me and I ended up in someone else's circle dressed in this hideous orange outfit with fashionable white canvas pull-on shoes.
My will seemed to stretch forward and yank me into existence. With a jolt, everything happened at once, and my aura - which had been holding me together while I existed only as a thought in the ley lines - rose through the memory of myself to build a body. My clothes, bruises, cuffs, everything, down to the egg in my hair, would come through intact. You couldn't fool the demon archive and show up clean, rested, and in a pair of designer boots. I'd tried. The charmed silver, though, would be gone. Small favors.
I took a breath, and I suddenly had lungs. Stumbling, I stayed upright as I popped into existence between the center counter and the sink. The kitchen was dim with early sunlight, shocking since it was dark where I'd been seconds ago. Ivy and Jenks were waiting, worried and tense. Jenks was flying, and all I could see wrong with Ivy was a welt on her forehead.
Immediately the shimmer of smut-covered ever-after around me dropped. It was Ceri, then, who had summoned me. "Thank God," I said, leaning back against the center counter, my head bowed as I mumbled, "Thank you, Ceri. I owe you big." Bis wasn't here, swimming back to Pierce for the jump home, I guess.
Ivy's face was pale as she came close, taking in my tired, filthy state. "What did they do to you?" she said as she fumbled at her key chain for one of her handcuff keys. The steel rings came off, hitting the counter with a loud clatter, and I felt loved.
"Tink's little red panties, Rache," Jenks swore, pinching his nose shut as he hovered over them. "You reek like a fairy's outhouse! Ivy, get her a pain amulet, will you? And maybe one to make her not stink? Good God, how did you get so stinky? You were only gone a day!"
I smiled, glad to be home. But my expression froze when I turned to thank Ceri again. Ceri hadn't summoned me home. It was Nick.
"You putrid pile of troll crap!" I jumped for him, hands grasping. My knees gave way and I slipped, catching myself on the edge of the counter and gasping at the sudden pain. Jenks darted into the air, and Ivy reached for me, concerned.
Nick jumped to his feet. His face was tight and angry, but that was nothing next to my outrage, and I grunted when Ivy pulled me upright and I pushed her away.
"Rache, wait!" Jenks exclaimed, silver sparkles falling from him. "He's here so Jax can make peace with Matalina. He summoned you back. We couldn't find Keasley, and Trent won't let anything get through to Ceri!"
"Bull!" I pointed at Nick, standing sullenly beside the archway to the hall with his too-long hair and faded jeans. "He summoned me, then left me to fight my way out alone!"
Ivy's eyes flashed a full, dangerous black, and Jenks's wings hit an unusually high pitch.
"He did what?"
Nick backed into the hall, hands raised. A streak of pixy dust darting in turned into Jax. The renegade pixy had drawn the entire pixy clan with him, and I froze, stunned by the flitting silk and high-pitched voices as Matalina hovered over it all like a distressed angel.
"I didn't have a choice," Nick was saying over their noise. "Rachel, I owed them, thanks to you running off with the focus. I told you how to get out. And I flew back here to get you home! Will you listen to me? I'm trying to help!"
"Trying to help?" Ivy strode across the kitchen, pixies darting out of her way in swirls of color. Nick made a dash for the sanctuary, but she was faster. Like a cat after a bat, she snagged him, her hand gripping him under his throat as she threw him across the kitchen to slam into my mom's old fridge. He started to slip down, and she had him again, lifting him up and holding him there while he tried to make his lungs work. Atop the fridge, the Brimstone cookie jar wobbled and would have fallen off if not for the pixies working as a team to balance it.
"You summoned Rachel to San Francisco?" she said, showing her sharp canines. "She was driving. You could have killed us all!"
Jenks hovered beside his face, his son between his sword and the man's eye. "You