sat to look at her, aghast even as my chest hurt from trying not to cry. "You are a coldhearted bitch. You think it's time for me to grow up?" I said as I stood. "Accept everything that happens to me as fact? Jenks is not a life lesson to help me grow up. He's my friend, and he's hurting!"
I wasn't thinking clearly, but I didn't care. Jenks thought his life was over, and I couldn't get to him.
"He's a pixy, Rachel," Ceri said, eyes flicking over Ivy, probably calculating the odds that her next words might send the vamp after her. "This is what they do."
Emotions jumbled and numb, I looked over the garden for something, anything, seeing the fairies at the edge of their prison, listening. Jenks had let them live. Something no other pixy had ever done.
"Yeah," I said bluntly, not ready to let him go just yet. "Jenks is a pixy. And pixies die of heartache when their spouses die. But Jenks is more than a pixy. He went into partnership with Ivy and me; no other pixy has done that. He owns property. Has a credit card. Minutes left on his phone. He's probably going to live another twenty years because I reset his biological clock by accident last summer. He showed mercy and let those who attacked his garden live. What happened with Matalina is tragic. It's my fault she's dead. I can't sit here and just let him die as well, can t.
"People die, Rachel," Ceri said, her cheeks flushing.
"Not if I can help it," I snapped. "And not of a broken heart. If you could, I'd be dead already." I turned away, frustrated. "Please. At least let me be there so he doesn't die alone."
Ivy's breath caught. "I want to go, too," she said suddenly, and I turned to her, shocked. She would take a curse?
"Me as well," Pierce offered.
Ceri's lips pressed as she saw our united front. "Fine," she finally said, and the sudden relief almost collapsed my knees. "I don't agree with this," she added. "You are all only going to hurt Jenks. Pierce, you're familiar with twisting curses. I'll need help to make three quick enough to do some good. You can help."
Pierce's expression was a mix of relief and heartache. "Of course," he said, gesturing for Ceri to accompany him inside. But the elf would have none of his courtesy, and with her head high, she stalked up the stairs and into the house with a loud bang of the screen door.
Ivy exhaled long and slow. Pierce seemed to relax as well, arid he touched my arm and smiled. "It's a curse," he said, startling me when he leaned in and gave me a chaste kiss on the cheek, leaving me with the scent of redwood swirling in my brain. His steps confident, he rose up the stairs as well, closing the door behind him without a sound. A moment later, the kitchen window slammed shut, feminine fingers on the sill.
The hint was obvious. Stay out.
Shaking, I sat back down. With a sigh, Ivy slipped in to sit across from me. We exchanged a long look, both of us knowing that Ceri and Pierce had the easy part. It was going to be up to us to find a way to convince Jenks that life was worth living when his reason for living was gone. Deciding what to do with the fairies could wait.
Chapter Twenty-three
It was almost noon, and I was still sitting at the picnic table, my upper body slumped against the damp wood and my head down, staring at Jenks's stump. I'd be dead if Brooke knew the fairy attack had failed and decided to come after me twice in one morning, but I didn't care. I was waiting for a sign of life from Jenks's stump, and I wasn't going inside and possibly miss it. Ivy had gone in to find out how much longer it would be, but that had been, like, five minutes ago.
The spring breeze shifted a curl into my eyes, and I brushed it away, staring, still staring, at the stump as my hip ached from hitting the floor too many times, my arm hurt where the fairy dart had found me, and my fingernails stank of burnt amber. At the end of the table, the fairies were moving around, recovering from their wounds and learning how to walk without their wings, still waiting to learn their fate. The garden was