Ever After (The Hollows #11)(33)
Author: Kim Harrison

Event horizon? I wish I’d paid more attention in advanced ley line physics.

Al sighed, and I willed myself back to the ever-after. The wind hit me like a slap, and I popped my parasol back open. "I’m sorry," I said as I walked around the line to join him.

"For what?" he said sarcastically. "You’ve done so much."

I fidgeted. "For making the line to begin with, I suppose. How did you balance yours?"

Al gave me an askance look before rocking into motion, distancing himself. "I tweaked it until it was within proper parameters, but we can’t do that with yours because it is a reality-to-reality-based line. Besides, you need to know how to jump a line first."

My jaw clenched, then relaxed. Bis had to teach me, and he was too young.

"Even so," Al said as he waved a dry stalk of ever-after grass through the purple line, then inspected it for damage, grunting as if something pleased him. "I don’t think knowing how to jump a line will help. No, this purple shit is different." He straightened and dropped the stalk. "We should be able to do something about it. Buy us some time. Put us back where we were yesterday."

The first faint stirrings of hope began in me. "What do you have in mind?"

He flashed me a quick grin, and I felt as if I’d done something right. "Stay here," he said, waving his white-gloved hands dramatically. "I’ll be right back."

"Al?" I called out, but he’d vanished. Nervous, I gazed across the bleak, sunbaked earth and the dry riverbed, feeling the bits of windblown earth hit me. I didn’t like being alone on the surface, and I twirled my parasol. My hair was going to be impossible to get through tonight.

Almost immediately he stumbled back in, his head down and back hunched. "Ah, here," he said, his goat-slitted eyes meeting mine from over his dark-tinted glasses. "Put this on."

It was a small black ring, and I looked at it in my palm, seeing there was a new lump of a circlet under his glove. Uneasy, I eyed him.

"I’m not giving it to you," he huffed. "It’s a loan. For a few minutes. I want it back."

"It’s a ring," I said flatly, not able to tell if it was black gold or simply tarnished.

"Sharp as a tack, that one," Al grumped. "You want to put it on, now? Pick a finger."

I spread the fingers of my left hand, and I swear, he made a small noise of dismay. I looked up to see his jaw clenched. "What does it do?"

Al grimaced, shifting from foot to foot. "I, ah, it’s a life rope of sorts. That is, me in the ever-after to pull your ass out of the fire if I’m wrong, and you in reality, fixing it."

Fixing the line was the entire point, and I didn’t mind having a safety rope. If it was a ring, then that was cool. Still I hesitated; the ring seemed to soak in the harsh light. It was heavy on my palm, and I had the insane desire to drop it into a fire and see if an inscription appeared. I set the open parasol down, and it rolled in the wind until catching against a large rock.

"The rings will allow us to function as a single energy entity across the realities," Al said, standing almost sideways to me as he looked out over nothing. "I think."

"You think?" I said, starting to understand. "Is that like a power pull?"

Al leered, the wind shifting the gritty lank curls of his hair. "If you want."

Head shaking, I extended the ring back to him. "No."

He rolled his eyes, looking at the washed-out sky and refusing to take it. "You are utterly without a sense of humor today," he said, and my hand dropped. "We will simply be able to borrow upon and find each other’s chi with minimal disruption."

These were more than just rings, and I wanted the truth of it. "Al," I said forcefully. "What are these? You have one, too. I can see it under your glove."

Shoulders slumping, he showed me his back. "Nothing," he said, the wind almost obliterating his voice. "They’re nothing now but a way to yank your butt out of the fire." He turned around, and his lost look surprised me. "Go through the line to reality," he said, gesturing. "You should be able to hear me whether you’re in the line or not if you have the ring on. You’ll have a better chance fixing it if you work from the reality you made it from." I hesitated, and he added, "Think of them as a scrying mirror, without the eavesdropping."

Unsure, I looked at the simple band of tarnished metal. A private line to each other’s thoughts was a rather questionable connection-not a violation as such, but very . . . personal. It didn’t help that they looked like wedding bands.

Against my better judgment, I slipped the ring on my index finger. Wavering on my feet, I felt my consciousness expand. It was exactly like a scrying mirror, but the connection was tighter, far more intimate. I could feel not just Al’s presence, but sense his masculinity, his worry, his concern. I could sense the limits of his chi, and I knew to the last iota how much it could hold, the power he could wield. It wasn’t as much as I could. It wasn’t that he lacked. Female demons had a naturally elevated ability to harbor two souls behind one aura, as in having a baby.

"Mother pus bucket," Al said breathily. "You’ve expanded your reach, Rachel."

Apparently he could see my abilities as well. "Is it supposed to feel like this?" I asked, heart pounding as I flicked a quick look at him.

"This isn’t a good idea," Al said, seeming as uncomfortable as I was. "We might be able to do this with scrying mirrors."

I jumped when he took my hand to slip the ring from me. There was a pain in the back of his eyes that had nothing to do with me. My heart pounded, and not knowing why, I curved my fingers to make a fist. Al’s attention jerked up, and I knew I must’ve looked panicked as he froze. "Ah, I’m good," I said, tense. "That is, if you’re okay."

His lips twitched. "I didn’t expect it to be . . ."

"What?" I prompted when he faltered.

"Exactly the way I remembered it," he said sourly, and he dropped my hand. "Go. Let me know when you’re in reality standing outside the line. As I said, they function much as a scrying mirror."

He turned away, waiting, and I hesitated. He was staring out at the broken landscape of the ever-after, thinking of someone. I could feel it in his thoughts, the longing for something he’d lost so long ago that he’d forgotten even that he missed it.

My feet scuffed, and he tensed. Spinning the ring on my finger, I stepped into the line, being careful to stay clear of the purple center. Immediately the harsh discord renewed my headache, but almost before I recognized it, the pain seemed to halve. Al had taken some of it.