Quen flashed a bright smile. "Mr. Kalamack would like me to inspect the grounds." His gaze shifted to Ivy as if for permission. Wise man. "Is that all right with you, ladies?"
Ivy didn't even look up from the mail. "Knock yourself out. Stay out of my room."
Quen turned to me next, and when Jenks buzzed off in annoyance, I asked him, "What is he really looking for?"
Again, he smiled, but it was softer this time. "An excuse, I think."
Great. Just friggin' great.
Quen brushed past me, a shredded wisp of cinnamon and wine lingering in his wake. "I'm telling you, we're fine!" came Jenks's irate shout as he followed him into the hallway, and then the pixy darted back, dripping a bright silver dust. "Rachel!" he whined at me, his long hair getting in his eyes. There wasn't a single pixy kid in the church, not unusual if their dad was on the warpath.
I trudged forward with my stuff. "Go with him if you want."
Jenks rose up and down indecisively as if on a string, but when he heard the back door open and shut, he darted to me, flying backward as he fumed.
"What does he want?" Ivy asked mildly as I passed her.
"I've no idea." I had none whatsoever, but I imagined that his claim of tending to Lucy was an excuse so I wouldn't see him taking the steps in his cast. He could make it all right, but he lacked his usual grace, and I knew it bothered him.
"What happened?" I asked Jenks as I smacked my luggage into the wall in the hallway.
"The kids fought them off," Jenks admitted, his dust finally starting to dampen as he followed me to my room. "Them and that fairy girl."
He had almost spat out the last, and I elbowed my light switch on to see his face screwed up in a nasty expression. "Belle?" I asked, remembering that Sidereal's daughter had remained behind to watch me. It smelled stale in my room, and leaving my garment bag and overnight case on the bed, I propped the narrow stained-glass window open. Night sounds, the scent of marigolds, and the singing of pixies seeped in. Hands on my hips, I sighed, glad to be home.
"She has a name? You knew she was here?" Jenks yelped, a burst of dust lighting my perfumes.
"Well, yeah." I took off my jacket and hung it on my bedpost. "Didn't you? Jeez, Jenks. She's been here for months."
He fumed, his wings drooping and his tiny features cross as I needled him. Relenting, I tugged my closet door open and hung up my garment bag. Unzipping it, the smell of clean fabric spilled out. "Everyone is okay, right?" I prompted, wondering if I should be more concerned.
"Yeah...," he admitted. "But..."
"Then relax." I pulled the beautiful dress from the bag and hung it at the back. "Bis!" I shouted, sensing him up on the steeple. He probably couldn't hear me, but he'd come anyway.
"You don't care!" Jenks exclaimed, twin pixies rising in my dresser's mirror. "We were attacked and you don't care!"
"Of course I care," I said, then shut the closet door hard enough to make his dust shake. "But I've been trapped in a plane with you for five solid hours. No one is hurt, and you need to chill!" He was scowling at me, and I lowered my voice. "Let me catch my breath, okay?" I pleaded.
A small scraping at the lintel brought my attention to the ceiling. It was Bis, his ears pricked and expectant. He hadn't been his usual self during the few days we'd spent recovering on the coast before flying home. There was a hesitancy between us that hadn't been there before, a feeling out of new responsibilities and expectations.
Neither of us knew what being bonded meant, but I sensed where he was most of the time, and he knew where I was. And since we couldn't ask Al or Pierce what my responsibilities were to Bis and his to me, we'd just have to figure it out as we went along. Him teaching me how to line jump wasn't an issue anymore, so maybe the question was moot.
"Hi, Bis," I said as Jenks fumed on my dresser. "You want your shirt?"
Immediately he perked up, slithering into my room and dropping onto my bedside table, wings flat to his back. "I was just going to ask you for it," he said, sending a sliver of concern through me. "Can you put it on me? I want to show the kids."
He wanted to show the kids. Subtle phrasing, but significant. He was seeing himself as less of a kid and more of an adult. I'd seen it on the jet when he settled into a watchful mode with a magazine, and how he kept an eye on the people in the airport instead of being distracted by the jets or the people staring at him. Growing up wasn't bad, but I kind of missed the old Bis and his wonder at everything. He still had that inquisitive good nature, but now it was tempered with the knowledge that life wasn't fair and that bad things happened, even if you watched for them.
"You bet," I said, opening the snaps of my overnight case. Still in a huff, Jenks landed on the open lid. We had spent a day at Disneyland before coming home, and Jenks had gone a little nuts, buying out a gift shop and generally acting like a chipmunk on Brimstone. Bis had contented himself with a tourist T-shirt, but Ivy and I sat on a curb for almost an hour waiting for Jenks to come out of the Tink history exhibit. Since then, there hadn't been a single swear word using the "Inderlander pioneer," as he now called her.
I pulled Bis's tank top out, carefully folding the brightly patterned bag with Tinkerbell on it after Jenks started making tiny, pained noises when I crumpled it up. I couldn't help but wonder if we had a little crush going. Finally I snapped the bright red shirt to get out the wrinkles and held it up to Bis. "I don't think we're going to have to make wing slits for you," I said, seeing a glimpse of his old self in his delight at the screened picture of characters in the latest gargoyle flick.
"Too cool," he said, holding his arms up, and I settled the soft cotton tank top over his head, tugging gently to get it around his ears. I tried to imagine him my size but failed. He was still a kid-and my responsibility. Damn, how had my mom done this?
"Belle says the battle was Sunday," Bis said, his voice muffled. "After I left."
"Yeah?" Jenks barked, his wings moving but not lifting him at all.
"Wings," I prompted, and Bis lifted them high so I could work the tank top around them.
"She said a passing clan thought that Jenks had died, so they attacked," Bis said, his red eyes glowing. "They didn't know what to do. The kids, I mean. Jih was across the street, and it was noon. But Belle was awake, and she saw them. Raised the alarm. They would have taken the garden and killed everyone if not for Belle."
I dropped back, thinking the shirt was perfect-even if it looked odd on him. There was the faint click of the front door opening, and Ivy's soft murmur followed by the thunking of Trent's cast on the old oak. My tension spiked. Trent was in my church. Why?
"She saved the garden," Bis said as he looked at himself in my dresser mirror. My perfumes were scattered about his feet, and he didn't hit one as he shifted and turned. "Took over the fight. Told everyone what to do. Kept the lines from breaking until Jih could help. No one got hurt except Belle. She took an arrow in the leg."
Alarmed, I turned to Jenks. "I thought you said no one was hurt!"
"A fairy?" he said in disbelief. "Since when are you worried about a fairy?"
"When one saves the lives of your children," I said, and Trent thumped to a halt at my door. My eyes fell from Trent's, and I slammed my suitcase shut. "Jenks, you're ugly when you talk like that," I said, then turned to Bis, hesitating at the sight of him in a bright red shirt. "Where's Belle?" I asked, imagining her broken and bleeding somewhere in the garden.
"Uh, the kitchen," he said, glancing at Jenks as if the pixy was going to protest.
A last hard look at Jenks, and I started for the hallway. Trent was standing in the doorway with Lucy, smelling of fresh baby powder and baby wipes, and his injured hand gently patted her as he rocked. I jerked to a stop when he didn't get out of my way fast enough, my eyes dropping to the floor as I flushed. "Come on in," I said softly. "I don't think we have anything but water, but you're welcome to it."
He awkwardly edged back, and I breathed easier. "Ivy?" I called as I strode to the kitchen. "Belle's been hurt!"
"Belle?" came from her room. "Is she okay?"
"I think so. I'll let you know in a minute."
Jenks's wings were clattering, and Bis was a bright spot as he crawled along the ceiling to get there before me. His expression worried, Jenks dusted at my shoulder, not coming to rest there like he might have otherwise. "Ivy knew, too?" he asked, and I realized his somber mood wasn't because he felt bad but because he was the last to know.
I flipped the bright kitchen lights on, squinting. Bis had said he'd talked to her; she had to be awake. "Jenks, if a fairy can hide in your garden for three months, then have the grace to help your kids survive an attack, don't you think you should rethink your attitude?" I turned to him, and his defiance faltered. "You're going to live to be forty years old. You're going to have to grow up. It's a small world after all, or didn't you go on that ride?"
Wings silent, Jenks hovered dead center in the doorway, at a complete loss. Trent edged in around him, taking in the kitchen as he stood between Ivy's farm table and the center counter. My annoyance at Jenks vanished in a flash of memory: a memory of Trent standing in my unreal kitchen, confused, irritated, and attractive as all hell as he tried to save my soul with a kiss. And then the kiss itself, burning its way through me, kindling my chi back to life. I'd been mortified when I'd woken up and discovered that the kiss had been real-which didn't negate how good it had felt, but did lead me back to Trent standing with Lucy in his arms, his eyes roving over my kitchen as if comparing it to his memory.
Flustered, I turned, seeing the chrysalis trapped under the brandy snifter where my Mr. Fish had once been. My beta was still in the ever-after with Al, and I hoped the demon would remember to feed him. Maybe Pierce would do it-if he was still alive.
With a surprising jolt, my eyes started to swim and I spun before Trent could see, hiding my tears by opening the window behind me wider and letting in the night air and the sound of pixies. Someone was mowing his lawn at half-past midnight. They don't sell lawn tractors with headlights for nothing. I didn't know if my sudden emotion was relief that I was home-really home-or that I'd said good-bye to everything in the ever-after for good.
A small touch on my shoulder shocked me, and I stiffened to find Bis standing beside the sink, his eyes wide in concern as something he had no control over had set me to shaking. But even his worry did nothing to help; he was touching me, and I couldn't feel a thing. There was nothing in my mind, nothing but a faint hum of elven magic coming from my wrist. And I missed the ley lines, even as I relished the freedom I now had.
"I'm fine," I whispered to him, then squared my shoulders and turned slowly on my heel. "Belle?" I warbled, and Jenks stared at me like I'd gone nuts when I wiped the back of my hand over my eye. Trent made no comment, but he gingerly sat on the edge of Ivy's chair, his foot in the cast tucked under it.
A ping at the rack over the center counter drew all our attention up, and Jenks flushed, swearing and dusting an embarrassed red when a tiny white-haired head showed over my smallest spell pot, the one with the dent in it. I still didn't know how it had gotten there. The dent, not the pot.
"Welcome back, Rachel" came Belle's curious hissing accent, sounding like crickets. "Have a good vacation?"
My eyes darted to Trent, thinking of the wingless fairies he now had in his garden. If he hadn't known they'd come from me, he soon would. "I've had better," I said, head craning. "Are you okay? Jenks said there was a fight."
Jenks made a small sound as a thin line dropped from the bowl and Belle snaked down it. She looked odd in a bright pink pixy dress that was too short for her, and I glanced at Jenks on the spigot, his arms crossed and standing almost sideways so he wouldn't have to face her.
"I'm fine," she said, smacking her bare leg and the bandage there. "It's going to take a few more days before I can pull my longbow with any strength, but I'll mend. If I live or die, doesn't matter. We held our territory." Her eyes went to Bis on top of the fridge, and she smiled. "I like the shirt."
"Thanks."
I did a double take at the soft shyness in his voice. Jenks had heard it, too, and cleared his throat, making Bis blush a deep black.
"Your territory," Belle amended, thinking that's what Jenks had taken offense to. I wasn't so sure.