“Better than,” Minias drawled, his fingers still toying with my perfumes. “Giving the focus to the Weres is going to turn around and bite you, but it did accomplish what you wanted.” His goat-slitted eyes focused on mine, and my tension rose. “The Weres are happy, and the vampires think it’s destroyed. Right?”

Right. “I’m fine,” I said tartly, my fear coming out as cheek. “You can go now.”

“The elf did it,” he said, shaking his head. “Al has more drive and talent to teach than I gave him credit for. He taught her extremely well to be able to untwist a curse like that and leave you…relatively unscathed. No wonder he kept her for a thousand years.”

Face scrunched up, he smelled another bottle and set it down. “Al is furious,” he said casually, and even my false bravado vanished. “They caught him seconds after you threw him back to our side of the lines. He’s in his own personal hell. And you still owe him a favor.” Sniffing a third perfume, he looked at me from under a lowered brow. “I wonder what it will be?”

“I’m fine. Get out,” I repeated.

“May I have this?” he asked, holding the bottle upright.

“If you leave, you can have them all.”

The bottle vanished from the cradle of his fingertips. “One last thing,” he said, an odd glint in his eyes. “The focus?”

I stiffened, a trickle of fear growing in the pit of my being. “Yeah?”

“It wasn’t what Newt was looking for when she tore your church apart.”

He began to vanish, and I stepped forward, frightened. “What was she looking for?”

I haven’t the slightest idea, echoed in my thoughts.

“Wait!” I shouted. “Does she remember me? Minias! Does she remember me?”

I searched the night for sound and my mind for thoughts, but he was gone. Another instant and the light he had set glowing in my mirror faded to nothing.

Crap. What had she been looking for if it hadn’t been the focus?

The thump of the front door closing echoed through the brightening air, and I looked to the front of the church. A car started, and tension brought me straight when I recognized Ivy’s soft footsteps in the hall. “Ivy…” I said, then put a hand to my throat when it hurt.

I jumped when my bedroom door was flung open and a gray shaft of light spilled in. “Rachel,” Ivy said, her features lost in shadow.

“Last time I checked,” I said, deciding that mentioning Minias wouldn’t help anyone.

“You’re okay,” she whispered, coming in and gripping my arm. “It’s you. Right? Just you?” Her eyes were wide from the shadow, and there was a bandage on her neck. Seeing my blank stare, she took me in a surprising hug. “Thank you, God.”