Trent cleared his throat, affronted, but Al was talking and I had to concentrate. Growing up is hard, love. Otherwise everyone would do it.

“Spare me,” I muttered. “I need a jump for Trent and Jenks to Seattle and back. I know you’re going to do it or you wouldn’t have gotten out of bed.”

A devious spark lit through Al, making me smile. One way. It costs too much, he said.

“There’s no inflation in the ever-after, Al.”

Call it a recession then. One way.

I looked at Trent and smiled. He relaxed, exhaling as his shoulders dropped. “Okay, one way,” I said. “But I want to see them off, so it’s one way for them, two way for me.”

Deal, Al thought sharply, and Jenks made a burst of gold dust, yelping.

“Holy crap!” the pixy swore, and the fractured disjointedness of San Francisco’s ley lines sliced into me, jangling my nerves. I snapped a bubble of protection around my thoughts, large enough to include Jenks and Trent. I could feel Trent’s flash of fear dissolve into acceptance, and Jenks readying himself, his steady courage flowing into me like a memory that wasn’t mine. Surrounding us like an oily smoke was Al’s presence, but I pulled most of his reeking burnt amber and selfishness to me, not wanting Trent and Jenks to have to deal with it. Embarrassed, maybe?

The train station, Al! I shouted in my thoughts, not wanting to show up in traffic. On the platform, I added. My nonexistent heart pounded, and I felt the lines grow pure around me again, the taint of salt and rust fading away to be replaced by the taste of ozone, clean, pure, and fast.

A glimpse of an immense, dirty room, not yet formed, sifted through my eyes. The presences of Trent and Jenks were with me, and I dissolved the bubble holding them as I felt their souls slip from my grasp and return to the memory of their bodies. I ached to take a breath, but as soon as I thought I might have lungs, I was yanked back into nothing, my forming body dissolving so fast I swear it hurt.

Al! I shouted, disoriented. And then it was Al sheltering my thoughts. I threw up another barrier between us as he laughed. The platform dissolved, and reality swung around. I waited for the trendy furnishings of the hotel in San Francisco to appear and gritted my nonexistent teeth to endure the fractured ley lines the witches were forced to use here, but the tinfoil-on-teeth feeling never came. Instead, the line grew warmer, comfortable. Familiar.

Crap on toast, I thought as I reached for the top of the leather wingback chair, my fingers ghosting through until I yanked them back and tried again to find them solid. I was in Al’s library.

“Trent? Jenks?” I called out as soon as I had lungs. Damn it, had it all been a trap? I should have let Pierce kill him.