Ever After (Rachel Morgan)

pastries on it, taking a stark, plain doughnut from the pile when he set the plate before me and moved the books all the way back to the wall.
    “Ku’Sox broke our rings,” Trent said as if it was important, and I watched him take a bite from his plain doughnut, thinking it was odd seeing him here in my kitchen in his suit and tie at four in the morning. “I think that is significant. He didn’t know we were using them as a safety net. He said ‘meld your abilities to an elf to best me.’ Ku’Sox thought we were using them to join our skills, to make ourselves stronger.”
    My stomach rumbled at the smell of the fried dough, and hearing it, Trent gestured for me to help myself. I shook my head, eyeing the one with the sprinkles.
    “That’s how the demons overpowered him before,” Trent said, still standing in the middle of my kitchen. “He’s afraid of us, demons, elves, anyone, working together. All his actions are to pull the demons apart, break alliances.”
    “I can’t argue with that.” Though Trent was clear across the kitchen, I felt as if he was too close, too accessible as he stood there looking good in my church eating a no-frills doughnut.
    “And Bis,” he said, making my stomach clench. “He didn’t take him because he wanted leverage on you. If it was only that, he could have twisted the knife and gotten you to take the curse off right then and there.”
    I shoved my panic aside. “He took Bis so I couldn’t fix the line,” I said, and Trent nodded.
    “Exactly my thoughts,” he said, setting his doughnut with one bite out of it on a napkin from the bag. “He needs it broken. With purple sludge gone, everyone can see the curse he used to damage your line. That’s why he can’t allow you to fix it. But if you could move all the imbalance at once, you might get the same effect. Would you mind if I made something to drink?”
    My lips parted at the new thought. “Sure, go ahead,” I said, and he wiped his fingers off on a second napkin, turning to the fridge. Damn, I could move all the imbalance at once. I mean, I knew what my line was supposed to sound like. All I needed to do was bundle up everything that didn’t belong and drop it into another line.
    Silent, I jiggled my foot as Trent went to the fridge. Jenks was on his shoulder pointing things out. Trent came out with the milk, surprising me. He likes milk with his doughnuts? You learn something new every day. No, hot chocolate, I decided when Jenks darted around the kitchen and Trent followed, collecting sugar, cocoa, and salt.
    “You think I can move the entire wad of imbalance without Bis?” I said.
    “The hell she can!” Jenks protested, but I sat up, pulse quickening. “She can’t line jump. That’s what started this!”
    “She isn’t line jumping, she’s moving imbalance,” Trent said to Jenks, waving the pixy’s dust from the two cups that Trent had pulled from my cupboards and filled with powdered cocoa. “She’s already proven she can do that.”
    I stood up, coming to stand with the counter between us. “I know the signature of the line in the graveyard. I can dump it all there.”
    Trent looked up from pouring milk into two mugs when Jenks whistled. “Newt is going to be pissed,” the pixy said, and my enthusiasm faltered, but only for a moment.
    “Ah, is one of those mine by chance?” I asked, and Trent’s smile widened.
    “Yes.”
    Jenks hovered between us, a bright shimmer of red-tinted dust spilling from him. “I don’t like this,” he said. “It sounds risky.”
    “It’s perfect,” I said as Trent’s spoon clinked, stirring them both. “Once it’s moved, anyone can see the curse he used to break it.”
    “In which case he’ll just say you were backing out of a deal?” Jenks prompted.
    My shoulders slumped, and I chewed on my lower lip. “Maybe I could borrow Al’s wedding rings and we could bind our strength together,” I said hesitantly, and Jenks scoffed.
    “They don’t work between demon and elf,” Jenks reminded me, but Trent had set the spoon on the napkin beside his half-eaten doughnut and had gone to his coat.
    “We have options,” he said as he triumphantly slapped a museum brochure before me. “That is, if you can reinvoke them.”
    Eyebrows high, I pulled the colorful brochure to me with ELVEN ARTIFACT SHOW emblazoned on it in a metallic mythological script. I knew there was no such collection at the Cincy museum. There was none anywhere. The elves had