A Perfect Blood

apparently locked. The broken shell of the video screen gaped blackly where once there was sun and a view of the pastures.
    “Keeping you out of the ever-after,” he almost snarled as he caught a blue damsel and tossed it into the shattered remnants of the fish tank and its two inches of remaining water. The fish darted behind a rock, unhurt.
    “Well, stop it!” I said, feeling my leg ache and pushing the chair away. “If you want to help, give me my crutch.”
    He stood helplessly over his lionfish, knowing he couldn’t touch it lest he get poisoned.
    “Give me my crutch!” I demanded, hand outstretched. “I can’t reach it from here.”
    With a last look at the gasping fish, Trent stomped to the back of my chair, little splashes coming up from his feet. He undid the clasps with unnecessary roughness, and then extended the crutch to me like a sword. From the hall came whispers. “Your crutch,” he said dryly.
    I took it, arm hurting as my weight landed on it. “Please help me,” I whispered, my back to the line so Al couldn’t see what I was saying. “I can’t do this alone.”
    Trent’s scowl softened. His eyes flicking behind me, he nodded. “I’m fine!” he shouted at the knocking on the door. “I want my old tank brought up out of storage.” He hesitated, eyes on mine. “Please,” he added as if it hurt.
    Scared, I took a quick breath as his hand cupped my free elbow and we squished across the wet carpet. Whoever was at the door was probably calling Quen, not getting his old fish tank. We had to wrap this up fast.
    The line was glowing before me through my second sight, little energies jumping from it to ping against my aura like static electricity. Trembling, Trent helped me back into the line. Al was here. Al was going to listen. And Trent had my back.
    Al was waiting with the sureness of a lion having treed its prey, leaning against a rock with the ugly red sun beating down on him. His arms were aggressively across his chest and his angry look went right to my core, strangling my confidence in three seconds flat. He knew that I could step outside the line and be safe—until he summoned me. One way or the other, he thought he had me, and another tremble shook me, making him smile and show his teeth.
    “I don’t think I like this plan,” Trent whispered.
    “Promise me this time,” I said, not looking at him. “Promise!” I shouted.
    “I promise.” He was angry, but Al’s evil smile now had a hint of pride because I’d forced Trent to do something he clearly didn’t want to do. I was alive. I was causing trouble. Al was intrigued. He’d listen, and that’s all I wanted.
    “Explain yourself . . . student,” Al said. His attention flicked to the defunct bracelet on the carpet, and his eyes narrowed.
    “I’ve been hiding,” I said quickly.
    “You’re mistaken if you think your elf can save you,” he said, pushing away from the rock. “He’s less effective than that witch of yours, though Newt did pay me a handsome sum for him.”
    Pierce was alive? My breath came in fast, and I exhaled in relief. It didn’t last long as Trent shifted backward, tugging at me. I refused to move, the pressure on my leg becoming almost unbearable. I cried out in pain, and Trent’s hand fell away and he moved to stand in front of me instead.
    “Her elf is going to do just that,” he said, the red glow of the ever-after sun turning his hair auburn, almost as red as mine. “I did not work this hard at getting her to accept who she is to let you take your spoiled brat of a little-boy temper tantrum out on her. She stays on my side of the lines.”
    Lips parting, Al hesitated, and I saw another weight shift from anger to acceptance, one rock against thousands. “You put that putrid elf shackle on her?” he said, his boots whispering in the dry grass as he came forward. “You robbed her of the lines with your lies?”
    “She needed to know what she would lose before she would ever accept its cost,” Trent said, his chin level and his eyes unrepentant. “Now she knows.”
    My jaw tightened, but it was true. After feeling the lines in me again, I’d do anything to keep them, whereas before I would have let it go, oblivious, until it was too late.
    Unaware of my thoughts, Al wreathed his hand in a dark mist. “You will never enslave us again, and not through Rachel!” he said, and that fast, Trent doubled over, gasping in pain.
    Shit. “Stop it! Stop it, both of you!” I