shoulder again. “Someone really wants this quiet. No more murders last night, though.”
“Really?” I frowned, worried. “That’s good,” I said, but it wasn’t. It meant the baku was done messing around. It was coming for me—had come for me. I’m never going to sleep again.
Ivy hesitated beside her bike. “You okay?”
My wandering thoughts returned. “Yeah . . . ,” I said slowly. “Jenks is with me. Tell Nina there might be one more for Thanksgiving. Zack Oborna. Almost sixteen. Elf. Dewar runaway.”
Hair swinging, Ivy put her helmet back on. “Of course he is,” she said as she fastened it. “See you at home.”
I nodded as she started her bike and tooled serenely down the street, back to her life.
Cold, I turned to the church, my eyes following a sparkle of bright dust that shot from the crack in the boarded-up window and arrowed straight up. From inside, a bellow of anger rose. Someone was in my church, someone pissed by the sound of it, and suddenly the bell sounding earlier took on new meaning.
I whistled for Jenks. Immediately he got a bead on me and dropped like a stone. He was laughing, which wasn’t much comfort when I saw his garden sword in one hand, a tuft of dark hair in the other. “Who’s here? David?” I guessed from the hair, and Jenks grinned.
“Hodin,” he said, laughing merrily. “He showed up, shouting about you stealing his curse. I don’t know what his problem is. His hair grew right back. Almost as fast as his ear.”
“Always making friends, eh, Jenks?” I muttered as he landed on my shoulder. I took the stairs, having to weave through the plates of food and frozen flowers. “Hodin?” I called as I shoved the door open. “I can hear you yelling all the way out to the street. I have to live with these people, you know.” Damn it back to the Turn. He was still spying on me.
The warmth of the furnace going full force hit me, and my hair blew back to send Jenks up in a wash of dust. Hodin was at the stage, clearly angry as he looked from the writing on my table. His long hair was in disarray, and a black-and-gold sarilike garment draped all the way to the floor. His right hand glowed with unfocused energy, and I slowed.
“Where is that pixy?” he snarled. “He cut my hair.”
“Aww, it was just a little chunk, moss wipe,” Jenks taunted, hovering close so Hodin wouldn’t be as likely to throw the ball of unfocused energy at him.
“You little bird smear!” Hodin exclaimed, furious. “Get away from that witch!”
“Yeah?” Jenks hummed forward, slow from the cold but willing as he drew his sword. “Here I am. Smite me, oh powerful demon.”
“Stop!” I barked as Hodin wound up, and much to my amazement, the demon’s hand dropped. “Knock it off, both of you. Or I’ll make both of you leave. Jenks, don’t you have some inventory to do for me in the belfry? I’m sure Hodin and I can have a nice chat without any mashing, pulping, or cutting off of any more parts.”
Jenks sheathed his sword with a noisy flourish. “I’m watching you,” he threatened.
“Do I look as if I care?” Hodin said, and when Jenks’s wings hummed a threat, I pointed at the belfry. Jenks’s laugh sounded like wind chimes as he flew a low path back to the vestibule and vanished up the narrow stair.
“He’s four inches tall—,” I started.
“That is no excuse for cutting off parts of my body,” Hodin interrupted, expression dark as he rubbed his ear.
“No,” I said patiently. “I mean, if you want any hope of besting him, you need to shrink down.” Hodin furrowed his brow in thought, and I added, “And if you so much as bend his wing back, I’ll . . . be dead to you, too.”
Hodin glared at me and shook out his black robe. “You will not live long if you keep that much stock in a pixy,” he said, but he wasn’t shouting anymore, and I edged past the hole in the floor and onto the stage. I set Ivy’s bag and my collecting scarf on the table, wary. The faint scent of burnt amber was coming from him, and I breathed it in, finding it pleasantly rich with memory.
“Jenks has saved my life more times than you have rings,” I said, making a fist around the one of his that I still wore. “You did enter his