“Sure.” While Ivy got out, I scuffed back the throw rug and pried up the metal plate to find, instead of a spare tire, a dusty cardboard box. Trying to keep it from touching me, I set it on the driver’s seat. Ivy looked out from between the two trucks when Jenks parked across the lot. She whistled, and Jax darted up before his dad could even get out of the car.

“What’s up, Ms. Tamwood?” the small pixy said, stopping before her. “Why did we stop? Are we in trouble? Do you need gas? My dad has to pee. Can you wait for him?”

I was pleased to see that Jax was wearing a scrap of red tucked into his belt. It was a symbol of good intentions and a quick departure should he stray into another pixy’s territory. Seeing him learning the ropes made me feel good, even if the reason behind it was depressing.

“The Weres have the bridge,” Ivy said, gesturing for Jenks to stay where he was beside Kisten’s car. He was fumbling with his inside-out cap, and with the jeans he now had on over his running tights and his aviator jacket, he looked good. “Tell your dad to get a table if it looks okay,” Ivy added, squinting from behind her sunglasses. “I’ll be there in a sec.”

“Sure thing, Ms. Tamwood.”

He was gone in a clattering of wings. A light breeze shifted Ivy’s hair, and standing beside the open door, she pried the dusty flaps up to pull out a roll of heavy ribbon. A faint smile quirked the corner of her mouth, and Nick and I waited for an explanation.

“I haven’t done this in years,” she said, looking to the narrow slice of visible parking lot. “I don’t think they saw us,” she said, “but by tonight they will have tracked you and Jenks to your motel, and that lady will tell them you were driving a white van. If we’re going to be in town longer than that, we need to change a few things.”

I recognized the thick tape in her hands as magnetic striping, and my eyebrows went up. Cool. A vehicle disguise.

“There’s a license plate somewhere in there,” she said, and I nodded, going back for it. “And the screwdriver?”

Nick cleared his throat, sounding impressed. “What is that? Magnetic pinstripe?”

Ivy didn’t look at him. “Kisten has black lightning and flaming crosses too,” she said.

And illegal flash paint, I mentally added when she shook a can of specially designed spray paint.

She moved the box to the running board of the nearby semi. The door thumped shut, sealing Nick and me inside. “By the time I get done with her, she could win the goth division in a car show,” she said.

Smirking, I handed her the Ohio plate and screwdriver through the window. Even the tags were up to date.

“Sit tight,” she said, taking them. “Nobody moves until I get Jenks’s take on the restaurant.”