Ever After (The Hollows #11)(129)
Author: Kim Harrison

Water spotted my shoulder when Trent let the branch go. A flower drifted down, and I kept it, feeling as if it had been a gift. Trent led the way. The lamp in his hand swung, sending beams of light into the wet leaves. I shivered, then stopped dead in my tracks when the path forked. To the right was a narrow nothing, to the left, well-manicured sawdust. Trent continued on down the right path, and I wavered, feeling the need to keep moving.

"Trent," I said, actually two steps down the wrong path. Confusion and nausea rose up, and I stopped, unable to go back. What in hell?

"Oh. Sorry." Motions sharp, Trent came back and took my hand, pulling me back to the smaller path. "There’s a ward."

His fingers in mine were warm, and my head came up. The nausea vanished, and I took a deep breath. "To keep people out?" I guessed, feeling funny as he led me up the narrow, crooked path as if I were a reluctant child. My breath came in a quick heave, and panic took me. Almost laughing, Trent gave a quick yank, jerking me forward another step.

I stumbled, gasping as a wave of energy passed over my aura. Wild magic sang in my veins, setting my heart to thumping, and then I was through. Halting, I turned to look over my shoulder. The main house was surprisingly close. Jenks and I had probably been within a stone’s throw of the ward when we had burgled Trent’s office, and we’d never known.

"The ward only hits you when you try to force your way in," Trent said. "Otherwise, you’d never notice it. At all."

Breathless, I pulled my hand from his. "You made it?" I said, and he turned away.

"My mother did." His pace slower, Trent wove a path through the tall bushes. I could see a little roof up ahead, but little else. "She made the ward, the spelling hut, and pretty much everything in it."

The path opened up, and I stopped beside him as he lifted the lantern high. There in the soft glow of a candle was a small house made of stone and shingled with cedar. Moss grew on the roof, and the door was painted red. It felt abandoned, but the glow of firelight flickered on the inside of the windows, and smoke drifted up from the chimney. Clearly he’d been out here earlier tonight.

"I found it shortly after she died," he said, a faint smile quirking his lips. "Made it into my own place to avoid Jonathan. It’s only been recently that I’ve been using it to spell in. It’s remarkably secure. I thought you might like to see it." He lowered the lamp and I followed him to the wide slate stone that served as a threshold.

There was no lock, and Trent simply pushed the door open. "Come on in," he said as he went in before me and set the lamp on the small table beside the door. His back was to me as I hiked my shoulder bag up and sent my gaze over everything to find it neat and tidy. It was one room, the walls covered in shelves holding ley line equipment, books, and pictures in frames. Two comfortable chairs were pulled up before the small fire on a knee-high hearth, and another beside one of the small windows. A cot was half hidden behind a tapestry hanging from the ceiling. All in all, it was a nice getaway, having none of the gadgetry I’d come to associate with Trent, but all his gardener earthiness that showed itself only in his orchid gardens.

"I’ve not been here in weeks," he said as I relaxed in the smoke-scented warmth. "Except for earlier tonight, of course. It’s been quiet since Quen took the girls and Ellasbeth home."

My head came up. "I can’t believe you let her have them," I said, feeling his depression. "Even if it is short term. You love those girls! Ellasbeth is such a, ah . . ."

I caught my words as Trent took my coat and hung it on a hook behind the door. "Bitch?" he said, shocking me. "It was either that or invite her to stay here, and I’m not ready for that." His finger twitched, and I bit back my advice to tell her to take a hike. I knew he was going to marry her at some point. Everyone wanted it. Expected it.

"They’ll be back in April, and Quen is with them, in the meantime. We’re doing monthly exchanges until they get older, and then we can start stretching it out."

He was trying to hide his distress, but I could see right through it as he went to the fading fire and crouched before it. "For now, I get them half the time, Ellasbeth the other." His motions stirring the coals slowed. "I never knew what silence was before. I go to the office, come back to an empty apartment, go back to the office or the stables." He looked up. "I hope you don’t mind, but I don’t feel so alone out here. Fewer reminders."

I nodded, understanding. It still hurt that Ceri was gone. I could only imagine how quiet his apartments were with no one there but the many reminders of her and the girls. The warmth of the place was seeping into me, and I came forward, liking the old wooden planks and the dusty red woven rug. "Sorry."

Trent set the poker back and dropped a small birch log on the coals. The bark flared and was gone. "Quen will see they’re safe and that Ellasbeth doesn’t warp them too badly. I’ve got my spells to work on until then. And business, of course."

Hands in his pockets, he looked over the small hut, and I could see the long days stretching before him. That the girls were gone wasn’t exactly what I had been sorry about.

I scuffed the last of the dirt from my feet, not knowing what to do. Trent made a neutral smile and excused himself to go to the small counter set under a dark window. There was a teapot that made me think of Ceri, and I wasn’t surprised when Trent’s reaching hands hesitated. Shoulders stiffening, he drew it closer and took the lid off and looked inside. "You want some coffee?" he said as I faced the fire to give him some privacy. "I’ve got some decent instant."

"Only if you want some." I went to the shelves, drawn by a tiny birch bark canoe that I recognized from camp. A trophy with a horse on it was tucked behind it, and a hand-drawn picture of a flower behind that: memories. There was a half-burned birthday candle, a blue-jay feather, and a dusty stalk of wheat tucked into a wide-mouthed handmade pot, again from camp. I frowned, feeling as if I recognized it. Would my fingerprint match the one in the glaze? I wondered, afraid to bring it closer and see.

Uncomfortable, I sent my fingers to trace the spines of the books, a combination of classic literature and world history. The room smelled like magic, the cedar mixing with the scent of cinnamon and ozone. My aura tingled, and I slipped into my second sight long enough to see that the tail end of the line that stretched from his public office to his private one nicked the edge of the little hut. There was a circle there, made of something that glittered black. Beside it was what I had to call a shrine.