Ever After (Rachel Morgan)

well-sculptured chest, and the gargoyle took a step back. “He jumped me to the only person possibly able to keep me alive,” I said, following him, chin raised as I got into his face. “He sang me two resonances that exist in one line so I could repair it!”
    “Ah, Rache?” Jenks said, hovering over Etude’s shoulder, looking worried.
    “That line right there,” I said angrily, pointing. “The one that you are all clustered around like it’s the last fire on a never-ending night! Right now, Bis is in the ever-after playing patty-cake with a psychotic demon who is trying to destroy the ever-after. He’s trying to learn all the lines in an ungodly short amount of time so we can save your fuzzy asses!”
    “Rache?” Gargoyles were winging in from all over, their black shadows landing menacingly in a large circle.
    “If your son is the world breaker, I’m going to see him through it!” I shouted.
    Shaking, I dropped back, suddenly aware that glowing red and gold eyes watching me were backed by strong muscle that could wring dust from a rock like water from a sponge. But I wasn’t done yet. “Now you all can stay in my graveyard because I know the lines suck right now, and if they are giving me a headache, you must be in agony. But if you ever call Bis a lob-winged klutz again, I’m going to hunt you down at noon and chip your ear off!”
    “Ah, Rache?” Jenks warbled.
    “What do you want, pixy?” I snarled, my knees shaking as I stood with my hands on my hips.
    “Never mind.”
    Etude was eyeing me, his big red eyes assessing, and my arms somehow got tangled up over my middle. I knew it made me look afraid, but I was trying for pissed. I was both. “Perhaps,” Etude rumbled, his ears perking forward at me, “my son made a wise decision after all in his choice of weaponry. Can you keep him alive?”
    His voice had changed, becoming respectful. I took a breath, hearing it shake as I exhaled. “I intend to,” I said softly, believing it. Everyone wants me to protect someone. Who’s going to protect me? “Down to my last breath.”
    Etude looked me up and down again. Rising to his full stature, he gestured to someone behind me. I couldn’t stop my instinctive half step back, but Etude was smiling a savage black-toothed grin at me when he looked back. “In that case,” he said, shifting his wings behind him, “what do you want us to do with these two? We found them skulking about and think they’re up to mischief.”
    “No fairy-farting way!” Jenks exclaimed, and I felt my face flash hot.
    “Nick,” I said, not surprised, all my bile and anger distilled into that one word. I couldn’t help my smirk as I looked at Nick hanging between two gargoyles, his toes inches from the soggy, chill earth. Jax was sitting on the palm of another gargoyle, his wings tattered and his back to us, clearly wishing he was somewhere else. The hand of the gargoyle holding him was radiating a visible gentle heat, and seeing him, Jenks swore loud enough to make his son’s shoulders come up to his ears.
    I didn’t care if Nick could read the emotions on my face. None of what I was feeling was particularly nice: satisfaction, maybe, that we—well, someone, anyway—had caught him; anger that he had slapped me; hatred that he had betrayed Ceri and Pierce to their deaths. That Ivy and I had downed him in the museum was only a minor consolation.
    He was here to steal the rings, and I felt my pocket to reassure myself they were still there. Thank God the garden was full of bright eyes tonight. Jenks’s wings were turning blue from cold, but he hovered before Nick, looking as ticked as I felt. “Nick, Nick, Nick,” I said, hands on my hips. “I wish I could say it was a surprise.”
    Sullen, Nick grimaced from the pain in his shoulders. His face had a swollen bruise, and I wondered if Ku’Sox had beaten him because he hadn’t gotten the rings from us. He said, “Are you going to let me explain, or just assume you know what’s going on?”
    The corner of my eye twitched. “Hold him,” I said curtly. “Keep him on holy ground. Jenks, get a strap, will you?”
    “Holy crap!” the pixy said as he realized the danger Nick could turn into, then darted to the church, leaving an unsettlingly thin band of dust to show his path. Hearing his wing hum fade, Jax went scarlet. His wings were tattered beyond belief, but the main lines were undamaged. He’d recover. For all his anger, Jenks had been careful.
    The