Ever After (Rachel Morgan)

you fix the line?”
    I didn’t like being called “love,” especially not by her, but I let it pass. “No,” I said sullenly.
    “Of course she can!” Al shouted to drown out the immediate complaints, his hands raised pleadingly as he shot me a glare. “We need more time, is all.”
    “We have no time!” Ku’Sox asserted, aggressively riling them up. “She broke the balance. Killing her will fix it.”
    “It will not!” I exclaimed, but Al’s wince and Dali’s sudden deflation as he sat down made me wonder. “It won’t, will it?” I asked Al softly, and the demon made a long, drawn-out, regretful noise of possibility.
    Dali leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, ignoring the rising noise behind us for a moment. “Unfortunately it might,” he said to me, giving the demons time to argue. “Lines created from a jump between reality and the ever-after are permanent, for the most part, but lines made from a reality-to-reality jump are not, and killing you might erase it.”
    “Might?” Panicking, I looked at Ku’Sox, hating his smug smile. “This is a setup,” I said, wanting to retreat but there was nowhere to go. “The line was stable. Well, not stable, but it wasn’t unzipping like this! Someone’s tampered with it!” It was as close as I dared go without actually blaming him, and even so, Al lightly smacked me on the shoulder to shut up.
    “We have nowhere to go if the ever-after collapses,” Ku’Sox said, voice loud over the rising noise. “Kill her before it’s too late!”
    “Wrong!” I shouted, and Al sighed heavily. “ They have nowhere to go. You do.”
    Ku’Sox beamed at me as if I’d played right into his hands. “Not anymore, but you do, Rachel. Perhaps you are trying to kill us. ”
    “Me?” I stammered, mentally backpedaling as I realized why he was so smug. He was going to kill the ever-after and everyone in it—blaming it on me. He had a way around the curse. Had to. Or he knew a way to force me to remove it. Maybe Lucy and Ceri had been kidnapped to force my hand, not Trent’s. Damn it all to the Turn and back.
    “I didn’t do this!” I spun to face the crowd behind me, then back to Dali. “I was on a horse in reality when the line started leaking this bad!”
    Ku’Sox stood. “Then you admit it was leaking? And you never told anyone?”
    Al was holding his head in his hand, and I wished I’d kept my mouth shut. “Just a little,” I said, then had to raise my voice when they all began talking. “I was trying to fix it before anyone noticed!”
    Al stood stiffly beside me as he fidgeted in subtle ways that only I could possibly see. “Will you shut up now?” he breathed, roughly turning me to face Newt and Dali.
    “But he did it!”
    “But you can’t prove it!” Al mocked my whiny tone.
    “There are thriving Rosewood babies being stolen, and he kidnapped hostages to force my freed familiar to make the cure permanent!” I shouted. “Doesn’t that sound a bit odd to you?” But no one cared.
    “Are you done?” Al muttered, his back stiff as he faced Newt and Dali.
    Looking uneasy, Dali rose to his feet, hands raised to quiet them. “Rachel, as it is your line and you’re the only demon who can survive free of the ever-after, we are understandably concerned that your intent is to destroy us and the ever-after.”
    My hasty breath to protest whooshed out as Al poked me in the ribs to be quiet.
    “Much as I regret my decision,” Dali said, moving to the front of the drop-off between us, “it’s my recommendation that if Rachel admits that she can’t balance her line, then perhaps her death is the best way to ensure our continued existence.”
    I couldn’t speak. They weren’t serious, were they? Ku’Sox had done something. I knew it by his smug expression as he listened to the demons call for my blood. Standing there, my heart hammered, and I backed up into Al. They couldn’t. I hadn’t done anything!
    Dali looked at me, and I quailed. “If it’s a choice between your life and all of ours, then you will die.” He hesitated, then added quietly, “Even if you’re not actually the one who should be blamed for it.”
    His eyes slid behind me to Ku’Sox, and my hope leaped. He believed me. I glanced at Al to see he realized it, too. And Newt, now toasting me with her wine. Proof. We needed proof. I could do that. I could get the damned proof. I just needed a few days.
    “Gentle associates, gentle associates!” Al said, his