I was. Uncertain, that is. Quen had practically raised Trent after his father died, but I’d always gotten the impression that Quen had held himself apart, seeing to the task of giving Trent the tools to survive . . . but not what he might have emotionally needed.
And Quen . . . bowed his head, turned, and walked away.
CHAPTER
28
“Are you okay?” I asked Trent. It was the third time in about five minutes, but he was clearly not handling this well. I could feel Trisk’s presence everywhere. It was everything he’d been made to forget, everything that his father hadn’t wanted him to be: compassionate, understanding, tolerant.
“I’m fine,” Trent whispered, but as I watched, he slowly sank to the floor, his back to her desk and his knees bent. One hand held the photo of her to his chest, the other traced a swirl on the carpet as if it were a touchstone, bringing back a childhood memory. “Her horse’s name was Inertia,” he whispered, looking miserable as his fingers stilled and he closed his eyes. “Because she never wanted to stop. I remember . . . but not enough,” he finished brokenly.
I gave Jenks a head nod to go make sure no one else was lurking in the dark, listening, and he hummed away, his dust a somber orange. Slowly I sank down beside Trent, feeling his warmth where our shoulders touched. There was another circle here. I could feel it humming just under the carpet. It wasn’t there to spell in. No, it was there for defense. Against what? I wondered. Al, should he escape? Her husband that she both loved and hated?
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, and Trent found my hand. His breath slipped out, and I let my head drop onto his shoulder. Slowly he set his mother’s picture down to tuck a strand of my hair behind my ear, his hand lingering as if needing the reassurance that I was there.
“Hodin shifted your aura. Twice now,” he said, surprising me with where his thoughts had gone. But he was good at hiding his grief behind work. “If our auras were the same—I mean, exactly the same—maybe our circles could mesh, seeing as it’s our auras that define them.”
“That’s a good thought.” I lifted our twined hands and kissed his knuckle.
“All we have to do is lure the baku out of Landon, catch it in a meshed circle, shrink it down, and drop it in a bottle,” Trent added.
I turned our clasped hands over to see Hodin’s ring. “You want me to call him? He’s going to want something ridiculous for payment.”
Trent nodded. “If it works, it will give him an in with his kin. Maybe that will be enough. You said they were scared to death of it.”
And so, as both of us sat on the floor of his mother’s office as he must have done sometime in the past while waiting for her to finish her work, I twisted the ring and opened my thoughts. Hodin? I sent out through the private channel the ring afforded.
Nothing. My thoughts were empty.
My lips pressed in annoyance. Hodin, I’m trying to figure out how to mesh two circles into one thick enough to hold the baku. If you don’t help me, I’m going to Dali.
Trent’s head lifted at the faint peal of a bell coming from the lab.
“He’s here,” I said, scrambling up and falling against the desk as a sudden great gust nearly knocked me down. My jaw dropped, and I reached for Trent, pulling him up and out of the way as something big beat the air, its wings brushing the sides of the large office. The lamp fell and the light flashed against the walls and ceiling. Claws scraped on the slate floor, and I strengthened my hold on the ley line, wondering if I should have invoked the circle around the desk.
“What in great green troll turds is that?” Jenks shrilled as he darted in, sword bared.
There were huge bat wings, a long, sinewy neck, and an even longer tail—and then it was gone, vanishing in a wash of pearly white mist to coalesce into the increasingly familiar narrow-shouldered, black-mop-of-hair demon dressed in black silk and leather.
“You can’t mesh two circles into one,” Hodin said, clearly annoyed.
“That was a dragon!” Jenks exclaimed, weaving about until Hodin threatened to flick a tiny ball of magic at him. “You were a dragon? That is so cool. How come Al can’t turn into a dragon?”
“Because he was