I sighed as I reached into Trent’s car for my bag before shutting the door by leaning back on it. Quen cleared his throat, and I met his accusing dark gaze. He hadn’t said a word on the long drive from Trent’s gatehouse, but I had a guess as to where his thoughts were.
“Don’t look at me like that.” I pushed up from Trent’s car and followed them in, low heels scuffing on the cold cement. “Zack isn’t spying for Landon. You should have seen how he treated him. He belittled him, Quen. Tried to bully him into slug paste. Trent knows what he’s doing.”
“He’s dangerous.”
Quen’s low, warning voice rumbled, darkness incarnate, as shadowy as the elf himself, and I stifled a shiver. “Trent knows that, too,” I said, eyes on the beautiful family making their way through the kitchen entrance, their finery looking at home among the subdued wealth.
“He’s not acting as if he does.” Quen frowned, watching them as well.
“Keep your enemies closer?” I offered, and Quen looked askance at me. “How are the girls?” I asked, trying to change the subject. “Is Ellasbeth . . . ?” My words trailed off as he quickened his pace and left me behind. Okay, touchy subject, I thought as he caught up with them and held the door as Buddy ambled out to greet me.
“Hey, Buddy,” I whispered, feeling alone as I came in last, which was about where I felt I ought to be. “How you doing, old boy?”
But Buddy left me, too, as I shut the door and sealed out the scent of damp cement. I’d been added to the house’s security ages ago, and I hesitated to code the system to lock. Trent stiffened at the audible thump of the house-wide defense falling into play, and then his shoulders eased.
Alone, I trailed behind them past the ground-level industrial kitchens that Trent used when entertaining on a grand scale. Deeper in was the bar hidden under a long overhang, and after that was the three-story ceilinged great room, still holding a sliver of moving sun. They were already on the stairs as I paused to take in the soft hush of the waterfall, audible through the enormous ward. The sound of Trent and Ellasbeth talking as they rose with the girls was beautiful, and I was glad that Ray and Lucy could hear it and know that they were loved. Quen had engaged Zack under the excuse of taking some of the packages, and the feeling that it was time to go grew heavy.
Except that the job wasn’t done yet.
If we couldn’t destroy the baku, we had to find a way to catch it, even if it meant jerking it out of Landon and—yuck—saving him. Trap it, maybe, in a bottle like a soul. There had to be a way, or the baku wouldn’t have been afraid of being caught.
My head jerked up at the sound of dragonfly wings, and I blinked, startled when Jenks was suddenly before me. “You okay for a few minutes? I want to check in with Jumoke.”
Quen had turned on the stairs, his thoughts unreadable as he waited for my response to the impatient pixy. “Sure,” I said, talking to them both, though Jenks didn’t know that. “I have to talk to Trent about something, but I’m going to wait until they go down for their naps.”
Jenks’s dust shifted to a bright, cheerful gold. “Okay, back in ten,” he said, and then he was gone, only his slowly drifting dust arrowing to the conservatory saying he’d ever been there.
Alone, I trudged up the stairs to the top floor, steps slow from more than fatigue, though there was plenty of that. By the time I reached the top, the girls were sitting in their high chairs, pulled up to the small table against the kitchen’s half wall. Ellasbeth was behind the counter pouring Cheerios into two brightly colored bowls as Trent sat between Lucy and Ray, “debriefing” their stay with their mom. Lucy’s voice was strong and clear as she told her dad about the park and the pirates they’d made of the ants they’d found. Ray stoically made a hat, or maybe a boat, of her napkin. Buddy sat panting under them, waiting for the inevitable fallout. It was beautiful, and I felt like an intruder, doubly so when Quen and Zack came out of the girls’ room, their hands now empty of bags.