but he had no aura, no warmth. And when his tail curled around my finger in an unconscious reaction, I choked, throat tight.
Trent stood, his empty cup in hand. “I could use a refill. Rachel, you want a warm-up?”
I said nothing, and after giving my shoulder a squeeze, he went to the counter. His soft voice against Mark’s was a bland background to the nothing my life had become.
I didn’t remember Trent calling the car after walking out of the church, much less getting into it. I barely remembered Trent helping me out of it at Junior’s. I did remember that it had taken two fifties to get Mark to unlock the door, but now I think he was regretting the decision.
I knew about regret. Little regret, like not remembering to send your mom a birthday card. And the whopping big regret, like trusting your boyfriend with your summoning name and ending up in Alcatraz. But this, I thought as I looked at Bis curled up on my lap. This was going to break me.
I blinked fast, trying not to cry. Somehow, Bis was still alive without his soul—comatose and chalk white but alive. Most people would have gone to a bar to lose their memories in a numbing wave of alcohol. Not me. No, I didn’t want to forget. Maybe if I remembered, I wouldn’t be stupid and try to fix everything. But I doubted it.
“You sure you don’t want something?” Trent said, and I looked up, not having realized he’d come back. He set two steaming cups on the table, and I finally let go of my cold one. “You haven’t eaten in . . . a while.”
Eat? I thought, chin quivering. My vision began to swim, and I held my breath.
“Oh, Rachel.” He sat beside me, scooting closer as I dropped my head. “We will find a way to separate them,” he soothed as he tugged me closer. His gaze was on the baby bottle sitting atop the table like a weird centerpiece. It contained nothing I could see—and yet it held everything.
I won’t start crying again. I won’t. My head began to hurt, and I exhaled in a slow, measured movement. “Why did he do it?” I said, voice low so it wouldn’t break. “He knew it would kill him.”
Trent gathered me to him, almost rocking me. “Because he loved you,” Trent whispered, and my throat closed. “And he’s not dead. We’ll find a way to get him free.”
Okay, he wasn’t dead, but this was almost worse. I tried to take a new breath, but it escaped me in a sob. I tried to pull away, but Trent wouldn’t let me, and I let go, crying in great, gasping, ugly sounds against his shoulder as he ran his fingers through my hair and made shushing noises.
“This is my fault,” I said around my sobs. “I called on the Goddess to break Weast’s amulet. And then I used elven magic to try to bottle the baku.” I looked up, seeing the shared pain in his eyes. “Why did he do it?”
“I know it hurts,” he whispered, pulling me closer, and I hid my face against him again.
Even as I melted into him, I wanted to lash out at Trent. How could he know? The only things he’d ever loved that needed him to survive were his girls, and they were fine.
But then I remembered his agony in Ku’Sox’s lab, the knowledge in his eyes that he had failed. He’d taken the entire elven species into his circle long before he’d known me. The orphanages, the camps, the illegal medicines that funded the research to bring his people back from extinction: they needed him to survive. They might fight him every inch, but they needed him. And there were failures every day, large and small.
Finally my sobs slowed and I took a slow, clean breath, then exhaled, trying to let go of my heartache. But under it was even more crushing regret. Feeling it, Trent pulled me tight, grounding me without saying a word.
“He was my responsibility,” I said, my voice broken as I used one of Mark’s scratchy napkins to dab up the tears that wouldn’t stop. “How do you do it?” I asked, and he sighed, his grip on me easing without letting go. He smelled like green under the layer of smoke and sawdust, and I blinked up at him. “You’ve made yourself responsible for all of them,” I said. “To keep them alive. You