“Ms. Morgan!” the young pixy cried, lighting the small space with his excitement and zipping around my head like an insane firefly. “You’re alive? We thought you were dead! Where’s my dad?” He rose to the ceiling, then dropped. “Dad?”

Jenks stared, transfixed at his son darting over the exhibit. He opened his mouth, then closed it, clearly struggling to find a way to touch his son without hurting him. “Jax…” he whispered, his eyes both young and old—pained and filled with joy.

Jax let out a startled chirp, slamming back a good two feet before he caught himself. “Dad!” he shouted, pixy dust slipping from him. “What happened? You’re big!”

Jenks’s hand shook as his son landed on it. “I got big to find you. It’s too cold to be out without somewhere to go. And it’s not safe for Ms. Morgan to be out of Cincinnati unescorted.”

I made a face, chafing at the truth, though we hadn’t even seen a vampire, much less a hungry one. They didn’t like small towns. “Jax,” I said impatiently, “where’s Nick?”

The small pixy’s eyes widened and the dust slipping from him turned thin. “They took him. I can show you were he is. Holy crap, he’ll be glad to see you! We didn’t know you were alive, Ms. Morgan. We thought you were dead!”

That was the second time he had said it, and I blinked in understanding. Oh God. Nick had called the night Al snapped the familiar bond between us. Al answered my phone and told Nick I belonged to him. Then the media thought I’d died on the boat Kisten blew up. Nick thought I was dead. That’s why he had never called. That’s why he didn’t tell me he was back on the solstice. That’s why he cleared out his apartment and left. He thought I was dead.

“God help me,” I whispered, reaching out for the filthy incubator full of butterfly pupa. The budded rose left on my doorstep in the jelly jar with the pentagram of protection on it had been from him. Nick hadn’t left me. He thought I had died.

“Rache?”

I straightened when Jenks tentatively touched my arm. “I’m okay,” I whispered, though I was far from it. I’d deal with it later. “We have to go,” I said, turning away.

“Wait,” Jax exclaimed, dropping down to the floor and peering under the cupboard. “Here kitty, kitty, kitty…”

“Jax!” Jenks shouted in horror, scooping his son up.

“Dad!” Jax protested, easily slipping the loose prison of his father’s fingers. “Let go!”

My eyes widened at the ball of orange fluff squeezing out from under the counter, blinking and stretching. I looked again, not believing. “It’s a cat,” I said, winning the Pulitzer prize for incredible intellect. Well, actually it was a kitten, so points off for that.

Jenks’s mouth was moving but nothing came out. He backed up with what looked like terror in his wide eyes.

“It’s a cat!” I said again. Then added a frantic, “Jax! No!” when the pixy dropped down. I reached for him, drawing away when the fluffy orange kitten arched its back and spit at me.