and his hair in charming disarray. It reminded me of Trent, and I glanced at him on the phone beside the front door as the chimes jingled and they came in. Crap on toast. What was I going to tell Jenks? I’d sent him away because I was afraid I’d lose him, and I ended up losing his best friend instead.
“Rachel!” Jenks darted from Zack’s shoulder, coming to a dust-laden, wide-eyed, almost panicked stop at the table. “I’ve been looking for you all night.”
“I wanted to be alone,” I said as Trent closed his phone and came over with a bag of something from the cold shelves.
“That’s swell. That’s fine. We can be alone together,” Jenks said, words tumbling over themselves as he landed on the table beside the bottle. It was as tall as him, and I averted my eyes when he touched it, wings drooping. I was going to start crying again. I knew it.
“Rache, I’m sorry,” Jenks said softly, surprising me. “He made his own decision.”
I looked up, my throat tight as Trent slipped back onto the bench, his arm going behind my back to give me a quick tug into him. “I don’t want people to sacrifice themselves to save me,” I said, trying to be angry, but it wouldn’t come.
“Too damn bad, witch,” Jenks said. “You’d do it for us. Have done it. It sucks like steaming green troll turds on the Fourth of July, but deal with it.”
“Sing it, pixy,” Ivy said, assessing Zack as he came to a fidgety halt at the end of the table. He was clearly trying to figure out what to say, but at least his security had given us some space.
“He’s alive?” Zack finally said, and I nodded, hand curved possessively around Bis. “Maybe you can put his soul back,” he added.
I followed his gaze to the soul bottle. “It’s mixed up with the baku’s. I don’t know how.”
“But you’re a demon.” Zack sat down as far from Ivy as he could get. “Maybe Hodin can.”
It was nice hearing him suggest that without fear, but a flash of annoyance lifted though me. I wasn’t happy with Hodin. He’d left. He’d just left. Sure, he didn’t owe me anything, but who leaves like that?
The click of Mark locking the front door was loud, and he double-checked that the closed sign was lit. I appreciated him not kicking us out, and managed to give him a thin smile as he came up to the table, hands smoothing his apron. “Can I get you something, Sa’han?” he asked, and everyone’s eyes went to Zack. Zack, though, was oblivious.
“He’s talking to you,” Trent finally said, and Zack flashed red.
“Oh! Uh, do you have hot chocolate?”
Mark seemed to stifle a wince. “We’ve got cocoa,” he said. “That’s pretty close.”
Zack fiddled with cuff links in the shape of the dewar seal. “With marshmallows?”
Mark’s smile began to look pained. “How about whipped cream?”
“Stellar,” Zack said enthusiastically, and Mark’s shoulders slumped.
“Coffee okay for the two of you?” Mark asked loudly, and Zack’s security up front made happy noises and settled at a table in the sun.
Ivy’s eyes flicked from the soul bottle to me. “Have you been here all night?”
I nodded. It had been hours ago, and a flash of guilt went through me. “Shouldn’t you be getting ready for Thanksgiving dinner or something?”
“Nina didn’t go shopping,” Jenks said, now sitting on the soul bottle as if in protection. “There’s nothing but a can of baked beans and some dried-up carrots in the upstairs kitchen. You don’t want to know what’s in the downstairs kitchen.”
“What’s in the downstairs kitchen?” Zack predictably asked.
“I said you don’t want to know,” Jenks said pointedly.
“Sorry,” I muttered. I was ruining everyone’s holiday. Even Mark’s. And a pang of heartache pulled my eyes down. My eyes closed, and my hand cradling Bis under the table trembled. The hard way was going to break me someday. But not today.
Trent’s grip on me tightened as he leaned in, his hopeful smile doing nothing to hide his worry. “I’ve talked to my lawyers. Dan is fine, and both he and Wendy agreed to not file assault charges, seeing as we were trying to save Landon. Landon is pretending ignorance, but there’s been no talk of giving him the dewar back, and I think Zack is it.”
My gaze turned from an embarrassed Zack to Trent as I realized he’d been putting out fires while I cried into my coffee. “Thank you.” I was a shitty