Ever After (Rachel Morgan)

gray.
    Trent? I thought, and Bis brought to me his emotions of determination, surprise, and awe of the strength we were surrounded by. He was with us, but quiet, trying to take it in.
    Find this! Bis’s thoughts were laced with exhaustion, and I fastened on his low impressions of green, gold, and brown, swirling with a harsh slash of red and black. I fumbled through the jumbled imbalances, picking threads and bundling them until I matched what Bis was showing me, which was complex with incredibly high and low sensations. I vaguely felt the drive to breathe, felt the pain of oxygen starvation creeping up on me, making my thoughts slow.
    Got it! I thought, panicking when I found Bis struggling. This would be a lot easier if we didn’t have to do this on the run. Bis, where does it go? I thought as I bubbled the imbalance. Where does it go!
    His thoughts whispered in mine, singing a color I felt I should recognize. I tuned the bubble holding the imbalance to it, and with a ping of sensation I felt Trent notice, it was gone. A pure note joined the howling energy, ringing in the sound of hope.
    Wrenching us together, I shifted the circle surrounding us to the taint of the imbalance I’d just replaced, feeling reality swirl and coalesce. The imbalance made each ley line unique—the key flaw that made traveling them possible.
    I gasped as my air-starved lungs became real and expanded, pulling in the acidic taste of burnt amber. Face-first, I plowed into the red dirt, my eyes squinted shut and my elbows taking most of the impact. There was a pained grunt and sliding of rock, and I guessed Trent had made it. The wind was gritty and the sky was dark. Sitting up, I rubbed my chin and spit the dirt out. “Bis?” I croaked, realizing we were in the ever-after. “Shouldn’t this be getting easier?”
    Bis was a hunched shadow next to me. “I thought the ever-after might hide us a little longer,” he said, his red eyes on the sky, the moon, half full and waning, just rising over the broken horizon. “He will find us soon. There’s not as much to damage here if he does.”
    What he meant was fewer people as potential hostages, and I rose, extending a hand to help Trent up. He shook his head and refused, head bowed as he sat on the ruined earth and tried to catch his breath. Bis was getting the job done, but he clearly lacked finesse. Rubbing my scraped elbow, I looked out over a huge drop-off. Turning, I saw a large valley filled with slumps of rock; the edges had a red sheen from the moon, which showed their outlines facing the east. I made a slow circuit, recognizing where we were when I saw the shallow depressions and the broken bridge across it.
    “Eden Park?” I asked Bis. “Whose line is this?”
    Bis shifted his clawed feet nervously, jumping onto a rock that was probably mirrored in reality by the statue of Romulus and Remus and the wolf. “The only demon who isn’t gunning for us,” he said. “Al’s.”
    My feet shifted in the dirt, and I looked down, thinking there should be something to differentiate this from everything else. We were standing on the very spot where I’d made my pact with Al to be his student if I could have Trent as my familiar. And there Trent was, coughing at my feet, wearing a ring that made him my slave. Slaves could be freed, though.
    As if sensing my emotions of regret and inevitability, Trent wiped the grit from his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said as he stood gracefully, the red rock staining his lab coat like blood.
    “For what?” Head down, I dragged my foot around us in a circle, rude but effective—my thoughts waiting for the twinge that would mean we were found.
    “The sacrifices I asked of you.”
    Surprised, I looked him up and down. “I’m not the one wearing the slave ring. Besides, I’d be content if I could get an apology for you slamming my head into a tombstone and choking me half to death,” I said, twisting the master ring on my finger. Either he knew me better than I thought, or he was getting far more through the rings than I’d gotten from Quen.
    His half smile made something in me twist. “Then I apologize.”
    “And I accept,” I said, tucking a rank strand of hair back. “It never happened. Thank you for saving the babies. That was important to me.”
    His expression went blank. Silent, Trent put his hands on his hips and scanned the brightening skies, squinting.
    He isn’t telling me something . My nose wrinkled at the stench and gritty