Eyes still shut, I looked at the ever-after, thinking it was even stranger lit under the demons’ sun. The walls of Trent’s office were gone, and only Edden’s hushed conversation with Nick kept me grounded, telling my frazzled mind that no, I hadn’t crossed into the ever-after, I was standing in a trapdoor, seeing a vision of it.

Spreading in all directions was a rolling landscape of scattered groves of trees and wide, open tracts. To the east and west stretched a hazy ribbon of ley line force. I was standing two-thirds down its considerable length, and I would guess it went to Trent’s back office. The sky was a washed-out yellow and the sun was intense, beating down as if trying to crush the squat, stubby trees into the ground. I felt as if it was passing right through me, bouncing up and warming the undersides of my feet. Even the coarse grass seemed stunted, barely coming to mid-calf. In the hazy distance to the west were a cluster of sharp lines and angles towering over the landscape. Eerie and strange, the demon city was clearly broken.

“Cool,” I breathed, and Edden shushed Nick’s demands for information.

Knowing Trent was watching, though I couldn’t see him, I turned my back on him so he couldn’t read my lips as I whispered the first half of the incantation. Fortunately, I recalled the short translated phrase, since I didn’t want to open my eyes to read it off my palm.

As the words fell from me, a slight imbalance of everafter energy stirred in my feet, swirling up to settle in my belly. My knees grew loose as the grass bent toward me from all sides. Ley line strength flowed into me, carrying a pleasant slurry of tingles with it. I wondered how intense the sensation would grow, not wanting to admit it felt good.

My hair lifted in a sudden swirl of power as I began the second half. With all but the word of invocation said, the energy crested, sending a swirl of prickles to push evenly through me. It hung within me for a moment, then it flashed from me in a flat pulse of yellow, to run like ripples over the contours of the land.

“Holy crap,” I said, then covered my mouth, hoping I hadn’t just ruined the charm. I hadn’t finished it yet. Shocked, I watched with my second sight as the flat sheet of ever-after energy sped away. The pulse was the color of my aura, and I felt uneasy, reminding myself that the spell had taken only the hue of my aura, not my aura itself.