Demons of Good and Evil by Kim Harrison

            “Is this ley line magic?” Trent asked as he looked down, and I shrugged, not knowing for sure. It was kind of both earth and ley line, all mixed together. Which, when you parsed it out, was what made demon magic demon.

            Trent turned to Al, his stance finding a formal stiffness as his toes edged the toadstools, now throwing off a faint haze of sparkles. “May we come in?” he said, his musical voice amid the crickets bringing a shiver through me.

            “A Kalamack elf,” Al grumped. “I never thought I’d see the day that I invited you in. Yes. Come in. Both of you.”

            “Thank you.” Trent gingerly stepped over the ring. One might think a chalk-drawn circle would be stronger, but the mushrooms were an interlaced mass of mycelium under the ground, and the living tissue pulled in the power of the ley line without Al needing to do a thing. It was a marvel, really. Even without the ley lines, Al was a master of magic.

            My hair lifted as I crossed the ring, and I hustled to catch up with Trent. Al’s mood was closed as he pulled a pin on a ley line charm and dropped it into the middle of the smoldering fire. Blue flame rose up with a whoosh. Eyes averted, Al put more wood on, stacking it carefully as if unsure how long the starter amulet would last.

            “It’s nice tonight,” I said as I settled on a flat rock before the fire, my feet on the bare, slow-baked earth.

            “Give it time,” Al grumped. The flames were already beginning to subside, and I added a piece of split wood before I shifted closer to Al and out of the smoke. Seeing him using premade charms and wearing clothes he’d washed himself was disheartening, and I reached for the poker to fix the fire just to have something to do.

            But I hesitated as I took the length of metal in hand, stopped first by its exquisite balance, and then the pure beauty of the thing. It was clearly well used, with a slow deepening of black ash toward the tip, but it had been crafted with such care and art that it felt like a crime to consign it to the flames. The twisted metal hinted at birds and squirrels. Oak leaves decorated a secure handle, and a fanciful fish made a hook near the end. It must mean a great deal to him if he had made the effort to rescue it when the original ever-after collapsed.

            “A thing of beauty has no purpose if it is not used,” Al said as he saw my study. “It’s from a time long spent,” he added, taking the poker from me and rearranging the fire. “Once you live as long I have, you’ll realize only things that survive are those that don’t break easily.”

            Trent had settled to my left, and his brow furrowed at the reminder of how old Al was, the war he had fought, and for how long—and against whom.

            “That’s a good charm,” I said as Al shifted a piece of smoldering wood and a new flame flickered up. “To light the fire? How long did it take to make?”

            Al gave me a sidelong look, clearly uncomfortable with Trent sitting there. “I gave Dali an hour of my time for a box of them.”

            “Al . . .”

            But my words cut off as he glanced at Trent. “My skills will return,” he said bluntly. “Hodin will not. Let this go, Rachel. It’s not your burden.” The demon resettled himself, turning to face Trent more fully. “Rachel is obviously in trouble,” he said bluntly. “Why are you here?”

            Trent’s attention came back from the hazy moonlight now filling with fireflies. Yes, it was too late in the season for them, but as Al liked to point out, the new ever-after was still linked to my psyche, and it changed itself to suit me. Or, put shortly, it rained here when I was unhappy. “Um, about the books you borrowed from my mother’s library . . .” Trent started.

            “I believe the word you mean is recovered,” Al drawled, his goat-slitted eyes glowing red from over his blue-tinted glasses.

            “They were not yours to take,” Trent said boldly. “If they were in my mother’s possession, she got them from you legally. I’ve been through her last requests and she did not will them to you upon her death. I want them back.”

            Al jabbed the fire with his poker. “Prove it.”

            “You want to see her will?” Trent said incredulously, and Al flung the exquisite poker to the ground.

            “I want to see the paperwork where she legally acquired them,” Al said. “He who has the most data wins, and you have none because I didn’t give your mother any.”