Ever After (Rachel Morgan)

need them anymore. “He took their nurses, too?” I asked in guilt. I couldn’t save everyone.
    “In some cases.”
    His words had come from the back of his throat, and the hidden tight disgust in it made me take a second look. All the women had red hair. “Oh,” I said, feeling uncomfortable. “Is there another way out of here?”
    “I said I was not leaving.”
    The anger in his voice turned me back around. “Stay here?” I said, hand on my hip. “I thought we had a good plan. Thanks for nothing. Where’s Bis? Have you seen him?”
    Snagging his rolling chair with a foot, Trent expertly wrangled it around until he could sit. “He’s fine,” he said, so low I could almost not hear it. “The older gargoyles are very keen on talking to him when Ku’Sox isn’t watching.”
    “Maybe they’re teaching him the resonances of their lines,” I said, wondering if there might be something good in this after all.
    His head bowed, Trent kept writing. Ticked, I came to see what he was doing, and he looked up. “Bis knows the line in the garden,” I said. “Where’s Ceri and Lucy?” His jaw quivered, and I added, “Bis can jump us all out.”
    What in hell is his problem? I thought when Trent ran a slow hand over his face, almost ignoring me. “You keep saying you want to work together; well, how about accepting a little help? Trent, pay attention to me!”
    Finally he looked up, anguish flashing behind his eyes before he whispered, “Ceri is dead. And Pierce.”
    My heart seemed to stop. I took a faltering step, my face cold. He had to be joking! But Trent’s face was pale and his red-rimmed eyes had new meaning as I staggered back against a bank of machines. “Ceri and Pierce?” I whispered, looking through the wall as if I could see Pierce. I’d just seen him. Just talked to him. “Why?”
    But then I figured it out. I’d just seen him. Just talked to him. Oh God, this was my fault. I’d talked to Pierce, rekindled his belief that he was a demon killer. Ceri would help him . . . Hand to my stomach, I tried to find something to say, my mind blank.
    Seeing my understanding, Trent turned back to the lab book as if it was the only thing real left to him. “What happened?” I breathed. I already knew the why for everything: why Trent was here doing what Ku’Sox wanted, why he’d left with no warning, breaking the only easy way for anyone to follow, why he was closed and distant. Ku’Sox had called Trent’s bluff. “What. Happened!”
    My hand shook as it landed on Trent’s shoulder. He didn’t move, either to acknowledge my touch or shake it off. “She and Pierce got it into their heads they could overpower him if they worked together,” he said flatly, and I closed my eyes against the heartache. This was my doing. Oh God. Quen. Ray.
    “Ku’Sox told me they tried to kill him in his sleep and that in retaliation he had every right to burn Pierce alive with their own joined curse,” he said, his tone frighteningly empty. “I have no reason to doubt that’s exactly what happened. If Ceri thought she could take him, she’d try. Especially if he had been threatening Lucy. Ceri died several hours later. As best as I can gather.”
    I could hardly breathe, my chest hurt so badly. I wanted to rage that he was wrong, that Ku’Sox was tricking him into giving him what he wanted. But the memory of Ceri and Pierce working together to twist a black curse to kill fairies in my garden rose up, making my stomach sink. She’d been impressed with his skill, and Pierce had been trying to kill demons half his living existence and all of his dead. It had been all I could do to keep Pierce from trying to attack Ku’Sox yesterday. Had it only been yesterday? I thought, gazing at my burned fingers.
    A tear brimmed and fell, splashing on them, and I made a fist. I didn’t love Pierce, but it still hurt, still ached. And Ceri. She had been so happy, so alive. She finally had the family that she thought she never would. Now it was gone? She was dead?
    My grief began to shift to anger. I could do things when I was angry.
    “Ellasbeth didn’t tell me any of this,” I said, and Trent looked up, blinking as if he was rearranging his thoughts.
    “Ellasbeth doesn’t know,” Trent said, his chest heaving with a sudden breath.
    “Quen?” I asked, my voice rising at the end into a squeak. “Does Quen know?” Ellasbeth said he was in the basement trying to get the vault door open. If he managed it, he