“I’m sorry, sir,” the man said, handing the silver card back to Trent. “Do you have another card?”
Ooooh, ouch.
“Ahhh,” Trent hedged, looking back at Jonathan in the shade of the pergola. In a stiff motion, Jonathan rose, stalking forward with the warmth of a zombie.
“I’ve got this,” I said, reaching into my bag, and Trent fidgeted as I handed over a five. “Oh, for Tink’s toes,” I muttered as I took the ices and handed them to the girls. “You’d think I’d just hamstrung you.”
“It’s not that,” he said as he handed Jonathan the card. “Jon, see what’s going on.”
The girls looked tiny as they clustered about the tall man, and Ray clamped a hand on his pant leg for balance. “Yes, Sa’han,” he said, carefully disentangling Ray’s fingers and transferring them to Trent’s hand.
“I don’t mind paying.” Jonathan was headed for the ATM, and I scanned the courtyard. It suddenly felt exposed, vulnerable. Where is Jenks?
Trent’s tight expression eased and he gave me a surprising sideways hug as he turned us back to the twin stroller parked beside the bench in the shade. “I don’t mind you paying,” he said softly, his words making a tingling path down my entire side since he hadn’t let go. “I simply want confirmation as to why the card isn’t working.”
My thoughts went to the newscasters, their eyes alight and their words fast as they smelled blood in the air surrounding the Kalamack estate. I had a good idea as to why his card wasn’t working. “Maybe it’s just a glitch.”
“Doubt it.” Expression neutral, he let me go to help Lucy up onto the bench before she spilled her cone trying to do it herself. “This might end with burgers at the pool.”
I lifted Ray to sit beside her sister, taking a moment to tug her dress straight over her tights. “That sounds good to me. I missed my Fourth of July picnic.” I sat, straddling the bench so I could watch Jonathan and the courtyard at the same time. Trent, who had to show a more dignified bearing, sat on the other side of the girls, his back to most of the zoo and the long-range scopes of the news vans that had followed us here. They weren’t allowed in without prior arrangements, and I think that was why we were here.
To be honest, I was worried—worried about him and his money. He’d never had to go without it, and the bigger the corporation, the faster it starved to death when the funds were cut off. He was a CEO of billions, but it wouldn’t mean anything if his assets were frozen. He’d be okay, sure, but what about all his employees with no work, no pay for the year or two this was going to take to sort out?
Leaning over and behind the girls, he whispered, “I have insurance for this. Relax.”
Startled, I drew back. “God!” I exclaimed softly. “I hate it when you do that.”
He was smiling, the wind shifting his hair about his eyes, and I felt warm when he helped Lucy, now crying over an ice headache. Slowly his smile faded, damped by Jonathan at the ATM. The tall man had Trent’s card in hand and was on the phone.
“Actually, this took longer than I thought it would.” Concerned, he pulled his phone from a back pocket, elbows on his knees as he pushed a few buttons.
“Sorry.” Ray was distressed at the red dripping down her hand, and I rewrapped the bottom with a new napkin.
“Mmmm.” His brow furrowed even more. “Maybe we should head home.”
Home, I thought, leaning to look at the tiny screen. He’d brought up one of his news sites, which showed a well-groomed woman sitting next to a downward-sloping graph and the words Kalamack Industries. Seeing me looking, he upped the volume.
“ . . . as the Kalamack investigation continues to come up empty. Though employees questioned are denying Kalamack Industries conducts any genetic research outside of legal parameters, allegations of illegal genetic tinkering and trade of genetic products persist. In a related story, claims that the chain of subtropical islands owned by the Kalamack family were really a powerhouse of Brimstone fields have evaporated into the sound of wings. Investigators at the site found only open fields and thousands upon thousands of cocoons of a rare butterfly on the verge of extinction. When asked, Trent Kalamack made this statement.”
The picture shifted to one of Trent, looking calm and collected in his usual suit as he stood beside a podium at his gatehouse media room. “Our intent in replanting the cane fields was twofold, not simply helping a vanishing species to recover, but advancing the local population into more well-paying jobs and fostering new opportunities. Changing the local harvest to a more sustainable product, in this case, the trade of tourism, we would achieve both goals. A cane field will employ a family, but tourism brings in dollars from around the world and employs not just farm workers to maintain the butterflies’ life cycle, but also promotes far more skilled labor and the cottage industries that tourism fosters.”
I looked at Trent, remembering the conversation he and Quen had in my back living room over bugs in the Brimstone field. “Well played,” I murmured, realizing that he had distributed the butterflies to all his fields, effectively eating the evidence.
Trent cleared his throat nervously. “Thank you.”
“Regardless, Kalamack stock continues to plummet,” the newscaster continued as she reappeared, and Trent sighed. “Whether the claims are groundless or rooted in truth, it seems more and more likely that Kalamack Industries has seen the last of its golden years.”
“Sorry,” I said as Jenks’s dust blanked out the screen. I’d heard his wings an instant before he dropped to my shoulder, and a knot of worry eased in me.
“Enks!!” Lucy shrilled, and the pixy darted out of her sticky reach. “Pixy, pixy, pixy!”
“Yeah, I’m buying up Kalamack stock as fast as Rachel’s rent check clears,” Jenks said as Lucy dropped her ice, her hands outstretched as she jumped. “Watch out, cookie maker, or I’m going to own you.”
Clearly amused, Trent put his phone away. Jonathan was still on the phone. Apparently Trent had a lot of accounts to check. Eyes intent, Ray watched Jenks, a brown, icy cold water dripping out the end of her cone unnoticed.
But then my head came up as a familiar scent tickled my nose. “Ah, Jenks? Why do you smell like burnt amber?”The sound of Jenks’s wings hesitated, but it was Trent’s suddenly bland expression that rang the alarm bells.
“I gotta check the perimeter,” the pixy said, darting off, much to Lucy’s dismay.
Catching her hand before she ran after him, I dug out the little packet of Handi Wipes from my bag. “Jenks!” I shouted, but he was gone. Eyes squinting, I turned to Trent. “What have you two been up to?”
Trent took the packet and pulled one out. “Mmmm. I’ve been helping Newt with Red,” he said as he worked at getting the blue off Lucy’s fingers. “I asked Jenks to watch my back.”
My lips parted, and I looked into the pergola, knowing he was up there somewhere, the chicken. “And why would you think you had to keep that from me?” I asked, but I couldn’t keep the frown off my face.
Lucy twisted and squirmed, and he started on the other hand when I gave him a clean wipe. “I don’t,” he said, wincing. “But she saw you ride Tulpa and she’s embarrassed that she can’t get on Red.” His lips curled into a smile as he let Lucy go and the girl ran to jump in the dust Jenks was sending down. “That stupid horse is balking at everything, and Newt is oblivious to how to handle her. It’s going to be a while before she can get on her.” He chuckled, using the last of the wipe to clean his own hands. “It’s going to be a while before she can touch her.”
I wondered where Newt had the horse, then decided she had enough room. It would be the feed I’d be worried about. “So you’re under investigation for drug trafficking, illegal genetic research, and whatever else they can come up with, and you decide to go to the ever-after? Without me?”
“Of course not.” Trent gave me a sideways glance. “Newt and Red came to me. The animal needed to see the moon. That’s half the problem if you ask me. Soon as Red associates Newt with clean grass, she’ll settle down.”
I rolled my eyes, shifting my leg to sit properly as Ray set her uneaten cone down and went to stand just outside the circle of sparkles sifting down. “Oh, that’s much better,” I said, hoping they had a hidden glen to do this in. “You’re giving riding lessons to demons.”
He rubbed his chin as he watched his girls. “In exchange for storage space for a few machines I don’t want to lose.” Eyes rising, he looked at me. “I could do this for a living. I like horses. I like demons. It’s a perfect fit.”
He was joking, but there was a grain of truth to it, and I threw away Ray’s cone before I reached for the wipes. “I’m sorry. I don’t think they’re going to stop until you lose everything.” Angry, I cleaned my hands, thinking I should have thought this through a little more. We could have done something different, maybe. Tried to hide it. Put off the inevitable. But as Trent took my damp hand in his to still my frustrated motions, I knew that to try to hide it would have only made it worse when the truth came out.
“Not everything, no,” he said. “But I’m not the only one giving things up. I know it was hard abandoning the mystics.”
My jaw clenched, and I tried to quash my gut reaction of heartache. I knew he saw it when his grip tightened. “Does it show?” I said, miserable. I’d been able to see around corners. I’d had thousands of voices telling me of whispers halfway across the city. I’d had a million defenders, ready to turn my wish to reality. It had been godlike. Even if keeping them would’ve made me crazy.
Trent leaned back, his hand still holding mine. “I thought so,” he said softly. “You gave that up. And Al.” He let go of me, his finger tilting my chin up to look at him. “I have my own guilt to chew on.”
“It’s not your fault.”
Sighing, he watched the girls leaping at Jenks’s shifting dust. “I wouldn’t change anything, though I’ll admit that my end of things is turning out to be more challenging than I’d anticipated. But there’s a definite upside that I hadn’t counted on.”
“Like what?” Jenks said as he dropped from his dust to the stroller’s bar. “Is Rachel so good in bed she’s worth losing a fortune?”
“Shut up, Jenks,” I said, and he laughed, sounding like wind chimes.
“I don’t have to do what everyone expects anymore.” Smiling, Trent pulled Ray onto his lap and gentled the tiring girl to him. “I owe you. Forever, Rachel. You freed me.”
Jenks made gagging sounds when I flushed. Freed him? No. He’d freed himself. “You do know freedom is why I quit the I.S., right? And see how that turned out?”
He chuckled, but my smile faltered as I glanced at my wrist and the smooth skin there. My demon mark had vanished without fanfare last week, and with it, my last tie to Al. For some stupid reason, I missed it. Trent, though, was looking at Ivy and Nina trying on hats. “Oh, I think it turned out fine.” His eyes met mine over Ray’s tousled hair, and I felt warm. “A little tiring, perhaps, but okay in the end.”
Beaming, I leaned in, hoping for a kiss. Jenks flew up and out of the way in disgust, but before our lips met, my eyes went over his shoulder to Jonathan. The distasteful man was not at the ATM. No, he was standing between us and Ellasbeth, striding forward under the shade with two men behind her.
Ellasbeth? I thought, freezing. Trent’s lips grazed mine before he realized there was a problem and drew back. Tingles raced through me, not all of them from the spark of wild magic. “Ellasbeth,” I whispered, and he turned, his jaw clenching.
“And she brought friends,” Jenks said snidely. “Trent, monologue or something. I have to cut the cameras or someone’s gonna be in jail tonight for assault.”
“Make it fast.” Trent set Ray in the stroller, buckling her in before standing.
Jenks darted up and away and wild magic prickled over my skin as Trent tapped a line. Pulse hammering, I stood as well. A lion roared as I tapped a line, my chin rising as the energy flowed through me and back to the line, connecting me to everything, to all, to the universe—even if I could see only a hairsbreadth of it now.
“Stop right there!” I said, but Ellasbeth never slowed, motioning for the men and women she’d brought to circle us. Shit, there were more than two. She’d brought at least eight. People in bright shirts and shorts were scattering, running for the edges. “I said that’s close enough!” I shouted as she kept coming.
Ivy and Nina tensed, but we all froze when Jonathan dropped out of the pergola, looking ugly and alien as he knocked the man behind her to the ground and crouching over him with a ball of black death in his hands. Trent grabbed my arm to keep me from moving, and I quailed when a half-heard whisper of promised death passed Jonathan’s lips.
“Give me the girls, Trent!” Ellasbeth demanded, and Lucy called for her mother in delight.
Ignoring Jonathan, Ellasbeth continued forward. The second man with her moved, and with a growl that chilled my blood, Jonathan grabbed him about the neck. Suddenly the three were on the ground, scrabbling like wrestlers for an advantage as they heaved and struggled. Wild magic skated over my awareness, and Trent’s grip on me tightened. There was an abrupt pop of magic, and the two men went still. Ellasbeth came to a shocked halt as Jonathan slowly got to his feet, the two men behind her unmoving.