My eyes widened. I looked from Al to her. “No shit?”

She smiled at me, her hair floating as she tucked it behind an ear. “No shit.”

Al harrumphed, and we jerked our attentions back to him. “What about you?” he said, clearly annoyed. “What do you want for keeping your mouth shut?”

The satisfaction of getting something back from her former captor and tormentor was in Ceri’s eyes. “You will take back the stain on my soul that I took in your stead, and you will not seek reprisal against me or my kin in body or law from now until the two worlds collide.”

“I’m not taking back a thousand years of curse imbalance,” Al said indignantly. “That’s why you were my damn familiar.” He put both feet on the floor and leaned forward. “But I won’t have it said I’m not agreeable. You keep the smut, but I’ll let you teach one person how to hold line energy.” A smile, contriving and satisfied, filled his unholy eyes. “One child. A girl child. Your daughter. And if she tells anyone, her soul is forfeit to me. Immediately.”

Ceri paled, and I didn’t understand. “She can tell one of her daughters, and so on,” she countered, and Al smiled.

“Done.” He stood. The glow of ever-after energy hovered about him like a shadow. Lacing his fingers together, he cracked his knuckles. “Oh, this is grand. This is good.”

I looked at Ceri in wonder. “I thought he’d be upset,” I said softly.

She shook her head, clearly worried. “He still has a hold on you. And he’s counting on one of my kin to forget the seriousness of the arrangement and make a mistake.”

“The familiar bonds,” I insisted, glancing at the dark window. “He breaks them now?”

“The time of dissolution was never stated,” Al said. He was touching the things he had brought into my kitchen, making them disappear in a smear of ever-after.

Ceri drew herself up. “It was tacitly implied. Break your hold, Algaliarept.”

He looked over his glasses at her, smiling when he put a hand before and behind him and made a mocking bow. “It is a small thing, Ceridwen Merriam Dulciate. But you can’t think less of me for trying.”

Humming, he adjusted his frock. A bowl cluttered with bottles and silver implements appeared on the island counter. There was a book atop it all, small with a handwritten title, the script elegant and looping. “Why is he so happy?” I whispered.

Ceri shook her head, the tips of her hair moving after her head stopped. “I’ve only seen him like this when he discovers a secret. I’m sorry, Rachel. You know something that makes him very happy.”

Swell.

Holding the book at reading height, he rifled through it, a scholarly air about him. “I can break a familiar bond as easy as snapping your neck. You, though, will have to do it the hard way; I’m not going to waste a stored curse on you. And since I’ll not have you knowing how to break familiar bonds, we will add a little something.… Here it is. Lilac wine. It starts with lilac wine.” His eyes met mine over the book. “For you.”