“We should get going. Don’t want to be late!” I said with a forced cheerfulness as I started for the back gate.
My back was stiff, and I could hear the grass whispering as Dali used his magic to push it from his path and keep his clothes pristine. “I don’t know how you survive your ignorance,” he muttered. “I’ve warned you once. Now I’m telling you. If you don’t want to talk to Al, fine. I don’t want to talk to him most days. But you will not take Hodin as your mentor. He is dangerous.”
This coming from a demon? “The flower was my spell, not Hodin’s. And I’m not all that keen on him, either,” I said, trying to skirt the entire issue. My feet found the slate path to the gate, and I moved faster.
“Rachel.”
His tone held warning, and I turned, stifling a shiver at him standing there in the weeds, looking as slick and evil and powerful as Death himself with the fallow graveyard behind him.
“You stink of elven magic,” Dali said, lip curling and anger in his brow. “You reek of it, and that fool of a . . . I can’t even call him a demon,” he said, voice suddenly holding a mocking laughter. “That shape-shifting, treasonous bastard is the only one who would dare touch it.”
Dali stepped closer, his eyes never leaving mine.
“I—I didn’t use elven magic for the lily,” I stammered, gaze going behind him to where the pixies now sat on the glass, coating it with their shifting dust. “I told you. I used a standard grow charm linked to the lily bulb, then the curse to move it all through time. It was pure ley line magic to send the smell to Piscary’s.”
“I’m not talking about your joke curse,” he said, his eyes rising to the steeple.
I slumped, not believing this. “Oh, come on!” I cajoled. He was fussing over the spell I’d put on the belfry bell? “It was a tiny charm. Like you said, my house is a half-conceived, ill-defensed . . .”
“Hey!” Jenks shouted from the overhanging branches.
“. . . back lot of a spelling lab,” I finished. “I did it so I’d know if Hodin was spying on me so I could kick him out. It’s not like you have any spells to warn me that demons are about.”
I’d said the last bitterly, and Dali seemed to hesitate, relaxing as he looked up into the branches for Jenks. “Is that true?” he said, and Jenks bobbed his head.
“I helped her walk the perimeter circle this morning,” he said, but Dali only seemed to slump deeper into his bad mood as he followed me to the street gate.
“And this?” Dali said as we reached it, and I gasped, jerking as my wrist was suddenly in his grip. Ley line energy sang in me, and I choked, yanking the cresting wave back before it could touch him. I’d have to really try to hurt Dali with ley line energy. I mean, I could, but I’d probably fry my own synapses doing it.
Jenks’s wings clattered, but he hung back, sword pulled, as I stood with my arm outstretched, stumbling when Dali yanked me a step closer.
“You expect me to believe that Hodin didn’t give you that ring?” he said, and my eyes dropped to the pearl, now faintly glowing under the unharnessed energy arcing between us. “It’s elven magic,” he sneered. “I can smell the Goddess from here.”
“Let go,” I demanded, pulling away to no effect. “It’s for knowing if someone attacks me, and it smells like the Goddess because Trent made it.” Again I twisted my wrist, but he held on. “Let go of me, Dali, or I swear you will meet your new student with a synaptic burn.”
“Kalamack made it?” His grip shifted, and I stumbled to find my balance. “I had no idea that he was so skilled.”
“Surprise!” I said sourly as I rubbed my wrist. “God, Dali. I hope you aren’t like this at Keric’s house. Get off my case, will you? I’m not working with Hodin.” My shoulders slumped. “Though I could really use the help. Constance is really cramping my day. Did you know she’s blackballed me? I can’t rent, I can’t buy, and she’s even chased off my work crew.”
Dali’s gaze lifted from my red wrist, and then, chin high, he pushed past me in a wash of burnt amber. “Don’t expect help in dealing with Constance,” he said. “And don’t ask for it from Hodin.”
“Why?” Jenks said belligerently. “Because her boyfriend gave her a ring and she used an elven charm to make a doorbell?”
“No, because if she can’t control a master vampire on her own, she doesn’t have the magical chops to be Cincinnati’s subrosa,” Dali answered back.
My steps following him to the gate faltered. “Whoa. Wait up. Cincinnati’s what?”
Dali stopped, his slight bulk moving gracefully as he turned before the closed gate. “Subrosa?” he said, his goat-slitted, red eyes wide in question.
Jenks was a tight hum by my ear. “What’s a subrosa?” he asked, and Dali grimaced.
“Not a what, a who. The one who rules the rulers,” he said as if I was being stupid. “Al didn’t mention this? Odd. Your actions over the last six months all point in that direction. It would explain your fascination with, and Al’s acceptance of, a . . . Kalamack elf.”
He said the last with a grimace, and I followed as the gate creaked open. Al hadn’t accepted Trent. He had simply stopped trying to kill him. “Hold up. I’m no one’s ruler.”
Three steps out of my garden, Dali turned, his fingers rubbing the faint damp from himself. “Obviously,” he said, eyes narrowed in distaste as his gaze went past me to the covered lily. “A joke spell? That is your best idea to control a master of the undead?” he mocked, and Jenks bristled from my shoulder.
Lips pressed together, I stood in the threshold and stared at him. “What do you want me to do? Turn her into a kitten and get her declawed?”
Dali eyed the branches, a weird smile quirking his lips. “What a wonderful idea. You should do that. Then kill her and be done with it.”
“Killing the undead is against the law, Dali,” I said flatly. “One the I.S. is really particular about.”
“That’s why you turn her into a cat first,” the demon answered, his faint smile rubbing me the wrong way. “Perhaps you aren’t up to it,” he added lightly. “Seeing as you enjoy living among the lesser. In a broken church. Looking for work.”
“Says the demon slinging coffee,” I shot back, but the reality was the unassuming job probably gave him an unparalleled opportunity to sell the occasional curse. “And I don’t remember asking for anyone’s help,” I added, uncomfortable now because unless I moved, I was kind of stuck, not in the garden, not outside of it—right in between where anything could happen. “Besides, you were all ugly and demanding for eons, and look where it got you. Hiding in the ever-after. Afraid—”