It didn’t surprise me she was quoting Sherlock Holmes. The anal logic and brusque nature of the fictional detective fit right in with Ivy’s personality. “Well, if you want to entertain the improbable,” I muttered, “you can lump demons in with the possibilities.”

“Demons?” Ivy’s tapping fingers stilled.

I shook my head in bother. “Trent’s not a demon. I only mentioned it because demons are from the ever-after and so can manipulate ley lines, too.”

“I’d forgotten that,” she breathed, the soft sound sending a shiver down my spine, but she was intent on her thoughts and had no idea how creepy she was getting. “That you’re related, I mean. Witches and demons.” An affronted snort slipped past me, and she shrugged apologetically. “Sorry. Didn’t know it was a sore spot.”

“It isn’t,” I said tightly, though it was. There had been a flurry of controversy about a decade ago when a nosy human in the field of Inderland genealogy got hold of the few genetic maps that had survived the Turn, theorizing that because witches could manipulate ley lines, we had originated in the ever-after along with demons. Witches aren’t related to demons. But much to our embarrassment, science forced us to admit aloud that we had evolved right along next to them in the ever-after.

Finding funding with that unsavory tidbit, the woman then went beyond her original theory, using the rates of RNA mutation to properly place the time of our en masse migration to this side of the ley lines about five thousand years ago. Witch mythology claimed that a demon uprising had prompted the move, leaving the elves to foolishly wage a losing battle, since they wouldn’t leave their beloved fields and woods to be raped of their natural resources and polluted. It sounded like a viable theory, and the elves had lost all their history by the time they gave up and followed suit a measly two thousand years ago.

That humans had developed skill in ley line magic about that time was blamed on the elves’ practice of using their magic to hybridize with humanity to stave off the extinction the demons started and the Turn finished. My thoughts turned to Nick, and I slumped. It was just as well witches were so far from humanity that even magic couldn’t bridge the gap. Who knew what an uninformed witch/human hybrid skilled in ley lines might do? That the elves had brought humanity into the ley-line-using family was bad enough. The elves’ dexterity with line magic had slipped into the human genome as if it belonged. It was enough to make you wonder.

Elves? I thought, going cold. It had been staring me right in the face. “Oh—my—God,” I whispered.

Ivy looked up, her swinging legs stilling as she took in my expression.