Ever After (The Hollows #11)(36)
Author: Kim Harrison

I sniffed, backing up a step with my arms wrapped around my middle. "He tried to find out if Ku’Sox made that purple line and fell to the bottom of it."

Newt spun, finding her feet in an instant. "And you let him?"

"He didn’t say it was going to scrape his aura off!" I yelled back. "I got him out, but . . ." My words faltered, and I felt the prick of tears, hating them. It was Al, for God’s sake.

"You got him out?" Newt blinked her black eyes at me, drawing herself up when she saw the ring on my hand. "Oh." She hesitated. "He gave you . . . Where is the other one?"

Nervous, I held up my other hand to show her my thumb. "He took it off. He took all the pain so I could call you."

Newt made a harrumph of disagreement. "He took all the pain so it wouldn’t kill you."

Fidgeting, I came closer. Was she going to help or not? "Newt. Please. The sun."

Her androgynous face twisting to look more feminine somehow, she squinted up at it. "Indeed," she said sourly, twitching the hem of her robe off Al. "It’s like breathing in acid."

The gritty wind gusted against me with a sudden force, and I closed my eyes, feeling the dust suddenly halt and drop away before it could hit me. It was Newt yanking me into a ley line, and with a nauseating twist, the horrid red sky winked out of existence.

My heart thudded once, twice, and still we hadn’t reemerged anywhere. My lungs started to ache, and at the last moment, when I thought she might have forgotten me and I was going to have to scrape another line into existence trying to get out, she yanked me into reality.

Stumbling, I caught myself against the bedpost in Al’s room. The oil lamp beside the bed was lit, making shadows at the edges of the smallish chamber. Browns, golds, and greens mimicked a primeval forest, and plush, sinking textures made it a close, secure space.

"Sorry about that," Newt murmured, looking matronly as she tucked the cover over Al, already resting in my, or rather, his bed. "It took me a moment to get around the room’s safeguards. I thought one jump right to his bed would be better than sliding into the library and having to drag him."

"Yes," I whispered, suitably cowed. Al had told me his old bedchamber was absolutely foolproof, but apparently it wasn’t crazy-proof. I let go of the bedpost, and Newt sat on the bed beside Al, looking like a bedside nurse. I couldn’t see anything but his face, the rest of him lost in the voluptuous coverings.

Giving Al’s cheek a little pat, Newt looked up, her black eyes taking in everything in a single sweep. "This is not Al’s bedroom. It’s far too . . . plush."

"It’s mine," I rushed. "He gave it to me. Made me take it. He sleeps in the closet."

"You make him sleep in a closet? Very good. You might survive him after all."

I edged closer to look down at Al, the bed between Newt and me. "It’s not really a closet. I just call it that. It’s a tiny nine by twelve I got for making Tron that car."

"Oh." Her hand touched Al’s, turning it over as if looking for the ring on my thumb.

"Is he going to be okay?"

Again, Newt blinked at me, her eyes looking almost normal in the dim light. "You care?" Her gaze was on the ring he had given me, and I hid it behind my other hand. My thoughts went to Celfnnah, but I wasn’t going to ask Newt.

From the bed, Al’s voice rasped out, "Of course she cares. I’m a god to her."

"Al!" I leaned forward over him, and he squirmed as if hurt.

"Mother pus bucket," he swore, running a sweat-stained, dirt-caked hand over his forehead. "I feel like I’ve been across a cheese grater several times in quick succession." His gaze sharpened, and he tried to sit up, panic edging him. "Where are my rings? My rings!"

"Here," I said as Newt forced him to lie back down, and I wedged both rings off my finger and thumb, dropping them into his waiting palm. He slumped, eyes closing as his thick fingers wrapped around them. His hand was shaking, and I remembered the pain we’d shared. Taking that doubled would have killed me.

"I let go of him," I said, backing up from the bed and feeling as if this was my fault. "I had to. I couldn’t pull him through to reality while the sun was up. I had to let go so I could move to the ever-after to get him!"

"Stop babbling," Al grumped, trying to smack Newt’s hand away as she tried to see his eyes. "It wasn’t your fault. Let me sleep." He opened an eye to glare at Newt. "What is your problem, bitch?"

Newt stopped trying to lift his eyelids, and I shut my mouth.

"I’m not babbling," I said, sounding sullen even to myself.

Still sitting on the edge of the bed, Newt tucked the covers to his chin. "Good thought, bad implementation."

It looked as if he was going to be okay, and I wondered if Newt had seen the bottom of a purple line once and survived. "Can I do anything?" I asked.

"You? No," Newt said. "But I have an aura that I can give Al if-"

"No!" both Al and I exclaimed, and she looked insulted, standing up to smooth her robe.

"No need to shout. You’ll just have to wait until you heal, then. Here, in Rachel’s bedroom." Her eyes went over the ceiling. "Where all your safeguards are."

I started to relax. It lasted all of three seconds until Al pushed Newt’s hands off him again, muttering, "Ku’Sox did it." I stiffened, and he added, "The entire leaking line is a ruse to get us to kill Rachel for him. A very expensive, chancy ruse." He made a wry face at me. "Maybe you shouldn’t have cursed him."

"It was him or me, and I like where I live," I said loudly, and Al winced.

Newt gave up on Al and stood with her arms crossed before herself. "I saw to the bottom of that purple line," Al said. "His aura signature is down there. He caused it, whatever it is."

I lifted the mass of my tangled hair and let it drop, wanting nothing more than a hot shower and a carton of ice cream. "So we can go to the collective and make him fix it, right?" I said, feeling good for the first time in . . . hours? Had it only been that long?

Newt had drifted from the bed, tidying little things here and there, snooping, and my hackles began to rise. "If he caused it, he can fix it," she said. "But he’ll wait until after you’re dead, then ‘save’ us so we are more indebted to him."

Al snorted. "A brat after my own heart. Minus the killing Rachel part, of course."

"But you know he did it!" I said. "We found the proof!"