“Rachel…How’s my girl?”

I blinked rapidly, the threatened tears shocking me. Where had they come from? “Ah, I’m fine,” I said, missing him terribly. Bad things had happened, and I’d been carrying the pain since. I needed to talk to him, but not standing in a charm shop with Ivy listening.

Ivy had stiffened at the sudden emotion in my voice, and I turned my back on her, wondering if I should tell her that the glass container shaped like a full moon in her grip was generally used to store aphrodisiac potions.

“Good,” he said, his voice going right through me. “Can I talk to Ivy?”

Surprised, I turned to her, but she had heard him and shook her head. “Uh…”I stammered, wondering if she was afraid of what he’d say to her if he knew what had happened. We were both chickenshit, but we would be chickenshit together.

“Ivy, I know you can hear me,” Kisten said loudly. “You have a big problem waiting for you when you get back from your vacation. Everyone knows you’re out of the city. You’re his scion, not me. I can’t go up against even the youngest undead. The only thing keeping a lid on this is that most of them are my patrons and they know if they act up, I’ll ban them.”

Ivy walked off, her boots loud against the hardwood floor. Her passive response surprised me. Something was really bothering her.

“She walked away,” I said, feeling guilty Ivy had come up there to help me.

Kisten’s sigh was heavy. “Will you tell her that there was a riot in the mall downtown last night? It was at four in the morning so it was mostly living vampires, thank God, and some Weres. The I.S. handled it, but it’s going to get worse. I don’t want a new master vampire in the city, and neither does anyone else.”

I stood before the rack of pixy dust and rifled through the hanging vials, reading the tiny cards attached to each. If Piscary lost control of Cincinnati, Trent would have free rein. But I didn’t think it was a power play by the undead vampires or Trent. It was more likely that the riot had been the Mackinaw Weres looking for me. No wonder Walter had agreed to a thirty-six-hour truce. He had to get his pack together.

Tired, I let the vials slip through my fingers. “I’m sorry, Kisten. We have a couple of days before we can call this done. It depends on how fast I can do the prep work.”

He silently took that in, and I could hear Ceri singing with the pixies in the background. “Can I help?” he asked, and my throat tightened at the concern in his voice, even as I heard his reluctance to leave Cincinnati. But there wasn’t anything he could do. It would be over one way or the other by tomorrow night.

“No,” I said softly. “But if we don’t call you by tomorrow midnight, we’re in trouble.”