Ever After (Rachel Morgan)

shirt.
    Pierce knelt on the floor before me in wool trousers and a colorful vest, looking like an actor from an early movie. His expression pained, he leaned back on his heels, his arms spread wide and his neck bared to me. “Go ahead!” he screamed, eyes shut as if daring me to strike him with lightning. “Rip my heart out, you foul beast! I could use the time off to plan your demise!”
    I stared. He looked okay, other than the total surrender thing he had going on. His dark curly hair was down to his shoulders again, but his beard was gone, making him look younger. If he was upright, he’d be almost my height exactly, well proportioned and looking like no stranger to hard work. He opened one eye, and when I didn’t say anything, a hint of confusion made him all the more appealing. I thought I might have loved him once, but he was too quick to use the black magic and he kept trying to kill the very people I needed to survive.
    “Ah, Pierce?” I said, thinking this might have been a mistake. “You okay?”
    His breath came in a heave and he scrambled to his feet. His face became ashen, then red. “Rachel?” he said, echoing my same hesitancy.
    I looked over the kitchen, so clearly a mockery of mine now that I had a moment to look at it. My God, it was hot in here. “Newt isn’t here, is she?” If Newt was making duplicates of my kitchen, then she was probably taunting Pierce with images of me as well. Either that or the man was truly off his rocker; by the horrified expression he was now wearing, though, I thought he was stone-cold sane.
    “By all creation. It’s really you!” he exclaimed, and I fell back to the wall when he rushed me. My lips curled up in a smile when he gave me a quick hug, my arms going about him to find he felt both familiar and different. Almost immediately he dropped back, pumping my hand up and down. “I am powerfully sorry!” he gushed, eyes bright. “I thought you were her. The hag appears as you to get a rise out of me when she’s bored. Are you hurt? Did I bruise you? I should have known it was you. Gods, I’m a toad!”
    “I’m fine,” I said, hoping he didn’t see the tiny cut. “Sorry about, ah, hitting you. Are you okay?”
    He went scarlet, glancing at the floor where he’d prostrated himself on my mercy. “I’m of a mind I deserved it and more.” Looking shamed, he fell back a step. “I agree my situation isn’t ideal and a far cry from the pomp and circumstance of a coven member, but I understand the world here, unlike the one you live in, and every time I try to kill her, I get a little closer.”
    I came out from against the wall, both curious and afraid to see the rest of Newt’s apartments. “Oh.”
    “I almost had the harlot the last time, but she turned into you.” He gestured weakly, his eyes pinching at the corners as he tried to explain the last five minutes. “I couldn’t do it.”
    “Pierce . . .” I started, my hand on the table so alike but not the same as the one Ivy had. Perhaps I should have tried harder to get him back on the reality side of the lines.
    “It’s who I am,” he said solemnly, taking my hand and making me look at him. “I think she enjoys my trying to kill her.” He winced, looking worried. “You’re on her mind. Be careful. That’s not a healthy place to be.”
    “That’s why I’m here,” I said, pulling away. “She’s out, right?”
    “Oh, aye, she’s out on the surface. The ever-after is shrinking, and she’s trying to talk to sleeping gargoyles.” He leaned back, arms over his chest. We could almost be in my kitchen, if you didn’t look close. “There’s talk of killing you. Ku’Sox is petitioning for it in soft whispers.” He pushed forward, eyes eager. “We can kill him, you and I. Rachel, is that why you’re here? It is, isn’t it! Why else would you risk it, especially now!”
    “No. Pierce, I can’t kill Ku’Sox.”
    He turned away, opening cupboards to show tools and instruments my kitchen had never had. “Not alone, certainly,” he said confidently. “With my help, it’s possible. Let me gather my things, and we will be away, that monster dead in five minutes.”
    Distressed, I felt the rings in my pocket. “Not even with your help,” I said, and he glanced up from a drawer, frowning. I remembered that frown, and I stifled a surge of tired anger. “Pierce, I’ve fought him before, and he’s too strong. Too fast. I’m not that good.”
    “Mmm,” he grumbled,