Ever After (Rachel Morgan)

tarnished metal. A private line to each other’s thoughts was a rather questionable connection—not a violation as such, but very . . . personal. It didn’t help that they looked like wedding bands.
    Against my better judgment, I slipped the ring on my index finger. Wavering on my feet, I felt my consciousness expand. It was exactly like a scrying mirror, but the connection was tighter, far more intimate. I could feel not just Al’s presence, but sense his masculinity, his worry, his concern. I could sense the limits of his chi, and I knew to the last iota how much it could hold, the power he could wield. It wasn’t as much as I could. It wasn’t that he lacked. Female demons had a naturally elevated ability to harbor two souls behind one aura, as in having a baby.
    “Mother pus bucket,” Al said breathily. “You’ve expanded your reach, Rachel.”
    Apparently he could see my abilities as well. “Is it supposed to feel like this?” I asked, heart pounding as I flicked a quick look at him.
    “This isn’t a good idea,” Al said, seeming as uncomfortable as I was. “We might be able to do this with scrying mirrors.”
    I jumped when he took my hand to slip the ring from me. There was a pain in the back of his eyes that had nothing to do with me. My heart pounded, and not knowing why, I curved my fingers to make a fist. Al’s attention jerked up, and I knew I must’ve looked panicked as he froze. “Ah, I’m good,” I said, tense. “That is, if you’re okay.”
    His lips twitched. “I didn’t expect it to be . . .”
    “What?” I prompted when he faltered.
    “Exactly the way I remembered it,” he said sourly, and he dropped my hand. “Go. Let me know when you’re in reality standing outside the line. As I said, they function much as a scrying mirror.”
    He turned away, waiting, and I hesitated. He was staring out at the broken landscape of the ever-after, thinking of someone. I could feel it in his thoughts, the longing for something he’d lost so long ago that he’d forgotten even that he missed it.
    My feet scuffed, and he tensed. Spinning the ring on my finger, I stepped into the line, being careful to stay clear of the purple center. Immediately the harsh discord renewed my headache, but almost before I recognized it, the pain seemed to halve. Al had taken some of it.
    “Sorry,” I said, and he spun, coattails furling and heartache carefully hidden.
    “That’s what the rings do,” he said, urging me away with his gloved hands. “It’s not anything I wasn’t expecting. Go.”
    Nodding, I took a breath and moved myself into reality. Again I breathed the fresh air, relishing the warmth of the yellow sun and the soft hush of the wind in the trees. It was no wonder demons were bad-tempered. They lived in a virtual hell.
    Remembering Al, I toned down my thoughts of relief.
    Good, they work, he thought, and I squirmed as his masculine, domineering presence solidified in mine. I wasn’t sure if they would between realities.
    “Good Lord, can you ease up?” I asked, feeling as if he was breathing down my neck, and I felt him chuckle.
    Uncomfortable?
    I looked over the fallow, weed-choked garden, seeing the outlines of a man’s dream of a perfect spot of truth. “A little, yes,” I said, then sighed in relief when the spun-adrenaline feeling he was instilling in me seemed to fade. He was everything masculine, and having it so close was unnerving. “Thanks,” I said, backing out of the line and looking at it with my second sight. I could see Al watching me like a foppish ghost from a romance novel. “So, how do I fix it?”
    I changed my mind. You watch. I’ll investigate. I’m going to follow the purple line inward, see if there’s an aura signature on it. Maybe I can plug it. It’s clearly a manufactured flaw, and as such, it will have a beginning and an end with which to unravel it.
    I smiled. “And with proof, they will go after Ku’Sox!”
    I’d rather fix it, he thought at me wryly. If we can’t do that, we will all still die. That is, everyone but you and Ku’Sox.
    My attention came up from where I’d been scuffing the grass. “Then you think he has a way around that curse?”
    He nodded, and my heart pounded. “But you said not to step into the purple line.”
    That was before the rings.
    Distrusting this, I stared at him, the red sheen of a dimensional barrier between us.
    There’s nothing in either reality that will sever our connection through the