help but feel a little smug. Ellasbeth was clearly tired, and her blond hair looked harsh next to Trent’s and Zack’s transparent whiteness. It was hard to tweak the elven genetic code to get that traditional elven wispiness. Trent’s dad had insisted on it while his West Coast counterpart had not, and it showed.
“No!” Lucy protested, pushing at Ellasbeth as she tried to put a bib on her.
“She might be more hungry if you hadn’t given her marshmallows all day,” Trent muttered, and Ellasbeth flushed.
“Ray!” Lucy demanded even as she fought Ellasbeth. “Time to eat. Ray!” Expression somber, Ray let go of Quen’s hand to quietly toddle across the floor, needing to sit to scoot down the stairs before walking over to me. “Ray!” Lucy shrilled again, and Buddy, waiting for fallout under the table, slunk downstairs. Quen crouched to put his eyes even with Lucy’s, silent as she pressed her lips defiantly, face red as she balanced her demands with Quen’s obvious disapproval.
“Up,” Ray said to me, her arms reaching, and I just about melted, not caring that Ellasbeth’s glare had become toxic.
“You heard her, Rache,” Jenks prompted, and I set my coffee aside to take the soft, tiny person onto my lap. She smelled like snickerdoodles, and my need to see no harm come to them was so strong, it hurt. Ray wanted security, and she came to me to find it.
Her gaze was on the curse written on my skin, obvious when she was this close. “Daddy,” she said in her pure, high voice as she pointed at it, and I nodded, cuddling her closer.
“Yes, he has one, too. It’s to help us trap the monster,” I whispered, and she carefully touched the glyph. Ivy was watching, her heartache that she’d never dare to have a child and commit him or her to the living-vampire hell she lived in almost looking like hunger. It hurt, seeing it in her eyes, but I couldn’t help her, and I swallowed hard.
“Daddy . . . ,” Ray said, in complaint this time when Trent came to get her, and when she clung to me, I put an arm around her, grinning as I shook my head.
Smiling, Trent sat in the chair beside mine instead, appreciating the idea that Ray would rather listen in than eat. “I’m not sure how showing a damaged auratic spread on national TV will convince people who don’t want to listen,” he said to continue our conversation, wincing when Lucy shouted, “Zack has syrup. I want syrup!”
“The I.S. can’t hold these people if there’s proof they weren’t responsible,” I said.
Jenks hummed his wings for attention. “Which doesn’t get rid of the baku,” he said as he licked the syrup from his chopsticks. “I still say me, Trent, you, and that soul bottle go pay Landon a visit. Nice and quiet like in the dewar. Then pull that snapped-wing fairy sparkle out of that lame moss wipe of a troll turd pretending to be an elf and put it in a bottle.”
“I want syrup!” Lucy demanded, undeterred by Quen’s quiet admonishment.
A quiver rose through me as I reached out and Trent lightly twined his fingers with mine. Neither of us was tapping a line, but I could feel one nevertheless. “That’s the plan, Jenks.”
“I might be able to wrangle another meeting,” Trent whispered, thoughts preoccupied. “We should go talk to Landon. Warn him what the Order is trying to do.”
“What?” Jenks exclaimed, and then he inked a bright silver. “Oh! Warn him,” he said knowingly. “Gotcha.”
“Today,” Trent added, frowning at Ellasbeth as she dribbled syrup on Lucy’s oatmeal. “We can’t afford to wait much longer. Landon already knows what the baku is trying to do and he thinks he can outsmart it. Right, Zack?”
Zack gave us all a thumbs-up from the table, his spoon never slowing.
“Agreed.” I jiggled Ray, my fingers playing with hers. “But I doubt very much that Landon will meet with us again. We’re going to have to break into his apartment or storm his office.”
Nodding, Ivy eased back into the cushions as Glenn mowed down the pull-apart bread as fast as Zack shoveled his oatmeal in.
“It’s nothing I’ve not done before,” I said, but it felt risky with Ray on my lap. “Even if we fail and the Order turns Landon into a zombie, there will at least be a record of us trying to stop them. That goodwill gesture alone might get the dewar to ease up on me. Us,” I amended