Ever After (Rachel Morgan)

eerily behind him, “but I don’t think the rest will appreciate it. Would you like another bottle of wine?”
    I wondered if he was trying to get him drunk enough to pass out until the sun rose, seeing as Al showed no sign of leaving. Sure enough, his mouth on the bottle, Al nodded. “You helped kill Ku’Sox,” he said when he came up for air. “You don’t think they remember that? You can handle being in the collective.” He reached eagerly for the bottle Trent was extending.
    “I’m not worried about handling it. I think they wouldn’t approve,” Trent said.
    “Fiddlesticks,” Al said, then cleared his throat. “ A-dap-erire . . .” he intoned carefully, and I checked to see that my zipper was up when the cork flew out of the bottle. He might be drunk, but he still had control, and it was right where it belonged. “Elves used to be part of the collective,” Al said as he winced at the first harsh swallow. “Just because there haven’t been any for the last five thousand years doesn’t mean it can’t be done. You can access the old curses then. Protect yourself. You’re going to need it. The old ways are ending. Embrace the new. Elves and demons living together.” He blinked. “Oh God. We’re all going to die.”
    Standing beside the cot, Trent took the empty bottle from Al. “No. Thank you, but no.”
    “Here.” Al reached out for the cracked scrying mirror, and I handed it to him, wishing he would go to sleep. “Draw the figures, elf man. Draw it. Pick a name. We can use your marvelous wine. Ceri, be useful and go fetch some salt.”
    My heart clenched, but kneeling beside the fire as I was, I didn’t question why he’d called me that. “Go to sleep, Al,” I said, my own sorrow rising.
    “You want to be prince of the elves or not?” Al said, wavering where he sat. “Royalty always conversed with demons before they were wed. It’s tradition. It’s how I tricked Ceri into loving me. You’re not married, are you? On the side, perhaps? In Montana?”
    Trent grimaced. “I need to think up a good name. I promise when I get a good name that no one can think of, I will. Why don’t you rest for a minute?”
    Al delicately belched, and sighing heavily, he leaned back into the shadows until his black eyes glowed from the dark. “Capital idea. Good idea. Clever, clever elf. We will wait. You pick out a name, then call me.”
    The fire snapped, and then from the cot came a long, rattling snore. Trent cautiously tried to take the bottle from Al, giving up when it began to glow. Leaving it in Al’s grip, he turned to me and shrugged. “I think he’s out.”
    “I am so sorry.” Embarrassed, I got up from the fire and began to collect the stuff that Al had popped in from his kitchen. “I had no idea he’d feel the curse, much less come and see what I was doing.”
    Trent handed me the bag of sand. “He probably has never dealt with grief,” he said, and I set it with the rest.
    “Too much of it, rather. He was married once. Only the demons who knew how to love survived the making of the ever-after.”
    Shocked, Trent looked from me to Al and back again. “I didn’t know that.”
    A long snore came from behind the curtain, and a soft mumble. Trent sat down in his chair, clearly reluctant to leave Al here alone. “Do you think he can resurrect Ceri? I’ve tried.”
    My chest hurt, and I sat in the chair next to him where we could both watch the fire and Al both. “No. I’ve tried several times, too. Pierce as well. They’ve moved on. I’m happy for them, but it hurts.” I hadn’t been able to summon my father or Kisten, either.
    Trent was rubbing his new pinkie with his thumb in introspection. “Quen will be hurting for a long time. That’s why I insisted he go with the girls. And as a buffer for Ellasbeth.”
    Hearing more in that statement than he was saying, I turned to him. “How about you?”
    “Me?” He looked at the bottle in Al’s grip, then topped off his glass with the bottle on the hearth between us. “I’m not the one Ceri loved,” he said, but I could hear his regret. I waved off his offer to refill my untouched glass, and when I remained silent, he added, “I liked her, but I didn’t love her. She was . . . too proud to love me. Distant.”
    “And you need someone more earthy,” I said, only half kidding.
    Al snorted. There was a clunk, and the wine bottle rolled out from behind the curtain. It sloshed to a halt at Trent’s foot, and he