Ever After (Rachel Morgan)

hand. I cut him deeply and wouldn’t stop. I ignored him when he told me no. I carved deeper when he begged me to stop.”
    The sword dropped, and her head drooped to follow the steel in her hand. “I knew he could take more and that his pain was fleeting. I thought I had a right to correct his assessment of his abilities, but what I was doing was confusing his mental limits with his emotional ones. I was riding high on his fear, and I bled him within an inch of his life.”
    Only now did she look at Jenks. “He forgave me. Eventually. Jax will, too.”
    I shifted uneasily, guessing she was talking about Kisten. It sounded about right. Kisten could forgive anything, since he’d done terrible things himself. I thought about that, wondering if only those who did horrible things would ever be able to forgive me. This had to stop, I thought, feeling the bump of the rings in my pocket.
    “Your son made a serious mistake,” Ivy said, and Jenks shuddered. “You beat him, told him he was making an error that was going to end his life, and you told him to walk away before you came back and finished the job. You saved his life. He will forgive you.”
    Jenks blinked fast, looking like the nineteen-year-old that he was, with all the insecurities and inexperience that that came with. He wanted to believe. I could see it in his brilliantly green eyes. He took a breath to say something, then changed his mind.
    I suddenly realized I had to leave. “Ah, I need to make a call,” I said, leaning down to slide my scrying mirror out from my cookbooks. “I’ll be in the garden,” I added, thinking Jenks might open up if I wasn’t around. God! We were a messed-up bunch.
    “I’ll come with you,” Belle said, snaking down her rope. “Make s-s-sure the gargoyles-s-s leave you alone.”
    I looked back as I left, seeing that Jenks had flown to Ivy’s monitor. His wings were drooping, and the dust spilling from him was making an oily pattern on the dark screen.
    “I left him there, bleeding out. Ivy, he can’t fly.”
    “Neither can Belle, and you can’t call her any less a warrior. You saved his life. And perhaps ours. I’m sorry that it was so costly.”
    I thanked my lucky stars that neither of them said anything else until I grabbed my spring jacket and fled to the back porch. Standing in the cool breath of the coming sunset, I shoved my arms into the thin leather and glumly sat, Belle taking up a position two feet to my right where I probably wouldn’t squish her. I set my scrying mirror on my left. The squeak of the cat door was loud, and glowing eyes turned to us from the graveyard when the more mundane sound of the screen door hadn’t moved them.
    Huddling into my coat, I waved at the gargoyles. I wasn’t altogether comfortable out here with them looking at me, but I wanted to interfere with Jenks and Ivy even less. Besides, I really did want to talk to Al. The rings weren’t invoking. I knew I could do this since I’d done it before. I just needed the confidence of someone who could see what the hell I was doing with my aura. Jenks was good, but he couldn’t hear the lines like a demon.
    Rex jumped into my lap, a spot of warmth that I buried my fingers in. The cold damp of the early evening soaked into me as I breathed in the coming night. Low clouds threatened more rain, and last year’s leaves rustled in the cold flower beds, mirroring my mood perfectly. Spring cleanup was slower this year now that Jenks was losing kids, going off in pairs and alone to find their way. How did my life get this complex so fast?
    “Rachel,” Belle lisped as she stood beside me, bow unslung as she watched the gargoyles suspiciously, “do you think Jenks-s-s will find his strength of will again?”
    “Yes, of course. He’s just having a bad day. He is the strongest person I know. Except for Ivy.” My fingers lightly touched Rex as the cat purred, and I wondered if I could beat someone I loved that badly, even if it was for the greater good.
    “I often punished fledglings-s-s for risking the nest.”
    “My mother grounded me a lot,” I said, thinking it hadn’t done me any harm. It hadn’t made me any smarter, either.
    “Jenks-s-s shouldn’t be hard on himself,” Belle said firmly. “He’s a warrior.”
    “Jenks is a gardener in a savage Eden,” I said, believing it. He was a savage gardener with a protective streak. Ivy was just as savage, just as protective, when push came to shove. And me? What was I? What