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"Because he’s an elf?" I exclaimed, frustrated

Al’s expression twisted evenscorn and hatred "Love has made you into a tool, Rachel, and like a tool, you are oblivious and will be cast aside when your job is done"

"I aht that Trent would soon rehed heavily on ht I was a phase, a happy dalliance

"You are blind, Rachel, even as you are a part of it" Al pointed atfro only destruction That is what they are They’ve always been such, even e tried to crush them from existence And it will kill you"

"But you loved Ceri," I pleaded, and Trent grunted as if only now getting it

Al’s pointing finger slowly dropped, his depth of hatred chillingat his ein to understand?"

"You can’t blah h to break the rules and free her from her servitude in such a way that I could save her life Froin to pull his people back frooals to his, and I found a pre-curse DNA sample so Ceri’s baby would be free of the curse And now, bolstered by the un to eliminate everyone ht

Horrified, I watched hi like Santa in reverse His thick fingers hesitated at Mr Fish, and then he closed the the brandy snifter where it was "Where has everyone gone?" I asked, scared

Gaze flicking to Trent, then Bis, sitting wide-eyed on Ceri’s chair, he hesitated "Anywhere they want," he said, waving at Bis until he hts went back to the empty state of Dalliance, and then the celebration of familiars at the mall He said it had been a cry of joy

"Oh, your elven brethren have e mistake," Al said to Trent as Ceri’s chair reathed in a haze of black and shrank down to the size of my hand "One ill exploit to the fullest and wipe the both hands to shift the se is a tricky beast Her claws face both ways I don’tthe rest"

Trent paled "The curse that attacked you," he whispered, and then he reached for the slate table, his balance gone "The Goddess help us," he whispered, expression haunted "That’s what I felt It was a call to break the curse"

"What curse?" I said, feeling as if I was on the brink of a precipice

Al snapped the bag shut and lifted it easily "Not break exactly, but when they modified it to force the surface demons to reality, they created a loophole" He spun to his fire and took the iron, rapping the ash fro now You can have the tapestry I never liked that thing anyway"

My heart thudded "Al, wait!" I called out, but with a tweak on my awareness, he vanished in a curl of black-tainted ever-after

Bis shifted his wings, and the room abruptly see of feet He had sat down, sinking into Al’s sied stool, elbow on the table and head in his hand as his thumb ran over a tiny scratch in the surface I’d seen Al like that more than once The hatred between the elves and the deht "Trent? What happened?"

He looked up, a hint of the fear of the unknown in the back of his gaze "It ood portion of the enclave," he said, and then his focus sharpened onroonized you as a de you in the ever-after, it just kept trying to take so on, and now they’re free"

My lips parted Free? As in reality?

Suddenly I got it--the entire e error He’d freed the surface deet rid of the undead, but once they walked into the sun--which I was sure they would--it’d be the demons who’d replace the, I reached for Mr Fish I didn’t think Al was co There was nothing here Everything that had

"Cincinnati?" Bis spread his wings in anticipation "But you’re supposed to be dead"

Trent edged fro tapestry "It doesn’tto help Landon save the world He’d made his choice, and it wasn’t my responsibility

But as I felt Bis’s aura slip around us, I had a bad feeling I was going to have to anyway

Chapter 15

The steeple was a dark slash against the underside of the clouds, red with the reflected light of the Hollows Stray glea lulow from the back porch There was no back porch at all, and I held Mr Fish carefully as rass slowed and the extent of the dae became evident

Trent steadied arden froraveyard His hand ar to tell him with my touch that I didn’t believe what Al had said He’s not using ht not have happened if you’d walked away sixaway from him as the heartache of s that shouldn’t be burned was choking The kitchen and back living rooone; only the broken remains of ouldn’t burn were left to show there’d ever been anything there What was probably the stove and the fridge poked through as left of the roof, all of it well below the original floor and filling the crawl space Gutter work, twisted fro

The stones of the original church were black and glistening from the soot and heat Plywood had already been fixed over the open hallway, and it looked oddly high up froround it It orse than seeing it on TV--cold, dark, and sad with chunks of our lives out of place and hardly recognizable

"I’ the lump in round became squishy froone The one