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
“It can’t be this easy,” I said as I followed her with Nick tight on my heels. Jax was with him, and Jenks slipped in an instant before the doors shut.
“Maybe because it isn’t,” Ivy said, and I stared at the blank walls of the large room.
“Where’s the vault?” I asked, then turned to Nick. “Where’s the freaking vault!”
“Right in front of you,” he said, and I spun, in a really bad mood. “Rachel, where’s the ley line?” he added, and frustrated, I hesitated.
“Uh, right here,” I said, eyes going wide. “You don’t think the way into the vault is … through the ever-after?” I asked, and Nick smiled deviously. “But you can’t do that!”
It was a beautiful thought if it could be done, though. The perfect door. If the magnets were unpowered, the line wouldn’t even come close and the door wouldn’t even exist. Closing my eyes, I reached for the ley line, shocked when I found it, bent and running through the wall just as he’d said it might. A quiver went through me. Trent’s dad had gone into the ever-after with my dad and come out, not bought a trip from someone.He could shift from reality to the ever-after and back using a ley line. And so could Trent, apparently. He must really not want me to know he could if he had risked everything last summer buying our way in and out of the ever-after.
Nick’s smile was wide when I opened my eyes, and he pushed himself from the wall. “So where’s the door?”
Heart pounding, I scanned the empty room. “Right in front of us. Let me pull up my second sight and see what’s going on.” Damn it, Nick knew witches couldn’t do this. But he thought I could?
It was weird, how the magnets had pulled the line deep into the earth. Weird, and really clever. But even that thought vanished when I brought my second sight up to find that instead of the expected rock and rubble of being underground, we were in an open space, with tall ceilings and flat floors, colorful banners, and the phantom sound of eighties music done instrumentally.
“Holy. Crap,” I gasped, shocked when I recognized it. It was the demons’ mall. Al had taken me here once when he was out of powered rock from Pompeii. My hand went to my throat as I saw the demons and familiars going about their business. I’d be unseen unless they used their own second sight. I was like a ghost, not really in the ever-after but just looking at it. I turned to the wall, blinking. It was gone, a coffeehouse catering to demons and familiars alike in its place.