That’s weird.
The door pushed open until it hit the fallen wine rack. A masculine voice murmured in surprise, and Trent stood when a muscular arm wrangled its way in and shoved the rack up until it hit the wall with a heavy thump and a tinkle of glass.
The door opened farther to show a large blond man in security black standing on the threshold. He silently eyed the broken bottles until a small man in office attire pushed past him. Clearly nervous, he touched his fair hair to make sure the fine strands were lying flat.
My gaze went to Trent, and my eyebrows rose in understanding. Trent might have been wearing an ill-fitting suit. He might have been dirty and trapped in a hole. But under that thickening stubble, he had the cool, angry bearing of a wronged prince, and I loved him for it.
“What do you want?” I said, not bothering to get up.
The man edged farther around his security with an oddly starstruck look. “My name is Benny,” he said, and I squinted at him, not hearing that West Coast accent most everyone else in the building had. “Up until two months ago, I was the dewar’s single Cincinnati representative.”
Trent put a hand on his waist, the other snapping his fingers to help trigger a memory. “I know you. We met at . . . ah. Halloween, wasn’t it? At my charity ball. You were a Vulcan.”
My suspicion deepened as Benny flushed, almost fanboying.
“That was me,” he said, touching an ear. It was cropped as the ears of all the elves of his generation were, but being a Vulcan had given him the excuse to don a proper pair of ears for the day.
“What do you want?” I asked again, and Benny’s eyes shot to mine, dark in the chancy light of the single bulb. His smile vanished.
“Not everyone is happy with Landon’s obsession with the baku.” Benny glanced at his security as if he was sympathetic to his stand. “Your associate told me that Landon taught you the spell to pull a soul from a body and put it into another.”
Associate? My head jerked up. He had to mean Jenks. They’d caught him?
“Jenks?” I said, scrambling up. “If you so much as bend a wing—” My motion toward Benny jerked to a halt when that big man moved, blocking me. Trent shifted to stand beside me, and together we sized up the hard-faced man. He was the tallest, most broad-shouldered elf I’d ever seen—and he had to be an elf with that wispy blond hair and those green eyes.
Two against one in a small space. His chancy magic against our fists and feet. I settled back to listen.
“He’s fine.” Benny’s smile looked ill. “Zack said he was not to be harmed.”
My lips parted, and Trent grunted, clearly stunned as well. “That wily little . . .”
“Elf,” I finished for him, new possibilities opening up.
“Zack’s been spying on me?” Trent said, his worried expression making me wonder if he was regretting having shown him his mother’s spelling hut. “You sent him to spy on me?”
“No.” Benny clasped his hands in distress. “He ran away after being moved to Cincinnati. With Landon compromised, he’s the head of the dewar.” He winced. “Such as it is presently.”
“Then you’re . . . letting us go?” I said, remembered the large building we’d wound our way through to get to the wine cellar. It seemed pretty substantial to me for a faction that had, until a year ago, been meeting in coffee shops and at baseball games.
“That depends on you,” Benny said, and my hope faltered in sudden suspicion.
“Landon hasn’t given Zack any of the dewar secrets, has he,” Trent murmured.
“Not the ones known only to the high priest,” Benny admitted. “Landon is compromised, but he’s holding the dewar’s wisdom hostage. We don’t dare oppose him.”
My shoulders slumped and I eased back. Zack was not in charge. “Yet you’re down here talking to us. What do you want?” I asked for the third time.
“Landon wants Trent dead and you responsible for it,” he said, his gaze fixed on mine. “But as I said, he’s compromised. Zack, though next in line, is underage, and while we will give on certain matters, such as if a pixy lives or dies, we can’t give him sway in political matters.”
“If Jenks suffers under your care, you will suffer under mine,” I intoned, and Trent exhaled as if annoyed, his fingers tightening on my arm.
“You mentioned the