Trent’s eye twitched. “I didn’t make it collapse,” he said, his beautiful voice strained.

Feeling used, I set the fourth candle, my hair falling onto the mirror to meet its reflection. “I never said you did,” I said. “But they want you dead, and they want you dead now. What are you trying to do that the Withons will sacrifice a park full of people to prevent?” I looked at him, thinking he appeared sharp and cold in the shadow with me. “People got hurt because of us. Killed. Kids, Trent. If I hadn’t gone to St. Louis, the arch would still be standing and those kids…those kids would still be okay. I deserve to know why!” I said, not wanting to get back in the car without an answer.

Trent, his expression a blank nothing, looked into the field where the pixies were showing off for Jenks. “It’s something between Ellasbeth and myself,” he finally said reluctantly.

The fourth candle fell over when I let go of it, and it rolled almost off the mirror before I caught it. “You going to kill her?” I asked outright, my heart pounding.

“No!” I felt better at the horror in his voice, and he said it again, as if I might not believe him. “No. Never.”

The wind shifted his hair, and I couldn’t help but think he looked better now than in a thousand-dollar suit. Silent, I waited. Finally he grimaced and looked at his feet. “Ellasbeth has something that belongs to me,” he said. “I’m going to get it. She wants to keep it, is all.”

“We caused a pileup on the interstate and hurt a bunch of kids over a family heirloom ring?” I guessed, disgusted. “A stupid hunk of rock?”

“It’s not a hunk of rock.” Trent’s green eyes lowered as he looked at his hands in his lap, fixing on me fervently when he looked up. “It’s the direction the next generation of elves is going to take. What happens in the following days will shape the next two hundred years.”

Oh, really? Thinking that over, I tried to get the candle to stick, holding my breath as I let it go, watching it carefully. I didn’t know why I was helping him. I really didn’t.

“You don’t believe me,” Trent said, his anger showing at last. “You asked why they want me dead. I told you the truth, and you haven’t said anything.”

My gaze coming up from the mirror, I looked at him from under my straggly hair. I was so friggin’ tired it hurt. “The Withons are trying to stop you from getting this thing so they can shape the next two hundred years of elfdom, not you, eh?”

“That’s it.” Trent’s shoulders eased at my sarcasm. “Our marriage was supposed to be a way to avoid this. If I can claim it by sunrise Monday, then it’s mine forever. If not, then I lose everything.” His expression was empty of emotion. “Everything, Rachel.”