If you're going to summon demons, you really need to do it properly. I'll go easy on you this time."

Adrian's mouth opened and closed a few times, as I walked over to a bench and sat, glaring at him. "Uh, Evie…"

"So do you know the phrase I need? I'm willing to bargain for it."

"Evie, stop it," Adrian snapped, finally getting annoyed. "There's no need to guilt-trip me. I assure you that I've been doing a fine job of it myself."

I watched him, knowing he had, and it pissed me off even as it eased a little of the hurt inside. "You didn't use a circle on me. That went a long way toward getting me to listen to what you have to say. But I'll be honest, the only reason I'm here is Hope. And that phrase, to break the curse."

"Why would I use a circle?" he asked, irritated confusion crinkling his eyes.

I looked at my interlaced fingers, feeling heavy and tired. "Because I'm a demon. I can't be trusted."

"No, no, no—is that really what you think?" Adrian sat beside me, grimacing with his chagrin. "It's not like that, I promise. I really thought…I mean, we, we really thought, Rachel thought it too, that you wanted out. Really. And then you didn't. And, well, we really didn't know what to do."

"So you cursed me."

"I didn't…well, I didn't want to, I didn't agree, but they were ready to curse me, too. A Coven member! I couldn't believe they thought they'd get away with it. But Trent…Ceri…Evie, they're…scary."

I stared at Adrian, disgust warring with exasperation. "You mean to tell me you agreed because you were frightened of elves?"

Adrian flushed. Great, I'd managed to humiliate him. Maybe I could stomp on his balls for an encore, just to finish the job. "I'm an earth witch. Third best in the world. But I can't face down two elves versed in serious black magic, a demon, and an elf who can steal someone's soul with wild magic, OK? And you finally agreed to it—"

"I agreed?" It felt like a rock dropped into my stomach, splashing acid across my innards and sending the burn up to my face, my pounding head. "I agreed?"

"At first. You were really pissed about it, but Rachel talked you into it. She left with Trent and the pixy for his road trip, and we talked while Ceri was stirring it, and…and you changed your mind."

I stared at him, brows knitted in confusion. "I agreed?" I asked again, miserable. Well, of course, I did. Wasn't this just the perfect ending to this little drama? "Hell. And I thought this day couldn't get any worse."

"Uh." Articulate, as usual. I found it endearing, actually, and found my mouth twitching even as I felt my future falling apart. Mysterious, ancient Dali as my tutor? My stomach rebelled at the thought. "Why does it matter?"

"Because it means that Al will probably try to murder me again the minute I get back. He's not exactly his most rational where Rachel's concerned. I think…I think he probably killed Pierce when he found out."

"Yeah- how did he find out?" Adrian didn't sound accusatory, just curious.

I filled him in on how Rachel's mark hadn't transferred to Al as it should have, if she were dead and not simply cut off. A fine distinction, but the demon database wasn't sentient, and hadn't raised any flags that anything was unusual with Rachel's sudden drop-out. Ash's myriad marks of debt hadn't transferred to me either, I suddenly realized, for the same reason. Had I been aware of this, I could have saved us both quite a lot of angst. Story of my life…

"So it didn't even matter, in the end," Adrian said wryly. "He'd have found out when you asked about the mark, whether you knew or not."

"Yeah. Can you please tell me the phrase to break the curse?"

"I totally would, but…I don't know it. Ceri didn't tell me."

"Ceri cursed me."

"Yeah. She's…" he trailed off, but I could see it on his lips again. Scary.

I burst out laughing at the mental image of little blond Ceri menacing Adrian. Adrian was about three heads taller than the diminutive elf and surely weighed twice as much. "Well, she did survive Al for a thousand years, and frankly he's the scariest sane bastard I know." (Which was true. I didn't really know Dali. And Newt and Ku'Sox weren't sane.) "Didn't tell you, or wouldn't?"

Adrian grimaced. "Wouldn't. I think she knew I'd tell you if I could."

I felt a tiny little piece of the ice around my heart melt, because I believed him. I wanted to believe him. Adrian was still on my side, even if he'd stood by and watched them screw my memory. He was right, there wasn't much he could have done against three determined elves. "But they didn't curse you?"

Adrian sat a little straighter. "No, I'm protected, first of all—you think people don't try to hit us with memory charms on a daily basis? It's kind of part of the plumber job description. They could have busted through it, but the Coven would have known, and they really, really want the Coven and the witches on their side. I know you feel betrayed. They shouldn't have forced you to take the curse. I'm sure if Rachel had still been there, she'd have told them not to do it. I think she'll be furious when she finds out."

I closed my eyes as another wave of intense, painful relief swept through me. Rachel, for all that she was hiding out from Al, had tried to offer me a kind of freedom. She hadn't cursed me against my will. Ceri and Quen had. Out of loyalty to Rachel. I supposed I shouldn't blame them, but…

"It was to protect you, too," Adrian said, touching my shoulder with hesitant lightness. I didn't pull away. "Ceri knew that Al would be murderously angry if he knew you were keeping this secret from him. She really thought she was protecting you by not giving you a choice about it."

"It didn't protect me," I said. "Al nearly ripped my head off trying to get at the suppressed memory."

Adrian winced. "He wasn't ever supposed to find out. Not until Rachel was ready to come back. And then you'd have been none the wiser, and it wouldn't have mattered."

I gazed at him through a misty veil of unshed tears. I wanted so badly to believe him, to believe that I still had allies over here. I sighed, finding myself leaning just a little in his direction. "I'm just not sure what to think, or what to believe, anymore. Pretty much everyone's screwed me over today. I can't even blame anyone, not even Al. It'd be so much easier if I could."

"Evie…" Adrian's voice was quietly intense. "You know you can trust me, right?"

I hesitated for a moment, staring at the neat gravel of the garden path. The setting sunlight was giving everything a beautiful orange tint, even if the sun were hidden behind the stately trees. "I want to," I said. "Unless you're speaking on behalf of the Coven, in which case—"

"No," he said, then drew a deep breath. "Screw the Coven."

I started and stared at him in shock. He looked a little worried too, expecting the lightning bolt to smite him at any instant. "Adrian—"

"No. Besides, what Coven? Wyatt, Mary, and Amanda are dead—"

"What?" I gasped. That was news to me.

"KuSox. Ate them."

"Oh my God." I gaped at him. "So the Coven is you, Vivian, and Oliver?"

" Yeah. Me, Viv, and Oliver. Oh—and three of Oliver's flunkies who'll be sworn in next summer. None of them are older than twenty five and they all worship the ground he walks on. Viv's sort of on the fence about demon magic after the Ku'Sox thing, but Oliver? Evie, the elves have the cure for our most devastating childhood illness, and Oliver's negotiating with them to suppress it. Out of fear, but not the right kind of fear. He's terrified of you and Rachel just because you're stronger. That's it. If we regain our heritage, he's not going to be running things anymore. He's jealous. It's so…stupid!"

I felt like I'd been clocked over the head with a brick. "Of course he is. But Adrian…what you're saying, it's…"

"Treason, and Oliver would freak if he heard. I know." Adrian's eyes were fierce and hard. "Evie, we couldn't do shit against Ku'Sox. You and Rachel, you're going to be the ones to save us, not the Coven. Oliver's right, the Coven will be obsolete, especially if they keep listening to him. We need you on our side."

"I've always been on the side of the witches." I watched him as he paced, bursting with nervous energy, and some of his energy started leaking into me. "You know I won't do anything that would lead to genocide. I believe Ceri and Trent as far as the elf thing goes- that they'll start a war if their first child is demon-napped. The demons may have abandoned their own children, but I won't."

"I know." Adrian startled me again by standing before me and pulling me to my feet. Reluctantly, I let him, staring at the gleam in his eyes with a growing wonder. Adrian, a rebel? Adrian, a man of passion? A man of action? "It's why I can't stand seeing you sitting there wallowing in self-loathing and depression. You're n-not alone, Evie. I'll help you. I'll s-stand with you." He was blushing again, a deep flush that trailed down his neck and over his ears, and I'm certain I had a very stupid look on my face indeed when he bent and brushed his lips over mine. It was so light, so hesitant, like the wings of a butterfly, and he pulled back immediately, brave blue eyes meeting mine in a gaze that was even more eloquent than the fleeting kiss.

It was like the world literally rocked and turned another ninety degrees, settling back down again with a lurch that might have made me stumble, if his hands hadn't been resting lightly but firmly on my shoulders. It was like I was seeing him for the first time. He was tall, slender, with short-cropped reddish-blond hair. He was so ordinary-looking, I'd always thought so, but now I was noticing the shape of his wide mouth, straight teeth, and seeing just how expressive his lips were. They were trembling a little now, parted with unbearable tension. His eyes- how had I never noticed what lovely, large, beautiful blue eyes he had? They were framed with short lashes, under heavy reddish eyebrows, brows which were a little uneven in an endearing sort of way. One of them had a little scar beside it, one I'd never noticed before because I'd never looked at him, really looked. His lashes were trembling. So were his hands. He was a bundle of nerves, but his light blue eyes were steady, holding my gaze with an earnest honesty that shot through the shields around my heart like an arrow.

I don't know how long I stared at him, heart pounding painfully fast, before he took my silence as assent and bent to kiss me again. I didn't even have the presence of mind to close my eyes, and they met his as his lips met mine again, bolder, firmer, slightly parted and very, very warm. Real. Kind. Honest. Real. There was no flood of passion, no skillful application of ley line magic to make me swoon. There was just a man, an ordinary, wonderful man, holding me, kissing me, offering me something normal and absolutely extraordinary at the same time.

It probably did nothing for his ego that I didn't return his kiss for more than a few seconds before a sob shook my frame, but I couldn't help it. Another one sob jerked my lips away from his, and I looked down, embarrassed and horrified and elated all at once. His arms slipped around me, tentative at first, then stronger, and he held me as I shook from an emotion so strong that I couldn't even identify it. He'd broken right through something, something far older and stronger than the events of the past week.

It was some time before I heard the words he was shushing me with, before they started to make sense. "It's all right, shh, I know. Shitty timing, and you've got someone, sort of, and anyway I'm just a witch, and I'm not asking anything of you, honest. I just, I needed to tell you, to show you. It's OK, nothing's wrong, nothing's going to change, I don't expect anything from you."

His words hit me like a punch in the gut- he had no idea what he'd done, what a precious gift this was to me. At that moment I wished more than ever before that I were someone else, anyone else, and able to give him back even a fraction of what he'd just given me. It wasn't that I suddenly realized I'd loved him all along- no, even as I clung to him, the tingle of his kiss still on my lips, I knew that it was impossible. Not only because of who I was, but because of who he was. Coven members disavowed all ties, were forbidden to marry or even keep their surnames. And the Coven was for life, more than a job—it came with magical ties, ancient rites that couldn't be easily broken.

It was that I could have loved him, had things been different. Had I not already been claimed by a demon who would rip him to shreds when he found out. Had I not been a danger to him, with my unleashed inner Therese, who would want to share herself with him in a way he couldn't possibly survive, much less appreciate.

It was just his simply honesty, a clean avowal of a clean feeling, untainted by machinations and politics and what status I would bring, what I could do, what I could give him. Someone found me worthy of love and affection. Someone saw beyond the demon, beyond the scar, beyond the sarcasm and the isolation. Someone saw me as a real person. As a woman. Maybe even a desirable one.

The face I turned up to him made him stop his stuttering nonsense and just stare back, chagrin and concern and a little rueful hope etched all over his features. Really? I wanted to ask. You really mean it? You're not just doing this so I'll forgive you and be your ally? I didn't ask. I still couldn't speak, not with the boulder still lodged in my throat. He gave me a watery, hesitant smile, and pressed his lips to my forehead. "It's all right," he said again, lips soft against my skin. We held that pose for awhile, embracing in a manner that, while it wasn't quite chaste, held no grand romantic passion. It was there only as a potential, a possible future of many.

My hiccupping eventually slowed to a halt, and I knew that the sun had set from the nudges I was starting to get in my head. I cleared my throat and stepped away, and his arms fell away with only a hint of reluctance. "Thank you," I said, voice still hoarse. I was grateful for the coming darkness, lit by ornate wrought-iron lanterns mimicking old fashioned gaslights, dotted here and there throughout the garden. "I can't tell you…how much that means to me."

He cleared his throat as well, his discomfort stemming from his usual social awkwardness rising to the forefront once more. "You know, I considered letting them curse me so I'd forget I got you into the mess, earlier. But then we did all that talking, and…"

I raised a brow. "What did we talk about?"

He shrugged. "You. Ash. Al. Everything that's gone on for the past couple of years."

I could see it in my head, the mental state I'd have been in after being confronted with Rachel's miraculous resurrection and subsequent decision to stay with demons and let them curse me. I could see myself unloading everything onto Adrian's shoulders. "Sorry," I said, stupidly. I wasn't sorry. Not really.

"Anyway, I couldn't…I didn't want….I wouldn't let myself forget what you told me. So I had to watch them curse you. Worst thing I've ever done, I think. I'm sorry. If I were more clever, maybe I could've done things differently."

"It's all right." I wiped my face with my shirt, a long shirt I'd stolen from Ash that didn't fit. It occurred to me that I hadn't worn normal clothing in months, not since Ash had first kidnapped me for my aborted journey Down Under. Thinking about clothing, at a time like this, was mundane enough that a short laugh escaped me. "Adrian, if things were different—"

"Yeah. This is the part where I'd be working up the courage to ask you on a date."

Another little laugh escaped me, small, but with a hint of real pleasure. "You'd be the first, actually." I found myself grinning, a silly grin. "I'm old enough to be your mother," I reminded him, "But I'd say yes."

"Bah," he said, his own grin wider than I'd ever seen it before. "I like mature women."

I took a deep breath, catching all kinds of lovely night-blooming flower scents and greenery in the cooling evening air. Everything suddenly seemed luminous, magical, glowing with secret inner fire. I took another, purging from my heart a load of sickness and grief and horror I'd carried with me for days, for months, for years and years. For the first time, I found a hint of optimism about my current mission. Maybe it would all work out. Maybe Rachel and Trent would be successful in their mission, perhaps I'd rescue Hope from her fate. Maybe I'd figure out how to mend things with Ash, and with Al. Ash was alive. Rachel was alive.

I was alive. More alive than I'd felt since the day Al told me that Ash's soul had been torn to shreds.

"Along those l-lines…" he said, his usual hesitation making his voice catch, "and don't k-kill me for saying this, but…you don't have to put up with Ash's shit. You know that, right?"

Bless you, you dear, dear man. I kept my voice gentle. "Thanks…really, thanks for the sentiment, but I don't put up with his shit out of love, or because I secretly think I deserve the abuse."

"Then why do you put up with it…?"

It was an excellent question. And I wasn't entirely sure I hadn't just told a bald-faced lie, a second ago. But I had no more time to analyze it—a more insistent stimulus was nudging my mind, rapidly working its way up into a sneeze.

Shit. Sunset already?

I felt icy tendrils of panic working their way through me. I was covered in Adrian's scent. Ash would kill him in a blink. "I should go," I said. "Or you should. Adrian, you can't ever let Ash know how you feel, or what you did. He'll kill you."

"I know."

I thought of the curse I'd taken, albeit unwillingly, to protect Rachel. "Both Ash and Al have access to my mind, and…I'm too selfish to ask you to help me forget."

Adrian's face was grim, but it softened at my words. "I don't want you to forget. And I don't want you to have to keep this a secret, either."

I thought of how it would humiliate Ash if he ever found out I'd lied to him, about something like this. No. I couldn't do it. If I ever expected him to be honest with me, to trust me, I'd have to be straight with him. "No, you're right. Just give me the information you brought. I'll take it back with me."

Adrian set his jaw, but ruined the pose by bouncing one leg. How had I never noticed that habit of his? "Evie…I meant what I said. Abut standing by you. And I think we'll probably need his help. Like getting us back to California, tonight. Can you convince him it's in his best interest to help us?"

I stared at the man I'd just begun to really see, startled all over again. "You'd…you'd be willing to work with him?" A Coven member, now willing to work alongside demons. The world had officially turned upside down.

He flinched, unable to hide his fear, and repeated sternly, "I meant what I said. Besides, if it all goes well, maybe there's a chanced that the demons of the Ever After can finally come home."

I swallowed. There was a lovely mix of anxiety and optimism in my gut now, but maybe…just maybe…with demons, elves, and witches working together…we had a chance at pulling all of this off. "I'll call him."