Ever After (Rachel Morgan)

is over, I want to know where Nick is, tied up in my church with a vampire and pixy guarding him.”
    Quen’s expression pulled up into a hateful mask. “He killed Ceri!”
    “Ku’Sox killed Ceri,” I said. “Crap for brains here lied to her, knowing it would happen. I’m not going to let him hurt anyone else by allowing him to wander the universe. He’s here. Where we can watch him.”
    With a twang on the line that made me jump, Quen let the curse in his hand dissipate. “He couldn’t wander the universe if he was dead, either,” he muttered. “You ask a lot, Rachel.”
    I gave Nick a nasty look—the smug son of a bitch pissed me off. “I know. I’m sorry.”
    Quen wasn’t done yet, though, and Jenks’s wings clattered when the man took several steps closer to the thief. “If you move, I will send fire through your spine and explode your brain from the inside.”
    Eyeing him darkly, Nick opened his mouth, and I gasped as Quen lashed out impossibly fast. Ivy jumped, but he’d only slapped him, and Nick’s head was lolling as he struggled to focus. Up in the rafters, the pixies shouted their approval.
    “Can I speak to you in private for a moment?” Quen said, dismissing Nick.
    Nick was still trying to focus, and I turned to Quen. “I see your magic is back within normal parameters,” I said as we headed to the kitchen. Jenks and Jax were inches away from each other. Neither one was dusting heavily in distress. This was good, right?
    Quen’s pace was slow as we entered the hallway. “Have you eaten yet?” he asked, surprising me. Hesitating at the top of the hall, he turned halfway around. “Is anyone hungry? We have time to eat before we go. I want to talk to everyone, and it might as well be over food.”
    He wants to eat?
    “Pizza, maybe?” Quen said, squinting at Nick.
    The pixies in the rafters shouted their agreement, but Ivy’s expression said what I was thinking. Pizza sounded awful, and my stomach was already churning. “Sure, okay,” I said when she shrugged. Maybe Quen wanted a last supper kind of a thing.
    Quen’s lips twitched as he glanced at Nick and then away. “Great, can someone else order it? I want to see what Rachel is wearing tonight.” He took my elbow, trying to guide me back into motion. “You picked out something nice, right?”
    I shivered at how similar his and Trent’s speech cadences were. I felt like I was being pushed along, and I didn’t like it. “Yes. Newt helped me.”
    “Newt?” he said, clearly thinking I was joking, and my feet slipped as I stopped to look behind me. Ivy already had the phone, and pixies were shouting out toppings. Jax seemed better, looking at his dad with something other than fear and shame. Nick was sullen as he sulked in the chair holding a tissue to his lip. He wouldn’t try to go back to Ku’Sox until the last moment.
    “Show me what you’re wearing,” Quen said, jerking me into my room.
    “Hey!” I exclaimed as Quen shut the door behind him.
    Arms over his chest, he exhaled in relief. “I see the appeal of living with pixies,” he said softly, “but do they ever stop talking?”
    “Only when they sleep.” Eyeing him, I cocked my hip. “What do you want that you can’t ask in front of everyone?”
    He compressed his lips and came forward a step. “Can I see the rings?”
    Suddenly recognizing the pizza as the distraction he had meant it to be, I nodded. Of course Quen would want to see them, and I reached into my pocket, little pings of energy jolting my burned fingertips. They clinked as they hit his outstretched palm, and his lips parted as he brought them close, nudging them apart with a careful finger. “They’re nothing like wedding rings,” I said as we looked at them in his creased and calloused palm. “Al recognized them. He almost destroyed them before I reinvoked them.”
    “Al helped you?” He was close enough for the scent of warm spice rising up between us to remind me of Trent. His fingers twitched as if to keep them for himself, and I stiffened.
    “Sort of. And when this is over, we are going to destroy them,” I said, suddenly nervous. I took a breath to tell him I had made a bargain with his goddess, then didn’t. Trent probably had an arsenal of defunct magic that should stay that way. Besides, it sounded so lame. It had all been in my mind, hadn’t it? Al had once said demons could do elf magic but didn’t because it was considered beneath them.
    Frowning, Quen held up