In Which There is a Summoning

"Evie, stop the damned pacing. There's nothing more you can do."

I knew that. We'd exhausted every option I could think of. Dali had brushed off our dilemma and told us the matter could wait until Al got his memory back. He'd declined to come over to discuss the matter, and given the surly bent of his mood I wasn't about to argue with him. Even with my "don't hate me" gesture, it'd be a long time before his ego was soothed, particularly since Ash and I just demonstrated our awesomeness for all to see with our glorious mandala. Fuck him. He had only himself to blame, because it'd be a long time before I was over my own ire over the whole baby-globe incident.

Crescendo had been acting as go-between to relay tidings from Ceri, not that there was any news. Ray's desperate parents were planning to summon Rachel if she kept not answering their calls. And as predicted, Ceri was livid at the idea that Al was claiming her daughter as property, but she saw the sense of it and wasn't protesting. She had little desire to speak to Al about it, particularly when he still had no idea who she was. Somehow, I thought she was more hurt by that thought than by Al using her "still enslaved" status to his advantage.

Now that Adrian was gone, that pretty much summed up my limited pool of allies.

"I told you, Zee has a soft spot for children. And Rachel won't cooperate if he harms the girl. They're fine."

I rounded on him, glaring. "You know this for certain? And what do you mean, Zee has a soft spot for children? You saw what he did!"

Ash raised his hands. "They died. He gave them an immortality, of sorts. You felt them. They weren't… unhappy."

"Yes, they were!" I gritted my teeth. "They were lost and lonely—"

"Yes, because he wasn't there with them. My point being, didn't use them in his workings."

"Sick," I muttered, refusing to concede the point. What he'd done had been monstrous and unforgivable. "Babies should be fucking off limits."

"Why?" Ash laughed at my incredulous look.

Some days, I wished I had claws and fangs myself, because I would love to be baring them at my mate right now, even if he did look like an angel. "What if it was your kid?" I demanded. Not that I intended to have any, but damn…

"That's always a risk." Ash stilled, face going blank. "It's effective."

My brain jerked back to the memory he'd shown me. Had his parents been elven hostages? He certainly had. I bit my lip again, exasperated and too full of nervous energy to sit still and stir curses, which is what Ash wanted me to be doing.

Al was watching me with a bemused expression. "How long are you mated to this woman, Kavim?" he asked. He was still in his angelic shape, as was Ash. Though Al had donned a pair of pants and some sort of angelic tank top that accommodated the wings, it was still shocking to see him without the ubiquitous sunglasses, green frock coat, and supercilious British accent. But the wonder I'd felt at hanging out with actual living angels was dissipating rapidly under the realization that they were indeed the exasperating individuals they'd always been.

"About two hours," Ash replied, and Al laughed.

"She has fire, like my Celfnnah. Are you certain there is no…" he paused, searching for the word, "…no kin?"

"Kinship? No. Well, probably not, anyway. Distant relative, maybe, with generations of witches in between."

All of the demons had initially mistaken me for Al's dead mate, when we'd gone to pick them up, and it was only on closer inspection that they'd realized their error. Apparently the resemblance was stronger than I'd realized. I knew why Al's eyes had been following me, and even if it creeped me out, I couldn't blame him. What I could blame him for was giving his damned death to Newt. The little tulpa contained all the memories he needed to be any use to Rachel and Ceri again, up to and including his death, but he'd given it to Newt and angrily rejected any suggestion that he retrieve it and put it to use. He had no familiar to filter it for him. I was so impatient that I volunteered to do it — how bad could that quick, sudden death have been, anyway? — but both of them refused and then glared me into submission when I protested. There was a reason such memories were excised upon resurrection, they insisted.

And anyway, his memories would return in time, time they stubbornly insisted we had.

I did not agree. "I can't just sit around doing nothing," I griped. "Give me something to do, or I swear I'm gonna grab a wing and start plucking!" Though they looked nonchalant, both demons immediately shifted so their wings were safely tucked behind them, in a gesture not unlike the unsubtle posture change of a man who'd just seen another dude get kneed in the balls. Heh. I filed that threat away for future reference.

"Fine. Let's discuss your training," Ash said, and I threw my hands into the air. "First off… You two had some bargain I don't know all the details of." He looked toward Al. "Will you honor that agreement before your memory returns?"

Al raised a perfect eyebrow at me, waiting for those details. I folded my arms. "You said Ash could teach me the basics, but you'd teach me the high-energy manipulation dangerous stuff. You wanted to train me so that I could be Rachel's yazataksh when the time came," I said. "You didn't want Newt to do it."

Apparently Newt had been batshit far longer than I knew, because his expression instantly turned to understanding, and he nodded. "This Rachel… she is special to me?" he inquired.

"Um…" How to answer that…? "Yeah. You've… kinda been pursuing her for years, now. She doesn't really get the whole 'mating' thing yet, and she's resisting. Probably because she's in love with your familiar."

Al, who at this point had been briefed on his current familiar and the danger that Pierce posed to him, looked astonished. "With a witch? What can he offer her?"

I huffed with my own incredulity. Idiot demons. "Really? How about compassion? Understanding? Trust? Love?"

Al turned to Ash for confirmation of Rachel's insanity, and looked baffled at Ash's nod. "It's true. In this century they value infatuation over all else in their couplings. They mate based on mutual attraction."

Al returned his gaze to me, folding his arms. "Truly?" he asked, as if this was the most foreign — and idiotic — concept he'd ever heard.

"No! We marry for love! Mutual fucking respect!" I insisted angrily.

"How the hell did he convince you to mate him, then?" Al asked, jerking his head at Ash. "Surely not because of love."

"My Evie is a practical woman," Ash said. "More so than most."

"You be glad I'm not practical, or I'd have gone off and eloped with Dali. Yes, I mated with Ash because I fucking love him. You got a problem with that?" Ash and Al both stared at me for a moment before they burst into laughter. "Oh fuck you both," I growled. "Are you going to train me or what?"

"Depends," Al told me, a devious twinkle in his eye. "Can your poor loving mate bear it? Watching what I will do to you?"

I felt my lower jaw set itself into its familiar defiant jut. "Bring it on." This did not have the intended effect, as Al looked at Ash for a translation of the phrase. Oh, for Pete's sake. "But not right this second. No way I can focus today."

"Best time for learning focus," Al said. Oh, yeah, I remembered that grin. It set off eight kind of alarm bells in my head, along with a Pavlovian internal cringe. "No use learning when you're calm and prepared for it, is there? How often in life are you prepared for what strikes you?"

I snorted. "Given my life lately? I'm just about an ex—" I broke off as a familiar wave of nausea overcame me, accompanied by a sneeze.

Ash was at my side in a blink, catching my arm. "Who is it?" he asked. "Who has your name?"

I looked up at him. Fighting the summons was painful, and sure enough, imminent tingles were beginning in my gut, tingles that would rapidly transform into cramping. "Only Rachel. And Adrian!" The gut clenching I felt then was not curse-induced. "Ash, what if he gave my name to the Coven?"

"When would he have done that?" Ash asked, then sighed with exasperation. "Fuck. There are so many curses I need to teach you. It doesn't matter right now. There's not a curse yet that could sever a bond between mates, nor can silver nor circles nor salt. Call me if you need me."

Deeply reassured, I gave him a last pathetic grimace before letting the summons rip me away.

I opened my eyes to an unfamiliar, but very posh, living room all done up in shades of cool pastel blue and silver that screamed, "ice princess." No circle surrounded me, which was a good sign. Panting, I looked up to find I was facing three familiar faces, wearing expressions that, while tense and unhappy, were not angry, at least at me, which was also a good sign. And they were all in one piece, which, given that the last I'd heard of them, they'd been battling Zee, was a serious relief. "You're all OK?"

Trent nodded, grim-faced. "You? Ceri told us that Zee—"

"I'm… fine. I don't remember anything after he broke my circle." Another wave of nausea washed through me, though this one was not curse-induced. Sorry, Adrian.

"Sorry for the summons. If there were a better way to communicate… well. Any news?"

I rubbed my forehead. I'd spoken with Ceri through Crescendo, who probably thoroughly regretted his decision to join forces with the disaster that was my life at this point, and I'd assumed she'd been passing along everything to Trent. "No. Al's completely forgotten Ceri and Rachel, and refuses to speed up the process of regaining his memory."

Trent swore. "Ceri will murder him. The others, will they help?"

"No. They're all focused on fixing the Hope thing. Dali thinks that, whatever plan he has in mind, it's big enough that Zee will be waiting until that problem's resolved because it's messing with reality. And the demons still have no idea how to close the rift at this point, because Newt won't let them do anything that would hurt Hope."

"Will Newt help us?" Ivy asked. "Did you talk to her?"

"She's really focused on Hope," I said. "But…" I'd thought a lot about Newt, and what her role in everything had been up to this point, whether the demon woman herself remembered or not. "I don't think she's against Rachel and Hope, but Zee's plan… whatever the hell it is… she was part of it, originally. To be honest, I have no idea where she'll come down, when he implements it."

Jenks whistled, wings buzzing a nervous orange. "I was hoping the cray-cray would be on our side."

Yeah, me too.

"And what are the demons planning to do about UCLA?" asked Trent.

"Last I heard they were talking dimensions and shit… honestly it was way above me, and I have a PhD in ley lines. But they agreed with Ceri. There's a chance that everyone who vanished is still alive inside. Those who ended up in the tulpa, anyway." The other casualties had been people who'd been simply caught in a collapsing building — nothing could be done for them. But there were still about twenty or so elves, witches, and humans unaccounted for.

"And if they are alive?" Ivy asked in her smoky voice. "What then?"

"I don't know." I looked at my crossed legs, and the carpet beneath them. Wow, it was really nice. Persian, perhaps? "Worst case, they get sold as familiars. But the demons won't just kill them outright. They want to try to collapse this thing without damaging anyone inside, including that shard of Hope that's trapped in there. I think they could be intrigued by the idea of exchanging anyone else they rescue for… I don't know, concessions, maybe? Ransom? Or maybe even recognition? I told them they'd be complete morons if they squandered an opportunity like this, from a purely self-interested public relations standpoint, but… honestly, I don't have much of a say."

"You're one of them, like Rachel," Ivy said. "They'll listen to you."

I wish. "We're just children to them." I looked sheepishly at Trent, wishing I'd had better news to offer him. "I'll do my best, if they're rescued. If we're lucky, Newt will just overrule everyone else for Hope's sake, because Hope loves her adopted family, and Newt wants Hope's willing cooperation."

"Good. That's good," Trent said, eyes rising to fix on someone behind me. "Isn't it, dear?"

I turned to see that Ellasbeth was behind me, looking haggard. Mascara running, hair coming out of its hasty ponytail, purple smudges of exhaustion under her eyes… her frosty ice princess demeanor had thawed and melted into desperation. She'd been handcuffed to a lovely chair, an artistic piece that looked like it had been carved from a solid piece of oak. My heart nearly stopped at the sight of Vivian, looking equally haggard, standing guard beside her. Oh, God, I wasn't ready for this…

"Ellasbeth here was so certain that Hope had chosen to outright murder her adopted family. But then, you never liked Hope much, did you? It's difficult to love someone you plan to throw to the wolves, isn't it?"

"Stop it, Trent," she said, voice hoarse from crying. "Just, stop."

"Ellasbeth was angry. Ellasbeth is always right. Ellasbeth wants the world to know that nobody messes with Ellasbeth, because her wishes are paramount. Isn't that right?" I could feel Trent's rage from here, despite his beautiful singsong voice and his mild expression. But he was holding it in, under iron control.

"I was trying to protect our daughter!" she protested, quailing under that mild look.

"Ah, yes. Trying to protect our daughter. This would be the daughter that you named as collateral in a deal with a demon? The daughter you conceived using a stolen sample of my DNA? That daughter?"

"I didn't steal it! We discussed it! You donated it—"

"We were discussing it, yes, until you broke off our ill-conceived engagement. Did you not tell me that you had destroyed the sample?"

"You left me at the altar!"

"No, he was arrested at the altar," Jenks piped in helpfully, and I caught Trent's slight grimace at the reminder. "By Rachel," he added, for my benefit.

"You let that slut humiliate you in front of your entire house AND mine!" she hissed, eyes narrowing at the memory. "You yourself said we should both have hunted her down like the bitch she is—"

"Tried that," Trent said. "Twice, in fact. She got away. It's you who couldn't let it go."

Rachel arrested Trent at his own wedding? I mouthed at Jenks, who smirked and nodded vigorously. Now that was a story I had to hear sometime, after this was over. Seed of chaos indeed!

"Your family has undermined me and mine for years. You've done nothing with all the leeway I've given you, other than continue to. Piss. Me. Off."

Ellasbeth tried to dislodge a lock of hair that had stuck to her brow, and only managed to shake it further over her eyes. Blinking, she struggled against her bonds. "Look who's talking, Trent!" she hissed. "We have eons of proof those bastards would like nothing more than to wipe us out, and you're helping one of them. Since when did that demon become more important than your own kin?"

Trent stood, a slow, controlled, calculated motion that had even Vivian shifting uneasily. The whine from Jenks's wings shifted to a higher pitch, and Ivy's pupils widened. I just stayed where I sat on my little Persian patch, because I think I was more scared of Trent than I'd realized. "That demon risked her life to get the DNA sample that—"

"I risked my life with that deal!" Ellasbeth exclaimed, voice rising.

"You risked nothing!" Trent shot back. "You and your parents bargained with the life of our daughter!"

"Trent, you don't know—"

"Here's what I know. I know that Rachel came back for me and sold a good chunk of her life to a demon in exchange for my freedom after I was trapped in the Ever After. Whereas you abandoned me over a minor public relations incident."

Ellasbeth hissed. "Minor!? How can you trust that bitch after what she did? How can you trust that one, either?" She indicated me, but I didn't move. This was far too riveting to interrupt, and Trent was on a roll.

"I know that Rachel risked her life and that of her friends to flee with our daughter. And I know that this one," he indicated me, "died rather than beg Rachel to turn over our daughter to Zaebos."

I didn't remember it, but… I felt something inside me ease a little. That had to count for something, right? Except I'd murdered a friend to save myself afterward, I reminded myself severely. Objectively speaking, that action might be considered worse since I didn't know Zee would actually kill or even hurt the child.

"It was probably all for show," Ellasbeth sniffed.

Trent huffed. "He burned her to death — and Rachel had to watch, all for the sake of our daughter. Whereas you… what did you do when Zaebos threatened you? Did he offer to take you instead of our daughter? Did you offer yourself? No, that's not your way, is it?"

"Trent—"

"He told you he needed an uncursed demon woman. And he told you that any would do. And you gave him the key to controlling Rachel." He was across the room now, bending over her as she flinched and squeezed her eyes shut. "You told him about Ray."

I gasped, suddenly lightheaded. So Zee hadn't ripped that thought out of my head, after all. Ellasbeth had told him. Willingly. I gaped at her white face as she shook her head, trying to imagine the kind of desperation that would lead a woman to put another little girl in danger to save her own child.

It wasn't difficult to imagine… was it? Rather like the kind of desperation that would lead a woman to kill a friend to save herself and two others?

"It's true," Vivian said quietly. "I had no clue what to do next after you and Adrian left me out in the middle of nowhere, shunned. But I knew the demon Zaebos was coming, and even though Ellasbeth had told me to get lost, I couldn't just...do nothing. I get here ready for a battle to the death. I was too late — Zaebos had already knocked everyone out with that damned unbreakable sleeping curse. But then I heard voices upstairs, so I went to check it out... and there they are, elf and demon, chatting like old friends. How did you put it, Ellasbeth? It's only a mongrel anyway?"

Mongrel. My jaw dropped. "She meant… Ray?"

"Half-breed, mutt, a whole list of other less savory names, but yes. That's how the pure-bloods view their hybrid brethren."

Jenks's wings shifted tone again as he dusted bright pink amusement. "I tell you what, Ceri must have gotten everyone's wings in a real twist when she passed up pretty pure-blood Trent for Quen," he observed, and Trent snorted. "Long lost elven princess goes below stairs for her kicks? Then their kid, not Bessie's, is the first real cured elven kid? How's that for fairy shit in your sugar?"

"Bessie's" face was mottled with red, and her nose was starting to run, and she glowered daggers at the giggling pixie. The haughty woman would be mortified to see herself now. "We were not chatting like old friends. I had just given birth! I was delirious, strung out on pain medication, all alone and half naked in my bed and there he was looming over me! I was terrified, Trent!"

Trent smiled, and his smile had more in common with Al's malicious grin than any expression he'd ever worn when Rachel was around. "I'm sure you were. I wonder what would have happened if we hadn't stolen Lucy before he arrived to claim her. What would you have done?" It wasn't a question… she'd have done exactly what she did. She'd have sent him after Ray anyway. Good lord. She wasn't even sorry about it, was she?

"I had no choice! I told him the deal was broken, but he didn't care! He broke it! He gave us the promised DNA sample ten years ago when Hope turned twelve, but it was corrupt!"

I sat up straighter. "Wait a minute. He didn't hold up his end of the deal?"

Ellasbeth sniffed. "He gave us a pre-curse elven DNA sample, as agreed. But clearly it came from someone with a fatal genetic disorder. We tried to use it. Oh, God, how we tried to fix it, but our babies still just kept on dying until we finally, finally figured out why. It was useless! He cheated us!"

"You're certain it was deliberate?" Ivy asked.

I closed my eyes, shaking my head. Zaebos, you clever bastard. Of course you wouldn't risk giving the elves an actual cure. Not until you had what you wanted, anyway. After a brief mental exchange with Ash, I had my answer. "Of course it was. Ash can confirm it. Zee was a… well, the equivalent of a physician, thousands of years ago. He'd have known." Aaaand another of my nails in Zee's coffin, for my eventual court case proclaiming him a lying liar who'd betrayed his demon brethren to help the elves, popped out. He hadn't. Damn it!

"Something tells me this mysterious bargain was worded such that he hasn't actually broken his end of the deal," Vivian said.

"And I'm certain he had planned on the elves not upholding their end, either." The moment I said that, I knew it was true. "It's why he wanted Hope to be raised by your family, and not by anonymous witches," I said, trying to think demonically. "I bet that was in the contract. She was to be raised by loving elven parents, fully integrated into the family. That way, when the elves reneged, and a baby's life was threatened, Hope would voluntarily sacrifice herself to save a member of her adopted family. Then that fell through — Hope caught Newt's attention a little too early, and damaged herself, but no biggie — there's another cured demon woman he can manipulate, as long as he had the right leverage. Rachel."

"There's you, too," Ivy said.

"Except he doesn't know me. And the only one he could see me fighting to protect is Ash, who he can't threaten outright. But I bet he's watched Rachel through the Collective's eyes for years. So he barbecues me to show her he's serious, and snatches her goddaughter." I sighed, though I think it was part admiration. Damn. He was good. My death wasn't permanent, but it would certainly give Rachel nightmares for years to come. And we hadn't even dug up all the other threads he'd woven yet — he'd almost certainly managed to somehow weasel his way into the Coven, too. Perhaps there were even more facets to his plan.

I looked back at Ellasbeth. "Zee has what he wants. You're probably off the hook for now. Until Al gets his wits back and claims Rachel and Ray as his — which the demon courts will fully support, by the way."

"And how long will that take?"

"It took Ash about a week to get most of it back. Al's older."

My eyes went back to Trent as he rose, kicking at a coffee table in frustration. "We can't wait that long! Can we summon him?"

"Al?" I blinked. "I wouldn't. From his perspective, he only recently escaped slavery from elves, and he's in mourning for his dead wife. Honestly, I'd give him a few days, at least."

"Wait, Al was married?" Jenks said, as his dust turned from an angry red to a crystalline blue.

"Yeah. He loved her dearly, and she, ah, went mad and died, thousands of years ago. And he's going to relive all of it." I winced, because the reality was even worse. "I wouldn't wish that on anyone, even Al."

"Yeah," Jenks said, not bothering with a quip. He landed on Ivy's outstretched hand, his serious expression matching hers. "Me neither."

"Should we summon Zaebos and try to negotiate?" asked Vivian. "I know his full name's in our archives— "

"No, don't go back to the Coven!"

Vivian blinked at my sudden panic. "But Oliver removed the shunning. Clearly it was a mistake."

"Adrian and Ash did that. Oliver's still batshit." Vivian's eyebrows went up at that, skepticism clear. "But to answer your question, I have his summoning name. But I wouldn't summon Zaebos unless we had some kind of plan to trap him or something, or he'll be pissed, and..." I didn't want to say what I feared. "We have nothing to negotiate with. Do you know any way to trap a demon?"

"Other than just holding him in a circle until dawn?" Vivian shook her head. Inwardly, I relaxed. If they couldn't hold Zaebos, they certainly didn't have any tricks that could hold me, either. "Give me some time to dig into the Coven archives and maybe..."

Trent folded his arms, "Rachel and Ray do not have time. I think it's time for our last resort. We can't get her to respond on the mirror. It's time to summon Rachel."