My heart clenched, but kneeling beside the fire as I was, I didn’t question why he’d called me that. “Go to sleep, Al,” I said, my own sorrow rising.

“You want to be prince of the elves or not?” Al said, wavering where he sat. “Royalty always conversed with demons before they were wed. It’s tradition. It’s how I tricked Ceri into loving me. You’re not married, are you? On the side, perhaps? In Montana?”

Trent grimaced. “I need to think up a good name. I promise when I get a good name that no one can think of, I will. Why don’t you rest for a minute?”

Al delicately belched, and sighing heavily, he leaned back into the shadows until his black eyes glowed from the dark. “Capital idea. Good idea. Clever, clever elf. We will wait. You pick out a name, then call me.”

The fire snapped, and then from the cot came a long, rattling snore. Trent cautiously tried to take the bottle from Al, giving up when it began to glow. Leaving it in Al’s grip, he turned to me and shrugged. “I think he’s out.”

“I am so sorry.” Embarrassed, I got up from the fire and began to collect the stuff that Al had popped in from his kitchen. “I had no idea he’d feel the curse, much less come and see what I was doing.”

Trent handed me the bag of sand. “He probably has never dealt with grief,” he said, and I set it with the rest.

“Too much of it, rather. He was married once. Only the demons who knew how to love survived the making of the ever-after.”

Shocked, Trent looked from me to Al and back again. “I didn’t know that.”

A long snore came from behind the curtain, and a soft mumble. Trent sat down in his chair, clearly reluctant to leave Al here alone. “Do you think he can resurrect Ceri? I’ve tried.”

My chest hurt, and I sat in the chair next to him where we could both watch the fire and Al both. “No. I’ve tried several times, too. Pierce as well. They’ve moved on. I’m happy for them, but it hurts.” I hadn’t been able to summon my father or Kisten, either.

Trent was rubbing his new pinkie with his thumb in introspection. “Quen will be hurting for a long time. That’s why I insisted he go with the girls. And as a buffer for Ellasbeth.”

Hearing more in that statement than he was saying, I turned to him. “How about you?”