Ever After (Rachel Morgan)

of escaping air from the temperature-controlled cabinet was soft, and Quen glanced at Jenks as he swung the doors wide. “Not sure,” he said shortly. “Old. I can find out.”
    “Hey, Quen.” Jenks circled the statue, avarice in his gaze. “Let me know if Trent ever wants to get rid of this. I have a spot in my front room it would look ace in.”
    I held my breath as I leaned toward the open cabinet, avoiding any possible demon stink. “Are they demon made?” I asked as I looked over the books, some so old they were falling apart.
    Quen looked at me, suspicion in his eyes. “The rings? No. Elven. Why?”
    “Al has something similar.” I took a hesitant breath, pleased when I found only the honest scent of leather and decaying ink.
    Quen snorted, the rude sound seeming odd coming from him. “I doubt that,” he said as he scanned the spines. “They’re chastity rings.”
    Jenks sniggered, coming to make annoying circles around me. “Too late for you, Rache.”
    Irked, I waved him off. I thought it odd that Trent would keep chastity rings next to his elf porn, but it wasn’t like he used any of these things. I think. This was his father’s collection, like some dads have stamps. Or guns.
    Quen reached for a book set aside by itself. “More accurately, they’re binding rings,” he said, his face showing the strain as he stretched for it. “It creates a continuous bond between two chis so the wearer of the alpha ring can snuff the magical ability of the other if needed. They were used to keep younger, inexperienced elves from exposing themselves as magic users. They don’t work, though. The charm in them is long spent.”
    “The books don’t smell,” I said as he set the book on the library table. “Bad, I mean,” when he looked at me. No, they didn’t smell, but there was a faint whine at the back of my ear, like a high-pitched echo of leashed magic that made me uncomfortable.
    “None of them have been in the ever-after for at least five hundred years.” His voice was distant as he stood over the book and carefully turned the yellowed pages until he got to a section marked with a black ribbon. The binding made a cracking sound as he shifted the last page, and I swear he winced.
    Standing over the tattered book, I looked down to read “Ley Line Corruption and Manipulation” in big, squished loops that I sort of recognized. My eyes went up, and I squinted at Quen suspiciously. “That’s Ceri’s handwriting.”
    “No shit!” Jenks said, finally abandoning the statue to come hover over the text.
    “I know.” Quen’s eyes shifted as he read the text. “We have six books here that Ceri has copied. A handful of other scripts. She doesn’t remember doing them. Ellasbeth insists that the book stays here. You’re welcome to spend the night if you want to read it cover to cover, but I believe this is what you want. I read it before it was returned to Mrs. Withon.”
    Sitting, I looked at Ceri’s extravagant loops and swirls. I sucked at research. If he’d done it already, I was good with that, though I might come back and read it all later. “Thanks,” I said as I tugged the book closer. Quen cringed, and I curled my tingling fingertips under.
    “So how come it was at the Withons’?” Jenks said, his feet lightly touching the pages.
    Quen sat in the chair across from me, motions slow as if he wasn’t sure he was going to hold together. “Trent’s mother and Ellie were good friends.”
    There was more to the story than that, but it didn’t really matter. Jenks flew up when I shifted to a new page, and his dust spilled over everything to make the letters glow. Seeing it, Quen leaned forward. “Interesting . . .”
    I met his eyes. “You didn’t know pixy dust makes demon texts glow?”
    “No,” he admitted, leaning back and steepling his fingers.
    Wondering if this was where Trent got his little nervous tell from, I went back to the text. “You’re shooting yourself in the foot, Quen. Jenks has six bucks looking for property this spring. They can all read and they don’t mind fairies.”
    “Hey!” Jenks said. “Quit trying to farm out my kids!”
    “Just pointing things out,” I said as I turned the page to a map of the dead lines in Arizona. A second map showed where the author thought they’d been before they’d been shoved together. Quen was right. There might be something here. It was all theory, but theory based on fact and observation.
    Seeing me intently