Again there was silence. I could hear Ray crying in the background, and my spine stiffened. “Ellasbeth,” I said softly, a hand to my forehead as I turned away from the bright kitchen window. “Trent and I have not slept together. Ever. I think you and he make a great couple. Can I please go back to sleep now?” This was ridiculous. Leave it to Ellasbeth to go poking around the first chance she got.

“I didn’t know it was you,” the woman said, the thread of fear in her voice waking me up faster than slamming a double grande. “You’re the first number on Trenton’s emergency list.”

Ray was still crying. “Where’s Trent?” She didn’t say anything, and I hunched over the phone as Jenks came in, a worried gold dust slipping from him. “Look you . . . elf woman,” I said, not wanting her to hang up on me. “I know you don’t like me, but so help your trickster goddess, if you don’t tell me why you’re calling Trent’s emergency numbers, I’m going to crawl through this telephone line and strangle you.”

Jenks landed on the rim of my vat of saltwater, his expression becoming concerned when Ellasbeth took a frustrated breath. “He’s gone! I think he went into the ever-after to get Lucy.”

My grip on the phone tightened, and Jenks’s wings hummed to life. Trent went off on his own? He dropped a perfectly good plan in my lap and went off and left me here? Son of a bastard!

Jenks darted out, and I stalked across the kitchen, waiting for Ellasbeth to take a breath, but she was well practiced, getting in three sentences belittling Trent before I could attempt even a word. “Ellasbeth, can I talk to Quen, please?” I asked, seething. He was gone. The smart-ass elf was going to get himself killed.

“I’m alone up here!” Ellasbeth shouted. “This baby won’t stop screaming, and there’s no one here to help me!”

Belle came in with Jenks, the fairy concerned as Jenks dropped down and smacked Rex’s paw aside as he filled her in.

“Ellasbeth, stop having hysterics,” I said as I met Jenks’s eyes. “Where is Quen, and how long has Trent been gone?”

Finally she stopped. “I don’t know. Quen is in the basement trying to open the vault.”

Fear, thick and cloying, slithered out from the hopeful promises I’d been telling myself. “How long has Trent been gone?”