Chapter title inspired by The Tale of Eric and the Dread Gazebo. A classic.

In Which Rachel Does It Again

The three of them blinked at me, not getting it. I stood up, shaking, convinced I was on the right track. "You said the women made the Ever After, and the elves in reality were sucked into its making. Hope removed a sphere of reality, with everyone inside it, and nobody knows where it went. It's not in reality anymore. But it's also not in the Ever After, or the demons would've found it. She made a tulpa of her life, of that day, maybe of that room, of the moment before everything started falling apart. But without a male to pull it from her mind…" I grimaced. "Even Dali said he's not sure what would happen. Dali says she's dying because her soul's being siphoned off into the thing. Because part of her is still in there. That's why Newt couldn't find it! It wasn't in the lines! It wasn't anywhere!" I blinked rapidly, feeling tears. "If I'm right, then maybe she can still be saved! Maybe she can even be whole again!" I stopped pacing. "We just need someone to pull it out of her. Maybe we could make it real again. Bring it back. Bring them all back. Bring her family some closure."

Quen shifted, his tone the voice of the devil's advocate. "Even if you're correct, you have no evidence that it's still there, still intact."

"No… but…" I chewed my lip, making a vague wait for it gesture with my hand as I recalled my visit to UCLA. "Al took me to see the damage at the lab, in reality and in the Ever After. There's nothing missing in the Ever After version of the building. Might that not mean that it still exists in reality… somewhere?"

"Not there now. Shoved out of time," Crescendo said. "But maybe still there, in the past? Not somewhere, but somewhen."

"And in all the time that's gone by since then in reality, it's just…missing. So the rest of the building collapsed around it."

Ceri's sharp intake of breath caught my attention. "Evie, if you're right, then the elves trapped within may not be dead!"

My heart gave a leap of hope. But it flopped back down again when I thought of all the time that had passed since then. Shit. "I don't know, Ceri… the affected area was only about seventy feet in diameter, if I remember right. That amount of air wouldn't support so many people, not for weeks… let alone their not having any clean water or food." I grimaced, trying to block my imagination from taking over. Those poor people. "If only I'd figured this out sooner…"

"No, the making's not complete. It's a drop of time, pulled free of its course," Ceri said, eyes wide. "Those trapped within would be frozen in time."

"The further away we pull from that moment, the wider the rift becomes," Crescendo added, sounding both intrigued and alarmed.

"…and the more energy the thing needs to maintain itself, sucking it from the nearby ley lines. And the more of Hope gets pulled into it…?" I felt my pulse pounding, feeling both triumphant and horrified by the idea of it all. "A tulpa. That's got to be what she was doing. Untrained. Screwing it up… like me and my spindling." God, no wonder they're so eager for us all to be properly trained, if we can mess up reality this badly! "I've got to tell Newt!"

"You're not summoning her here," Ceri interrupted.

"Who's Newt?" Crescendo asked. He tilted his head, as if remembering something, then turned to stare into the middle distance, brow furrowing. "You hear that?" he asked. "The lines—" He gave a gasp, then slapped hands over his ears with a grimace, hunching in on himself. I felt it, too. Not a drop in power as happened when someone tapped the lines, but a surge, rippling out over the garden from at least two directions.

"Are you all right?" Hurrying to Crescendo's side, I unthinkingly laid a hand on him. Immediately I regretted it — the lines were too bright, their colors wrong, their flavor metallic and sharp and pulsing with odd sparkles. And not prettily, either — more like seizure-inducing. Instantly the inklings of a headache twitched dully behind my eyes, threatening to grow worse.

"Ringing!" Crescendo gasped, panting. "So loud… what the fuck is that?"

I still had a hand on his arm, so I saw everything in amazing, exquisite detail.

She came from nowhere. I felt her drawing nearer, from a direction I couldn't comprehend, as if it were from inside the earth itself. The fabric of reality stretched, bulged, then she tore her way through. She didn't travel in a line, and yet a line was what she left behind, particles of space and time glowing and screaming around her in an explosion of sound — and yet it wasn't sound at all. She left much of her golden aura behind, and it scented the rift she'd torn with cool wind over churning water, laced with steel. The screaming of reality faded, and far more human screaming shattered the night.

I whipped my hand away from Crescendo to see Rachel on the ground, sobbing and curled protectively over a newborn child. It wasn't Rachel doing the screaming; the baby was loud enough for both of them.

"Rachel!" Ceri's shocked voice broke the moment of collective stunned immobility. The elf knelt beside Rachel, coaxing her to unwind. She gazed in horrified wonder at the infant in Rachel's arms.

The baby was tiny, eyes squeezed shut, mouth open wide, face red and fists flailing. She had the itty-bittiest, cutest little pointy elf ears ever. The volume of her squalling was astonishingly out of proportion to her size. My heart nearly seized with empathy — nobody wants to hear a baby in pain.

"Ceri, help her," Rachel begged, thrusting the newborn at Ceri, tears steaming down her face. Her hands were shaking. "Is she OK? Oh my God, did I hurt her? It was all I could do—" Her voice was choked off by another sob.

"She's fine," Ceri's voice was soft and reassuring, after she'd taken a moment to examine the baby physically and with her second sight. "Her aura's fine. She's OK, Rachel, she's just upset," she added, as Rachel shuddered. "You both made it intact."

"I have to go back!" Rachel said, making it to her knees before wobbling and falling back on her ass.

"Rachel, you just made another ley line," I said, unable to keep the concern out of my voice. Crescendo was still hunched, eyes squeezed shut even as his head was canted as if listening to the new line Rachel had ripped into reality. Or maybe he was reacting to the insane amount of noise that baby was making, though the cries were wavering as Ceri held the infant against her chest, bouncing and cooing in the way that mothers do. "If you jump back now you might make another one!"

Rachel turned her luminous green eyes to us. "I left them all there — Jenks, Ivy, Trent! I left them fighting a demon!" But she was staring at her line in horror, hair floating in the wind of the Ever After as she used her second sight. I wondered if I looked that otherworldly whenever I tapped into my demonic heritage. "Evie, can you ask Ash to jump me? I have to get back there! I left them!"

I grimaced at her frantic words, even as the baby stopped howling. Ceri had bared a breast and was coaxing the baby to nurse. Quen wrapped his jacket around his wife and the baby for modesty, and I paused to wonder how Ceri, whose kid was nearing five, still had milk. Maybe it was an elf thing. "He's off storming the Coven." I tapped my forehead. "Out of radio contact, even for me." I'd tried contacting him a few times since he'd physically entered the Coven HQ, but either he'd blocked me completely or the Coven shields were just that good. Since he'd warned me it might happen, I wasn't too worried. Yet.

"Crap on toast, how do I get back?" She bit her lip, eyes on her ley line, and her expression turned haunted. "I'm going to have to ask Al, aren't I? Shit. He won't listen to me."

"I think he would, but he's off with Ash."

"Shit!" Rachel made it to her feet, waving away my offered hand. "Maybe I should talk to Newt…?"

"No," Ceri said quickly.

I was about to disagree with Ceri, but looking at the beautiful elf with the contented baby hidden under the jacket, I felt a sudden pang of dread. "This is Trent and Ellasbeth's baby — the one Zee wants. Was it Zee attacking you?" Rachel nodded, pushing her hair back with shaking hands. "We can't bring Newt here. She might just take the baby and hand it over to Zee herself, to save herself the hassle of going to court," I said. I rather liked the batty demon woman, pain in the ass that she was, but I had no illusions that she'd think twice about the life of an elven child.

"I have to get back." Rachel sat down, hard, arms wrapped tight around herself to hide the trembling. "I left them there. Trent told me to take the baby and run. He begged me—" She swallowed. The words tumbled out in a rush. "Zee showed up just as we'd made it back to the hotel, and demanded we hand her over, and he wouldn't listen, and said elven traditions be damned, it wouldn't hold up in court—"

"Wait, he attacked you after you'd left Ellasbeth?" Rachel nodded. "How did Zee know she'd been born? How did he find you?"

"He can track her," Ceri whispered. All of us turned our gaze to her, her face pale as she looked down at the bundle in her arms. "He can track her here."

Rachel went white. "Oh my God. Ceri, we need to get to holy ground, now!"

"Gazebo," Ceri said, pointing to the building only a short distance away. She took off toward it. Quen was immediately at her side, Rachel on his heels. Apparently Rachel knew about the sanctification of the garden.

I wasted no time following, grabbing Crescendo by the hand and giving him a tug. Discordance and shrieking harmonics exploded in my mind again, and I staggered, then recovered. The dazed gargoyle made it two wobbly steps, then spread his wings and hissed as there was a distinct drop in the new line Rachel had torn. The air shifted and popped, and Zee was standing not twelve yards away, black eyes radiating malevolence as he clutched his twisted ebony staff.

"Evie, run!" Rachel had turned, arms up defensively, looking wildly around. Quen was behind his wife, ensuring that she would reach the safety of holy ground. The baby's wails were harsh and loud in the suddenly too-silent garden.

I wasn't about to leave Crescendo to Zee's wrath. We were too close to the promise of safety. I reached into my mostly-untested arsenal, selected a random curse Ash had used on Ku'Sox, and flung it behind me as I tugged my gargoyle toward the ornate structure. Seeing my problem, Rachel joined me, taking Crescendo's other arm with one hand, flinging a curse of her own at Zee.

"Give me that child!" Zee roared, face livid. "She's mine, by right and by contract!" He growled with frustration as Quen, having seen his wife to the safety of holy ground, darted back out and triggered one of the circles on the pavement. A bubble, tinted dark green, rose up to entrap the demon.

It was just enough time to finish covering the last few feet to the gazebo. Between the two of us, we'd managed to get Crescendo into a slow but steady run. He was ungainly, but surprisingly light for his size. "Steps!" I called, because his eyes were closed.

A searing pain shocked through my body. My fingers were torn from Crescendo's arm as he tripped and stumbled forward up the steps — because I'd rebounded off nothing and was flung backwards, so violently that I skidded back a good three feet on my ass before cracking my head against a bench. Nausea bubbled up my throat and I swallowed, head ringing. From the safety of the gazebo, Ceri, Rachel, and Crescendo stared at me in surprise. I sat up, a dreadful sensation arising in me as I stared back at them. Now I could feel the resistance in the air, the… I couldn't call it malevolence, exactly, because it wasn't sentient. It was, however, recognition and rejection. I, personally, was Not Allowed Here. As in, unworthy. Tainted.

Cast out.

I tried to shake off the nausea and pain, but stars were still whirling and birds were still cheeping, and my heart was quailing at this latest development. When had I joined the ranks of the damned, when Rachel was still admitted to sanctified spaces? It wasn't fair. It just wasn't fucking fair! I'd managed to suppress that hated phrase for most of my time in the Ever After, but it bubbled up in me now. I had never believed in gods of any flavor… before my wild elven magic encounter with the spooky, otherworldly, super-powerful being. And I knew in my heart that holy ground was a charm, not a divine gift. It didn't help. Staring at the patch of sanctity that I was now denied, I found myself feeling utterly… forsaken. Shunned by everyone earthly, and now abandoned by the almighty. No, Goddamn it, this is not fair! I'm not evil! I'm not vicious or cruel! I've only ever tried to help!

Zee interrupted my incipient despair with an angry roar. Quen's circle sparked as Zee's staff thrust into the thin sheet of Ever After — then shattered, which surprised the hell out of us. Perhaps there were pipes or wires buried beneath the path, or perhaps Zee was just that much of a badass. Either way, Rachel and Quen were looking like they were about to do something stupid/heroic to save me, when it was the little princess who needed protection. Demons themselves might not be able to enter holy ground, but there was nothing stopping Zee from flattening the structure with a curse if he felt like it. Or just lighting it on fire, forcing them to leave it.

"Protect the kid!" I shouted at them. "Circle it! Join up and circle it!"

To Rachel's credit, she hesitated, face stricken. But having committed herself to the child's welfare by abandoning her friends and creating a new freaking ley line in the process, she could hardly drop everything to save me. She joined hands with Quen and Ceri and the three of them bubbled the gazebo in a much more serious-looking circle that fairly crackled with energy. To my relief, Crescendo was inside it, still looking queasy from the discord and confusion.

Which just left me, sitting on my ass with a profound headache, facing off against one very, very pissed-off demon who, from the look of it, was no longer playing by the rules.