Jon tensed, his long face becoming ugly in hatred. “He left her!” he snarled, and I reached for Ceri’s high-backed chair, my skin prickling from a heavy draw from the line bisecting Trent’s grounds.

Trent backpedaled toward the stairs, his hand protectively over Ray’s head. Quen moved forward, first blocking Jon’s outthrust, glowing hand, and then grabbing his wrist, wrenching Jon to kneel with his arm pulled behind him, almost snapping his elbow. Al stood there, suspiciously quiet, his belligerent expression hiding what I thought was guilt.

“He left her there!” Jon exclaimed, his short graying hair hiding his face, turned toward the floor. Ray’s voice rose up in distress, higher than I’d ever heard it. “He left her there with that monster of a woman!” Pain making his eyes stand out, he looked up past his bangs to Al. “Demon or no, I will kill you for that.”

My eyebrows rose as I remembered the savagery with which Jon had attacked Ellasbeth’s people when they’d threatened the girls. Perhaps I was lucky to have gotten only pencils poked into me when I’d been a mink in a cage.

Trent’s lips were a thin angry line. Ray was miserable in his arms as she clung to him. He wasn’t saying anything, so I stomped over to Al, keeping clear of Quen and Jon from a faint sense of prudence. “Hey! You lost both of them. Why did you only bring one back?”

Al’s gaze came back from Ray, his eyes flicking from me to Trent. “I have to go. My compensation, please.”

My jaw dropped. “For babysitting?” I said, glancing back to Quen wrestling Jon back into submission. “Where’s Lucy?”

Trent tried to be calm as he jiggled Ray, but his red ears gave him away. “I want to know if it’s because you’re angry with Rachel, or if you’re actually trying to work within the law. Al?”

I jerked upright, spinning to them. “Law?” I blurted out, remembering that ridiculous claim Ellasbeth was filing. “You mean that lousy scrap of paper? Al! Are you nuts? That is full of crap and you know it!”

Al’s shoulders stiffened as if taking on a burden. “She had a legal right,” he said softly, and Jon grunted in pain, almost on the floor under Quen’s nerve hold. “A legal paper and a scary woman from social services. Even a babysitter has to honor that. I have to leave. I’m late.”

I reached out, jerking my hand back when he spun at my faint pull on his sleeve. “Not yet,” I said, backing up. “You still have three minutes before you have to be at work. What do you do, Al? Are you Mickey D’s newest fry cook?”

Okay, that may have been a little bitter, but how could he honor a stupid scrap of paper that was bull to begin with?