you," I whispered, kneeling to put our eyes on the same level.
"Round them up. Tie them down!" Jenks shouted, and his kids complained as he took to the air, seeming to pull me to my feet as well. Blood smeared him, and wiping his sword he said, "TJiis is going to be trouble, Rache. You should have let me kill them."
I started backing away, my gaze darting over the garden. He was angry, motions quick as he flitted away, savage and stinking of death. His kids were cruelly driving the flightless fairies together with torments and cuts. It was survival, but it was scaring me.
My gaze touched on Ceri, the hem of her dress shaking. I'd ruined her curse - a black curse as foul as a hanging corpse. Ivy's eyes were black as she tried to regain control of her emotions, driven to the brink by the aggression around her, her grimed sword on the grass beside her. And Pierce stood watching me, a sad, tired expression in his eyes.
What am I doing? Who are these people I thought I knew, crying for death, lusting for it?
"I have to go," I whispered, backing up farther yet.
Ivy's eyes flashed even blacker, and Ceri turned, her expression hot with anger.
"Inside," I added so they wouldn't think I was leaving. "I need some water."
I headed for the porch, snatching up Rex so she wouldn't eat any of the grounded fairies.
Maybe I should have gone into the ever-after. Even Al is better than this.
Chapter Twenty
The slamming of the screen door behind me jumped through me like a spark. I had to get away. I had to go somewhere to regroup, figure out what had just happened. But as I stood in the silence, there was no peace in the living room. Ivy's couch was heady with vampire incense and memories. Leaving wet footprints, I paced into the kitchen.
My sneakers squeaked to a halt, and my heart pounded as I listened to the calls of the pixies through the window. The blue lights on the fridge's ice maker glowed, and I looked at the picture of me and Jenks standing before the bridge at Mackinaw. But the kitchen held no comfort even though my glinting spell pots and herbs made it mine. It was Ivy's, too, and the thought of her black eyes savage with the need to survive was too fresh.
Spinning, I walked past my room to the sanctuary. The hint of burnt amber coming from my bathroom and the blanket Al had given me - still waiting to be washed - seemed like a veil I had to push through, and I held my breath until I got to the wide space. As I stood at the end of the hall, the whispers of pixies at play seemed to echo from my past, the bright room a pleasant mix of all three of us and the memory of Kisten. There was no comfort here.
I was trapped by everything I cared about. I wanted to be cocooned, safe, but my security had always been the church and those in it. Right now, they were what was knotting my gut.
At a loss, I collapsed on the couch, pulling my knees to my chest and trying to find something to ease the ache. Sniffing back a tear of frustration, I thought of Al's kitchen and the hours I'd spent there in front of the smaller hearth, in the quiet with Mr. Fish and my own thoughts to keep me company. There was a peaceful security there, with the world pushed to the edges as I learned something new, gaining satisfaction and a grudging "passable" from the very demon I'd once been terrified of. I still was, but it was an old terror now, like growing up thinking you weren't going to see the next spring.
There was a scuffing at the top of the hall. Forehead on my drawn-up knees, I didn't look.
"Rachel?"
It was Pierce, and my head started to hurt. "Go away," I said. It had been his idea.
"I'm sorry," he said softly, and I lifted my head when he started to walk away.
"Wait," I blurted out, remembering the sorrow in his eyes when he had suggested the curse. He'd used it before. Maybe he knew how to justify it. "Don't go," I whispered.
Slowly he turned. Heartache showed on his pinched brow. For me? I wondered. For his part in helping me lose my innocence? The question of whether I'd use black magic to save