A spike of fear slid through me, quickly shoved down deep. I’d survived Ku’Sox by the skin of my teeth—every single time. But as I counted the new blossoms yet to open on the orchid, the thought of the end of magic rang through me with a new clarity. This was why Nick was helping the psychotic demon. An end or reduction to magic would put humans back in the driver’s seat. I couldn’t believe that Ku’Sox didn’t have a way to keep magic alive with the ever-after gone, doling it out to the highest bidder. Or maybe Dali was right and this was simply a way to get me dead and the rest of the demons kowtowing to him.

I sat back down in Trent’s chair so I could watch Jenks now fussing over the orchid and the path. “I might not be able to hear you if magic fails,” I said as I took one of the gingersnaps I had brought over for Ray. “Ever think about that?”

Jenks’s eyes widened. “Tink loves a duck!” he exclaimed, his wings clattering as he carefully untwisted a stem.

The cookie snapped between my teeth. “Might be a good thing,” I said, chewing.

Wing clatter dropping in pitch, Jenks slowly dusted the plant. It was nerves: he gardened, I ate. “I didn’t think about that,” he said.

“This isn’t only about the demons,” I said, making a face when I washed the cookie down with a swallow of that awful tea. It was tepid, and it sucked dishwater. “Having no magic would piss off the vampires, the Weres, and the witches. We’d all survive, but can you imagine? Everyone would be at a disadvantage. Everyone except the humans.”

Jenks darted back to the table. “Yeah? There was magic before the ever-after.”

I took another one of Trent’s fancy cookies that smelled like almonds. “The ley lines in the Arizona desert are dead. The demons killed them when they made the ever-after.”

Jenks looked into the canopy when someone hissed. Hearing it, he hunkered down, trying to look meek in a butch sort of way. I snapped through my cookie, recalling how the dead lines in the Arizona desert had been unusually close together, overlapping like pickup sticks. Maybe they’d been forced together in order to make a hole in reality, ergo making the ever-after. There was something here. I just didn’t have the time to think about it.

“Maybe you’re right,” Jenks said, as if it pained him to say it. “I still say we’d be better off without demons.”