It was starting to sound like a pity party, and I stood. “I don’t have to listen to you anymore, remember? I have to go. I’ve got to make a scrying mirror before midnight.” Damn it, I was going to have to do this without their help. If I couldn’t convince even Al, then the rest were useless. I strode back to the path, arms swinging.

“Rachel?”

His call was so soft, yet it pulled me to a halt. I didn’t turn, standing there with my back to him, but he knew I was listening.

“You don’t need the mirror anymore to connect to the collective,” he said, voice holding a sliver of pain. “Why do you think I’m here?”

Mystics, I thought, shaking as I turned around to see him still on the bench.

“You haven’t for a long time,” he said, hands clasped between his knees, making him look worried and scared. “We, ah, hate to admit it, but demons are still tied to elven magic.”

My feet scuffed a few steps back. “Maybe it’s not elven. Maybe it just ... is.”

Al rubbed his forehead. “I don’t remember.”

My hope flooded back, and I came to him, sitting so our knees almost touched, begging him to listen. “Al, I know we can do this. You may be only four hundred, but you have the gargoyles as anchors now. There’s support among the elves, hidden in the dewar. Vivian is trying to sway the witches’ coven. Professor Anders ...” I hesitated. “Ah, she’s okay, right?”

Al waved a hand and sighed, his regret that she was indeed okay obvious.

“Well, she’s rallying the scientific community,” I continued. “You aren’t alone this time. Four hundred and thirteen survivors, but you are the ones who made it this far. Can’t you convince the rest we have a real chance?”

“It was beautiful here once,” Al said distantly, eyes on nothing.

“Al!” I shouted, then frowned as Jenks’s wings clattered. “I can’t walk away from this!”

“Right here, this spot,” the demon said, his hands beginning to glow. “The fountain was the perfect blending of sound and motion.” I started, eyes wide as a haze shimmered over the broken statuary and realities seemed to shift, focusing in and out until a mossy fountain of fish and antelope took form.

“The moonlight made the water into pearls, and the smell of the night vines was intoxicating,” Al whispered, and I could hear the water, see it. “There were pixies then. That bastard killed them all when she died. It wasn’t their fault.”