Chapters (42)
- Title Page
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Acknowledgements
- Also by Kim Harrison
- Copyright
- About the Publisher
- Cover
Maybe I should have gone into the ever-after. Even Al is better than this.
Twenty
Twenty
The slamming of the screen door behind me jumped through me like a spark. I had to get away. I had to go somewhere to regroup, figure out what had just happened. But as I stood in the silence, there was no peace in the living room. Ivy’s couch was heady with vampire incense and memories. Leaving wet footprints, I paced into the kitchen.
My sneakers squeaked to a halt, and my heart pounded as I listened to the calls of the pixies through the window. The blue lights on the fridge’s ice maker glowed, and I looked at the picture of me and Jenks standing before the bridge at Mackinaw. But the kitchen held no comfort even though my glinting spell pots and herbs made it mine. It was Ivy’s, too, and the thought of her black eyes savage with the need to survive was too fresh.
Spinning, I walked past my room to the sanctuary. The hint of burnt amber coming from my bathroom and the blanket Al had given me—still waiting to be washed—seemed like a veil I had to push through, and I held my breath until I got to the wide space. As I stood at the end of the hall, the whispers of pixies at play seemed to echo from my past, the bright room a pleasant mix of all three of us and the memory of Kisten. There was no comfort here.
I was trapped by everything I cared about. I wanted to be cocooned,safe, but my security had always been the church and those in it. Right now, they were what was knotting my gut.
At a loss, I collapsed on the couch, pulling my knees to my chest and trying to find something to ease the ache. Sniffing back a tear of frustration, I thought of Al’s kitchen and the hours I’d spent there in front of the smaller hearth, in the quiet with Mr. Fish and my own thoughts to keep me company. There was a peaceful security there, with the world pushed to the edges as I learned something new, gaining satisfaction and a grudging “passable” from the very demon I’d once been terrified of. I still was, but it was an old terror now, like growing up thinking you weren’t going to see the next spring.
There was a scuffing at the top of the hall. Forehead on my drawn-up knees, I didn’t look.
“Rachel?”
It was Pierce, and my head started to hurt. “Go away,” I said. It had been his idea.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly, and I lifted my head when he started to walk away.