in pixy culture. He’ll be okay in Trent’s conservatory.”
The sound of Jenks’s wings pushed our heads apart, and I felt myself flush. “Spend the winter with my kids?” Jenks said as David’s small silhouette eased into the church and shut the door. “Tink’s a Disney whore. Talk about a fifth wheel.”
“I think it’s a good idea,” Ivy said, nodding her hello to David, now cautiously entering the sanctuary, his shoulders hunched in mild unease and looking like a young Van Helsing with his long, wavy black hair, casual jeans and shirt, and short cashmere scarf. Weres could enter holy ground as much as anyone else, but they clearly felt off. “They need all the help they can get to keep their newlings alive through the winter. Izzy had what, five?” Ivy added.
Jenks’s frown vanished. “Five,” he said, hands on his hips. “They’re already thinking up names.”
But they wouldn’t get them until spring and the new parents were sure they’d survive, and I hid a smile when he sat down cross-legged atop the eight ball. I would have said he looked cute, but he’d have given me a lobotomy with the garden sword strapped to his hip. My thoughts jerked back to my dream about turning Jenks into spiders, and I shoved the fear away, smile fading.
David’s rugged, slightly stubbled face was beaming. “You have no idea how good it is to see you three together,” he said, and Ivy rolled her eyes to hide her pain that it was ending—because I had screwed up, and she had found love.
“Hi, David.” Boots clunking, I crossed the room to give him a long, earnest hug, breathing in the scent of green and growing things that lingered about him.
“There’s a pack run this Sunday. You’re invited,” David said as we parted.
“Maybe this winter,” I said, and he nodded, accepting the new distance I’d put between us since his girlfriend had become pregnant. It wasn’t because he was now taken goods, but because I wouldn’t risk endangering him further than I already had. “How’s Serena?”
David’s smile widened. “Ornery. She’s not allowed to shift anymore.”
I nodded, imagining it. “You’re going to be a great dad,” I added, and Jenks hummed close, almost dripping attitude as he spilled a gold wash of pixy dust.
“All right, Mr. Peabody,” Jenks said, surprising me with the nickname Kisten had given David. “You going to piss in the pot or play with yourself? You’ve had my claim for six weeks.”
“Jenks!” I exclaimed, but then froze when David winced.
“I tried,” David said, and Jenks made a rude sound. “Every last trick and loophole. But the kitchen and living room were lost in a city power struggle—which we’re under no obligation to cover—and the damage to the sanctuary was caused by a demon.”
“It was a Goddess,” I said, and David brought his gaze back down from the roof.
“Granted, but Newt was originally a demon. And since demon damage isn’t covered—”
“Newt wasn’t part of the Goddess when the Goddess did the damage,” I interrupted. Jenks was hovering beside me, but Ivy had given up by the looks of it and was dropping balls one by one into the pockets as if they were her choices, gone forever. “And I didn’t summon her.”
“Regardless.” David hesitated as he noticed the charred circle for the first time.
Frustrated, I crossed my arms over my middle as Ivy propped the stick against a window frame. I’d find the money somewhere. Maybe if I changed my name, someone would hire me. “Well, thanks for trying,” I finally said, and David’s expression eased.
“Son of a fairy-farting whore,” Jenks swore, shunning my hand when I held it out for him.
“We’ll find the money,” I insisted, but even if we did and we moved back in, Ivy wouldn’t be at the big oak farm table with her maps and laptop, drinking orange juice and scowling as she told Jenks to keep his dust off her screen. It would be just me, Jenks, and Bis, knocking around in a big, empty church. Even his kids were gone.
“I’m sorry,” David said into the stretching silence. “Everything ends.”
The sickly yellow dust spilling from Jenks nearly broke my heart. “Yeah,” the small pixy said. “But I thought I’d be dead before it was over.”
Head low, Ivy stood beside the table. “Me too,” she said, breathing the words.
Panic iced through me. It would be so easy to move in with Trent, become part of his world, twining our lives in equal measures. But I enjoyed my independence