know about elves." He darted to the sidewalk, then back to me. "Can you walk a little faster? I'd like to get there before the sun sets and that thing in the eaves wakes up."
My gaze went three houses down to find Keasley outside enjoying the fall weather, raking leaves. Great, he'd seen me tear into here like a bunny on fire. "Jenks," I said suddenly. "I'm going to do the talking. Not you."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," he said, and I fixed my gaze on him with a threatening sharpness.
"I mean it. Ceri might not have told him yet."
The hum of his wings dropped in pitch, though he didn't lose a millimeter of height. "Okay," he said hesitantly.
My boots hit the sidewalk and the dappled pattern of sun that made it through the colored leaves still clinging to the dark branches. Keasley is Leon Bairn? I thought as I looked him over. Leon was the only other person besides me to quit the I.S. and survive, though he'd apparently had to fake his death to do it. I was guessing that Trent knew it because he had helped. He would have been about fifteen then, but just coming into his parents' legacy and eager to show his stuff.
I glanced at Jenks, remembering how mad the pixy had been when I hid from him that Trent was an elf. If Keasley was Leon, then he was a runner. And Jenks wouldn't violate that trust for anything.
"Jenks, can you keep a secret?" I said, slowing when Keasley saw us and stopped his work to lean on his rake. The old man suffered from arthritis so badly that he seldom had the stamina for yard work, despite the pain charms Ceri made for him.
"Maybe," the pixy said, knowing his own limits. I gave him a sharp look, and he grimaced. "Yeah, I'll keep your lame-ass secret. What is it? Trent wears a man-bra?"
A smile quirked my lips before I grew serious. "Keasley is Leon Bairn."
"Holy crap!" Jenks said, a burst of light glowing against the bottom of the leaves. "I take the afternoon off, and you find out Ceri's pregnant and sharing a roof with a dead legend!"
I grinned at him. "Trent was chatty today."
"No fairy-ass kidding." His wings went silver in thought. "So why did Trent tell you?"
I shrugged, running my finger against the thump-bump of the chain-link fence surrounding Keasley's yard as I walked. "I don't know. To prove he knew something I didn't? Did Jih tell you that she's shacked up with a pixy buck?"
"What!"
His wings stopped and my palm darted out with a flash of adrenaline, but he caught himself before he could drop into my palm. Jenks hovered, his face a mask of parental horror. "Trent?" he squeaked. "Trent told you?" And when I nodded, he turned his gaze to the front gardens of the house, just starting to show the grace of a pixy presence even in the fall. "Sweet mother of Tink," he said. "I have to talk to my daughter."
Without waiting for my reply, he darted away, only to jerk to an abrupt halt at the fence. Slipping several inches in height, he yanked a pixy-size red bandanna from a pocket and tied it about his ankle. It was a pixy's version of a white flag: a promise of good intention and no poaching. He'd never worn it before when visiting his daughter, and the acknowledgment of her new husband had to be bittersweet. His wings a dismal blue, he zipped over the house to the backyard where Jih had been concentrating her efforts on building a garden.
Smiling faintly, I raised a hand to Keasley's hail, opened the gate, and entered the yard.
"Hi, Keasley," I called, looking him over with a new interest born of knowing his history. The old black man stood in the middle of his yard, his cheap sneakers almost hidden by leaves. His jeans were faded by work, not distressing stones in the wash, and his red-and-black plaid shirt looked a size too big, probably gotten at discount somewhere.
His wrinkles gave his face texture that made his expressions easy to read. The tinge of yellow in his brown eyes had me worried, but he was healthy apart from old age and arthritis. I could tell that he'd once been tall; now, though, I could look him eye to eye. Age was beating hard upon his body, but it had yet to touch his mind. He was the neighborhood wise old man and