“You are going to kill her, you putrid little elf!” Al snarled, and Trent drew himself up, his face white and his expression hard. “There is nothing that will survive what’s coming. And it’s your fault.”

“I’m okay,” I croaked, trembling as I waved Bis off, and he landed on the back of Ceri’s old chair, still in its accustomed place. Seeing me upright, Al scooped up a carpetbag and tried to shove the rolled-up tapestry into it. Trent was going to kill me? Nothing here was his fault. It was sort of mine. Trent stood between us, my bag spilling out over the floor behind him, and I don’t think I appreciated him more than at that moment. “What’s coming?” I whispered, voice raw.

“The end,” Al muttered, his frustration growing as he fought to get the tapestry into the bag, clearly bigger on the inside than the out. “I see you washed the Goddess slime off you. Too bad it will keep coming back.”

He was talking about the mystics, and I squared my shoulders. It was going better than I had thought it would. I was just glad he wasn’t dead. “An elven spell tried to kill me,” I said, and Al turned the tapestry end over end to fit it in the bag, but it unrolled as if trying to stay out. “It wasn’t the Goddess, it was the dewar and the enclave.”

“Surprise, surprise,” he muttered.

“It couldn’t get a grip on me,” I said, gently pushing Trent’s hand off me when I edged past him. “But then I heard the collective cry out. I thought ... it took you.”

Shoulders hunched, Al threw the tapestry at the wall in frustration. It hit with a thud, the sliding fabric sounding like a muffled scream as it landed on the floor and slowly uncurled. “It was ... ,” he said, eyebrows lowered as he stared at me, “... a cry of joy, Rachel Mariana Morgan.”

My chest hurt. “Please don’t call me that. You left me. I didn’t leave you.”

Al flicked his eyes at Trent as he yanked his carpetbag up. I stepped closer, feet scuffing to a halt when Al growled, “Yes. You did.”

“Because he’s an elf?” I exclaimed, frustrated.

Al’s expression twisted even more. “Exactly,” he said, the words dripping scorn and hatred. “Love has made you into a tool, Rachel, and like a tool, you are oblivious and will be cast aside when your job is done.”

“I am not,” I whispered, cold, but the thought that Trent would soon remember his place among his people weighed heavily on me. Quen was right. I was a phase, a happy dalliance.