Ever After (Rachel Morgan)

fester.”
    She said nothing, and I looked up, reading the concern in her eyes. She had liked Ceri, too. “How are you doing?”
    A hundred answers rose up, a hundred frustrations, a hundred raging cries at the world. “I’m fine, too,” I said flatly.
    Ivy’s new boots scuffed on the sanctuary’s old floor, her hair falling to hide her face as we headed to the kitchen. Nina’s excited and cheerful voice—no sign of Felix—stood at dark odds with my thoughts.
    “So how are Glenn and Daryl?” I asked, and her chin lifted. Concerned, I pulled her to a stop at the top of the hallway. “Ivy?” But she wouldn’t bring her eyes down from the rafters, a hint of emotion welling up as she bit her lip. “Shit,” I whispered, flushing as I realized what I’d done. “I shouldn’t have called you.”
    Her eyes flicked to mine, and she shook her head. “I was already on my way back.”
    She tried to push past me to go into the hallway, and I got in her way. “What happened?” I demanded. “Did he dump you?”
    Ivy’s eyes went pupil black, but I didn’t back down, even when her lips parted to show her teeth. Finally she dropped her head, saying, “Someone tried to sideswipe us on the expressway yesterday.” The way she said it precluded that it was an accident. “Glenn handled it,” she added, voice low as Nina laughed, oblivious to us. “Apparently he’s had some defensive driving classes. Almost as good as the vampire who tried to kill us.”
    Her voice was light, but I was too befuddled to do anything as she pushed past me with the intoxicating scent of angry vampire, the complex cocktail plinking through my brain to make my skin ache. I’d thought it was a mistake for her to leave Cincy, but I knew how badly she’d wanted the relationship to work.
    “Cormel told me not to leave. I stayed too long. His lapdog is back in the fence,” she said bitterly, halfway down the hall. “He was right. I was wrong. Everything will be fine now.”
    She’d given me a reason, but something else had happened out at Flagstaff, something she didn’t want to talk about but probably needed to. Groceries on my hip, I followed her into the brightly lit kitchen. I’d mention it to Jenks. He could push her a lot further than I could, seeing as he couldn’t get bitten.
    Nina looked up from Ivy’s computer as I entered, a slim finger running down a search engine list. Jenks hovered over her, clearly interested in the screen. “What will be fine?” Nina said as I dropped the bag on the counter, and the pixy kids flew out, startling me. I’d forgotten they’d been in there, and I exhaled, trying to get rid of the flash of adrenaline.
    “Everything,” Ivy said. But her mood seemed glum when she strode to the window and shoved it all the way open. Cool evening air tasting of sunset seeped in, shifting my hair.
    Nina wrinkled her carefully powered nose. She looked exceptionally polished tonight, wearing a versatile black pantsuit and functional low heels. Her makeup was light but exquisite, accentuating her fabulous cheekbones and dark coloring. If I hadn’t known by her voice and cadence, I would know it was just her, not Felix, by the color in her cheeks, even if her pupils were edging into a dangerous black. Her eyes were bright and eager as she typed her way through a questionnaire with a speed that was borderline impossible.
    “Secrets?” the woman said good-naturedly, her red lips curving up in a smile. Nose wrinkling again, she glanced at me, then away. Oh God, I hadn’t had a chance to shower since coming back from the ever-after. I probably stank. That was why Ivy had shoved the window open, not to get rid of the scent of her anger or my flash of surprise.
    Ivy sashayed over to her, and startled, Jenks rose up, wings clattering. “Secrets,” Ivy breathed as she leaned over Nina’s shoulder, her lips inches from her neck. “Always and forever, Nina. It’s what keeps us alive.”
    Her eyes on the screen, Nina reached up to touch Ivy’s cheek, hardly noticing.
    Embarrassed at my apparent stink, I unpacked the bag. Organic raspberries for an illegal doppelgänger curse, white thread since the pixy girls had absconded with mine, a new coffeemaker . . . Ivy watched in question as I set it clunking on the counter. Her eyes went to the empty spot beside the toaster, and I shrugged.
    A faint wish for hot chocolate lifted through me as I took the coffeemaker apart and squirted a splat of soap into it.