Surprised, I looked him up and down. “I’m not the one wearing the slave ring. Besides, I’d be content if I could get an apology for you slamming my head into a tombstone and choking me half to death,” I said, twisting the master ring on my finger. Either he knew me better than I thought, or he was getting far more through the rings than I’d gotten from Quen.

His half smile made something in me twist. “Then I apologize.”

“And I accept,” I said, tucking a rank strand of hair back. “It never happened. Thank you for saving the babies. That was important to me.”

His expression went blank. Silent, Trent put his hands on his hips and scanned the brightening skies, squinting.

He isn’t telling me something. My nose wrinkled at the stench and gritty wind, remembering when we’d walked from the church to the basilica in the ever-after. There were no surface demons here now, and I wondered where they were. “It’s awful,” I said softly. “It used to be woods, springs, and fog. All of it, the entire ever-after.”

Trent’s attention fell to me. “How do you know?”

I shrugged. “I eavesdropped on one of Al’s dreams. I think I know what they used to look like, too.” My head turned. “They were the slaves of elves once, weren’t they? And they rebelled. Got the best of you.”

His expression went empty. “Rumor has it.”

“And you tried to destroy them.”

Trent took a slow breath. I could feel Bis paying attention. “I wouldn’t argue with that.”

“And now you’re helping me save them.”

Nodding, he smiled with half his mouth again. “My goal was to save you, but yes, I suppose I’m saving them as well.”

Bis jerked. An instant later, I felt it too. Someone was coming. With three wing flaps, Bis was on my shoulder, the healed line singing. I pulled heavily on Al’s line, and it hummed through me, drowning out the damage we had yet to repair in other lines. Trent’s head came up in shock, feeling it as well.

“Okay, time to see if these rings were worth lying to me about,” I said, putting my back to Trent’s and readying myself.

“Time to see if you’re as good as I think you are,” Trent whispered, and I blinked as he raised a circle with the line I had drawn in the dirt. The energy didn’t exactly flow through me, but I felt it as keenly as if it had. In my mind, whispers of spells I’d never heard of breathed and glowed with the sound of distant music. My lips parted in awe. Trent’s magic. And if I was seeing his internal spell book, he was probably seeing mine.