can’t. Agnent is gone, and it pains me more than I want to admit. It might be easier if I knew what happened, but he’s gone, and only the ache remains.’” Excitement trickled through me as I looked up, but Trent was still reading. “That sounds like a forget curse. Who is Agnent?”
“No idea,” he said shortly. “He’s not mentioned in any other volume. Okay, this is what I really wanted you to see.”
He turned back a page, and I leaned over the text. “‘Woke up to Agnent blowing a hole through the wall. He tapped a line in his sleep’”—I hesitated, tamping down a flash of fear—“‘but he seemed okay apart from being afraid to go to sleep. He says he feels like he’s being eaten alive, shell by shell. So tired. Haven’t slept in days. Quen and Kal are meeting someone who says they know who this thing sleeps in. He won’t let me go with him. He’s a chivalrous ass.’”
“Kal is my dad,” Trent said, answering my first question. “Short for Kalamack. He never liked his first name much.”
“Which is?” I prompted.
“Same as mine.”
I nodded, sort of remembering something like that when I’d looked up his I.S. file three years ago. “I think I would’ve liked your mom,” I said as I traced her words with my finger. “Hey, some of the pages are torn out.”
“You noticed that, too,” Trent said flatly, but it really wasn’t a question. “The ‘shell by shell’ sort of stuck in my mind. It made no sense at the time.”
“It doesn’t make much sense now, either,” I said. “You know what this means, right? Your mother helped catch the baku in the seventies. Jeez, how often does this thing get away?” I reached to take possession of the journal, but Trent pulled it away and closed it, his mood somber. “Does she say how?” I asked as he stood and went to put it away again.
“No. It’s probably in those missing pages.”
The click of the key in the lock was loud, and I couldn’t help but notice that he put it in his pocket, not back on the shelf. “Not much help, then,” I said as he sat down, perched on the edge of the couch with his elbows on his knee and his expression lost in thought.
“It proves that this thing can be caught, though.”
“But not how.” I put a hand on his back, feeling the worry in his shoulders like rocks. I leaned in, putting pressure into trying to rub the tension out. “Maybe . . .” I hesitated, my hand’s motion across him slowing. “Maybe capturing it involves the Goddess.”
Trent jerked, his expression holding a decisive surety. “If it does, then you’re sitting this one out. I’m not losing you to that tricky bitch again.”
Tricky bitch, eh? “Mmmm.” My hand began to move again, and his shoulders to ease. “What was that your mother said again? Oh, yes. Chivalrous ass?” I chuckled when he frowned, adding, “Don’t worry about it. I’m not doing any elven magic.”
“Good.”
Finally his shoulders fully relaxed, but I didn’t stop, just glad that he was here, and I was here, and we were doing this together. “The girls will be back tonight,” I said, my gaze drifting about the empty room. It was easy to imagine them here, growing up as a bold ten, a blossoming fifteen, a confident twenty. Marrying Dali’s apprentice. God, that was a weird dream.
Trent shifted to glance at his watch. “Not for hours yet.”
“I only meant we could ask Quen. He might know if your mother had any secondary journals. Ones that might cover what someone ripped out.”
“He won’t talk about her,” he said. “But I’ll press the issue. This is important.” He turned, taking my hand in his and his eyes widening as he noticed my new ring. “Where did you get that?”
“Oh!” I hated that I was flushing, and I forced myself to not jerk my hand from his. “Ah, the demon who bought the no-doze for me.” Trent’s expression tightened, and wanting to reassure him there was no issue here, I took it off and handed it to him. “It’s a call ring,” I said as he looked over the twined writing, and then through the hole as I had. “Put it on. Twist it. I’m guessing it works like a private scrying mirror.”
Trent handed it back, and I let out a breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding. “It looks elven,” he said. “This demon got