Quen’s eyes flicked to mine by way of the rearview mirror. His conversation with Ivy had cut off, and the tension in the car spiked. “You don’t need to know why I need to get to the coast,” Trent said softly, and Quen’s grip tightened on the steering wheel. Crap on toast, whatever it was, it was bad. “All you need to do is get me there,” Trent finished.

Jenks’s wings were humming a warning, and even Ivy looked worried as she turned in the front seat so she could see me. Her window made a soft sound as she cracked it.

“You’re the only one Quen…trusts,” Trent added, his gaze on his fingers in the shaft of early sun, gray through the tinted windows.

There was that word again, and I grimaced as I looked to Quen and he inclined his head at me in unspoken encouragement. Damn it, I didn’t want to be responsible for Trent. I didn’t even like Trent. “Just get your little elf butt on your private jet and go,” I muttered, jealous that his money made everything easy for him.

“I can’t,” Trent explained patiently. “I can’t take the train, either. Tradition says I have to go by land, and I need to be there by Sunday night.”

“Two days!” I yelped. “By car? Are you nuts? What do you need to do on the West Coast in two days that you can’t do by phone?”

Jenks’s wings hummed as if he was going to join us in the back, but a look from Ivy stopped him. The car turned a corner and the sun shifted, coming in to touch my knee without warmth. Trent leaned back into the shadows, reluctant to answer. “What’s on the West Coast?” I asked again. “Trent, if you want my help, treat me like a professional. I need to know. Especially if lame-ass assassins are going to be dogging us.”

Quen sighed heavily, and at the sound Trent seemed to get mad. “It’s my personal business,” Trent said, glancing at the back of Quen’s head. “No one will be hurt by it, and it doesn’t touch on your upcoming trial.”

“It’s not a trial, it’s a pardon,” I said quickly, but we all knew he was right.

Trent looked at me across the seat, his green eyes almost black in the shadows. “If you can get me there by Sunday, I should have time to speak for you at the meeting as well,” he said, earning a bark of laughter from Jenks. “That is, if my familiar curse is gone by then.”

Carrots. Sweeter than vinegar but still unpalatable, I thought, remembering the drug-laced carrots I’d eaten once while a mink trapped in his office. Son of a bitch, what was I doing?

“Get me there after Sunday, and I’ll miss my window of opportunity,” Trent added. “Three days, and there is no reason for me to go at all. If we leave immediately, we can make both of our deadlines.”