Gave him tissue? There's a nice thought. "Then you really are - " My words cut off when his twisted hand landed warningly on my knee. In the street, five sparrows fought over a moth they had found, and I listened to them squabble, hearing in his silence his request that I not even say it. "It's been over a decade," I finally protested.
His eyes tracked the birds as one gained the moth and the rest chased the bird across the street. "It doesn't matter," he said. "Like a murder charge, the file stays open."
I followed his gaze to the church Ivy and I shared. "That's why you moved in across from the church, isn't it?" I asked, remembering the day. Keasley had saved my life by removing a delayed combustion charm someone had slipped me on the bus. "You figured if I could survive the I.S.'s death contract, you might find a way, too?"
He smiled to show his yellowing teeth, and he pulled his hand from my knee. "Yes, ma'am. I did. But after seeing how you did it?" Keasley shook his head. "I'm too old to fight dragons. I'll stay Keasley, if you don't mind."
I thought about that, cold despite the sun on us. Becoming anonymous was just something I couldn't do. "You moved in the same day I did, didn't you? You really don't know when Ivy rented the church."
"No." His eyes were on the steeple, the top hidden behind the trees. "But I watched her patterns close that first week, and I'm guessing she'd been there for at least three months."
My head was going up and down. I was learning a lot today. None of it comfortable. "You're a good liar," I said, and Keasley laughed.
"Used to be."
Liar, I thought, and then my mind drifted to Trent. "Uh, is Ceri up? I have to talk to her."
Keasley shifted to look at me. In his tired eyes was a deep relief. I had learned his secret and freed him of the necessity to lie to me. But what I think he was the most grateful for was that I didn't think any less of him for it.
"I think she's asleep," he said, smiling to tell me he was glad I was still his friend. "She's been tired lately."
I'll bet. Giving him a smile, I stood and tugged my jeans straight. I'd long assumed that Ivy had moved in before me, having only pretended to move in the same day to ease my suspicions. Now that I knew the truth, I might confront Ivy about it. Maybe. It didn't necessarily matter - I understood her reasons, and that was enough. Sometimes, just let sleeping vamps lie.
I extended a hand to help Keasley rise. "Will you tell Ceri I came over?" I asked as I held his arm until I knew he had his balance.
The porch creaked behind us, and I whipped my head around. Ceri was standing behind the closed screen door, in a sweaterdress that made her look like a young wife from the sixties. A jumble of emotions hit me as I took in her somber, guilty stance. She didn't look pregnant. She looked worried.
"Did Jenks wake you?" I said in greeting, not knowing what else to say.
She shook her head no with her arms crossed over her middle. Her long, translucent hair was done up in a complex braid that needed at least two pixies to manage it. Even through the screen I could see her cheeks were pale, her green eyes wide, and her narrow chin raised defiantly. Though delicate and petite, her mind was resilient and strong, tempered by a thousand years of serving as a demon's familiar. Elves didn't live any longer than witches, but her life had paused the moment Al took her. My guess was she'd been in her midthirties. She was barefoot, as usual, and her purple dress had black and gold accents. They were the colors that Al made her wear, though admittedly, this wasn't a ball gown.
"Come in," she said softly, vanishing into the dark house.
I glanced at Keasley. He had a wary sharpness to him, having read my tension and the shame she was hiding under her defiance. Or maybe it was guilt.
"Go on," he said, as if wanting us to get this over with so he'd know what was the matter.
Leaving him, I went up the stairs, my tension easing as the shelter of the house accepted me. I didn't think she'd told him yet - which meant I'd been seeing guilt.
The screen door squeaked, and now, knowing Keasley's past, I was sure the lack of oil was intentional. The scent of redwood struck me as I followed the sound of her fading steps down the low-ceilinged hall, past the front room, the kitchen, and all the way to the back of the house and the sunken living room, added on at some point.
The older house muffled outside sounds, and I stood in the middle of the back living room. I was sure this was where she had gone. My gaze traveled over the changes she'd made since moving in: asters arranged in Mason-jar vases, live plants bought off the sale rack and nurtured back to health clustered at the lace-curtained windows, bits of ribbon draped over mirrors to remind wandering spirits not to cross into them, yellowed doilies bought at yard sales decorating the padded arms of the couch, and faded pillows and swaths of fabric disguising the old furniture. The combined effect was clean, comfortable, and soothing.
"Ceri?" I finally called, not having the slightest idea where she was.
"Out here," she said, her voice coming from beyond the door, which was propped open with a potted fig tree.
I winced. She wanted to talk in the garden - her stronghold. Great.
Gathering myself, I headed out to find her seated at a wicker table in the garden. Jih hadn't been tending it very long, but between the enthusiastic pixy and Ceri, the tiny space had gone from a scuffed-up scrap of dirt to a bit of paradise in less than a year.
An old oak tree thicker than I could get my arms around dominated the backyard, multiple swaths of fabric draped over the lower branches to make a fluttering shelter of sorts. The ground under it was bare dirt, but it was as smooth and flat as linoleum. Vines grew above the fence to block the neighbors' view, and the grass had been allowed to grow long past the shade of the tree. I could hear water somewhere and a wren singing as if it were spring, not fall. And crickets.
"This is nice," I said in understatement as I joined her. There was a teapot and two tiny cups on the table, as if she had been expecting me. I would have said Trent had warned her, but Keasley didn't have a phone.
"Thank you," she said modestly. "Jih has taken a husband, and he works very hard to impress her."
I brought my attention back from the garden to focus on Ceri and her anxiety. "Is that where Jenks is?" I asked, wanting to meet the newest member of the family myself.
A smile eased her tight features. "Yes. Can you hear them?"
I shook my head and settled myself in the bumpy wicker chair. Now, what would be a good segue? So, I hear Jih isn't the only one who's been knocked up....
Ceri reached for the teapot, her motions wary. "I imagine this isn't a social call, but would you like some tea?"
"No, thanks," I said, then felt a tug on my awareness as Ceri murmured a word of Latin and the pot began to steam. The amber brew tinkled into her tiny cup, the click of the porcelain sounding loud among the crickets.
"Ceri," I said softly. "Why didn't you tell me?"
Her vivid green eyes met mine. "I thought you'd be angry," she said with desperate worry. "Rachel, it's the only way I can get rid of it."
My lips parted. "You don't want it?"
Ceri's expression blanked. She stared wonderingly at me for a moment. "What are we talking about?" she asked cautiously.
"Your baby!"
Her mouth dropped open and she flushed scarlet. "How did you find out..."
My pulse had quickened, and I felt unreal. "I talked to Trent this afternoon," I said, and when she just sat there, staring at me with her pale fingers encircling her teacup, I added, "Quen asked me to go into the ever-after for a sample of elven DNA that predates the curse, and I wanted to know what the rush was. He kind of blurted it out."
Panic filled her, showing as her hand flashed to set her cup down and grip my wrist, shocking me. "No," she exclaimed softly, eyes wide and breath fast. "Rachel, you can't. You can't go into the ever-after. Promise me right now that you won't. Ever."
Her fingers were hurting me, and I tried to pull away. "I'm not stupid, Ceri."
"Promise me!" she said loudly. "Right now! You will not go into the ever-after. Not for me. Not for Trent. Not for my child. Never!"
I wrenched my wrist away from her, taken aback at her extreme reaction. I had been in the ever-after before, and I wasn't about to go back. "I told him no. Ceri, I can't. Someone is summoning Al out of confinement, and I can't risk being off hallowed ground after sunset, much less go to the ever-after."
The pale woman caught her emotions, clearly embarrassed. Her eyes flicked to my reddened wrist, and I hid it under the table. I felt guilty about the stand I was taking to stay out of the ever-after, even if it was a smart decision. I wanted to help Ceri, and I felt like a coward. "I'm sorry," I said, then reached for the teapot, wanting a cup of something to hide behind. "I feel like a pile of chicken crap."
"Don't," Ceri said shortly, and my eyes met hers. "This isn't your war."
"It used to be," I said, my thoughts going to the widely accepted theory that the witches had abandoned the ever-after to the demons three thousand years before the elves gave up. Before that, there was no witch history except what the elves remembered for us, and very little elf history either.
Ceri intercepted my reach for the teapot, pouring it out for me and carefully handing me the cup and saucer with the grace of a millennium of practice. I accepted it and took a sip. It wasn't coffee, but I could still feel the caffeine rush, and I eased into the wicker and crossed my legs. I had time, and Ceri, nervous and flustered, clearly was in no state for me to leave yet.
"Ceri," I said, putting a tone of pride in my voice. "You're something else. If I found out that I was pregnant unexpectedly, I'd be falling apart. I can't believe Trent did this to you."
Ceri hesitated over her cup, then took a delicate sip. "He didn't."
I shook my head. "You can't take the blame for this. I know you're a grown woman and you make your own decisions, but Trent is devious and manipulative. He could charm a troll out of her bridge if he tried."
A faint rose color tinged her cheeks. "I mean, it's not Trenton's child."
I stared at her. If it isn't Trent's...
"It's Quen's," she said, her eyes on the swaths of fabric fluttering overhead.
"B-But..." I stammered. Oh, my God. Quen? Suddenly his awkward silences and stiff looks meant something completely different. "Trent never said anything! Neither did Quen. They just stood there and let me believe - "
"It's not their place to say anything," Ceri said primly, then set her teacup down with a sharp clink.
The breeze shifted the wispy strands of her hair that had slipped her braid as I realigned my thinking. That's why Quen had gone behind Trent's back to ask for my help. That's why he'd seemed guilty. "But I thought you liked Trent," I finally managed.
Ceri made a face. On me it would have looked ugly; on her, it looked comely. "I do," she said sourly. "He is kind with me, and gentle. He is clever with words and quick to follow my thoughts, and we enjoy each other's company. His bloodline is impeccable..." She hesitated, her eyes going to her fingers, now sitting still in her lap. A deep breath lifted through her and was gone. "And he won't touch me without fear."
My brow furrowed in anger.
"It's the demon smut," she said distantly, shame in her gaze darting about. "He thinks it's the bloody kiss of death. That I'm filthy and foul, and that it's catching."
I could not believe this. Trent was a murdering drug lord, and he thought Ceri was dirty?
"Well," she said sourly, as if she'd heard my thoughts, "technically he's right. I could slough it off on him, but I wouldn't." Her eyes came up to find mine, dark with unshed misery. "You believe me, don't you?"
I thought back to Trent's reaction to black magic, and my jaw clenched. "Yeah. Yes," I amended. "He won't touch you, huh?"
Ceri's expression went pleading. "Don't be angry with him. Bartholomew's balls, Rachel," she cajoled. "The man has a right to be scared. I'm mean, I'm nasty, overbearing, temper driven, and I'm covered in demon smut. The first time we met, I knocked Quen out with a black charm and then I threatened him."
"The man was trying to drug me with an illegal charm!" I said. "What were you supposed to do? Ask him to play nice?"
"Quen understands," she said, her eyes watching her still fingers. "I don't have to explain myself or my past to him." Her head came up. "I don't even know how it happened."