Page 127 of Demon's Bluff

Quen stopped, the green ball of hurt hissing in his hand making his knuckles white. At the edge of the trees, Elyse stood, tense and trying to find a way past that babysitter spell I’d put on her. She looked as pissed as Quen ought to but didn’t.

“Then why send me to kill you?” he asked.

The thought to put myself in a circle rose and fell. It would only make me seem vulnerable. Which I was. “Because he can’t admit it yet,” I said.

Quen’s lip twitched. “You stink like demons. Both of you.”

I stiffened as the energy in his hand swelled and a high-pitched squeal erupted from it. Elyse dropped, hands over her ears, clearly in pain.

“Wait! Wait!” I shouted, tears pricking as I stood my ground. “I know Trent’s mad, but I am his Mal Sa’han. Or I will be. See?” I held my hand out, fingers trembling as I showed him his mother’s ring. “He gave me his mother’s ring to trade to Newt for a stupid mirror. Would he do that if he was mad at me? If he wanted me dead?”

“Where did you get that? I thought it was lost.”

“Probably his mother’s old lab behind the fireplace,” I said. Quen had gone ashen, and I pulled my hand back when he reached out. Satisfaction found me, warmed my hope when Quen’s next words caught in his throat. “Yeah, I figured you knew about that,” I added.

The older elf’s focus sharpened on me. “How do you know about his mother’s studio? No one but Jonathan and I know about it.”

I exhaled, slow and long as I found my full height. “Good. You can keep a secret. I need you to keep one now, or we all lose.Allof us.”

Elyse took a quick breath of air. “Shut up, Rachel. We can figure this out.”

She meant the forget spell. It was in my pocket, sure, but if I madeQuen forget me here, he’d focus his attention on my current self at the church.

I had to tell Quen. Either he would believe me, or one of us was going to die.

“That was you in the vault.” Quen glanced behind me. “Both of you.”

I nodded, wincing. “I’m so sorry about that. Quen. Please.” My throat thickened. “I love him. Not now, but in the future. And he loves me. Desperately, he says. Desperately.”

Quen’s head shifted back and forth. “You think a lie will convince me to let you live?”

“I’m not supposed to be here!” I shouted. “Or Elyse.”

Elyse glowered at me, unable to act. “Shut up, Rachel.”

“But we are,” I continued. “And we’re trying to get home.”

The energy in Quen’s hands began to diminish, the eye-hurting ache about his fingers easing. “Which is where?”

“Which is when,” I corrected him, and Elyse groaned. “Two years from now, I modify a demon spell to get here. I need something from the ever-after before it falls. You can’t tell him. You can’t tell me.” Al had said speak truth only to the dead. I now knew what he had meant, but if I didn’t tell Quen, one of us wouldbedead.

The energy in his hand flickered and all but went out, leaving a thin haze of potential death dabbling about his fingers. “He told me to kill you. I agree with his decision. It’s long overdue.”

I shook my head. “Decisions made from pride are seldom good, and you know it. If you don’t believe me about moving through time, go to the church and see for yourself. I’m probably coming out of a demon-induced coma just about now, caused by Minias pulling the focus out of me.” I grimaced. “You can tell Trent he can stuff it for trying to take it. It belongs to the Weres.”

Quen huffed in amusement, but his gaze was sharp. “You say you love him,” he mocked. “And that’s why you moved Felps out of the sun until he died twice.”

“Kisten is still undead,” I said. “That’s not him on the boat. It’s a John Doe Vamp from the morgue.”

That set him back a little, and his weight shifted to his other foot. “You used a demon spell—”

“Modified,” I interrupted.

“A modified demon spell to save your vampire boyfriend’s undead life, and you expect me to believe that you’re in love with Trent? And he’s in love with you? Two years in the future.”

It sounded like a fast romance when he said it like that, but damn, we had been through a lot in that time.

Elyse wrapped her arms around her middle. “How come when I want to break the timeline, it’s a problem, and when you do it, it’s okay?”

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