He might still love me. Do I still love him? Did I ever love him, really? Or had it just been that I loved his acceptance of me?

My bracelet hissed against the map, and Jax flitted close, landing to bring the bitter scent of maple syrup to me. “This one, Ms. Morgan,” he said, his voice high. Pollen crumbs fell, and I blew them away when Jax rose to sit on the table lamp’s shade. From the corner of my sight I saw Jenks fidget. I couldn’t do this with a half-trained pixy. I needed Jenks.

Fingertips brushing the large island in the straits, I felt like Ivy with her maps and markers, planning a run. My motions went still and my focus blurred. It wasn’t her need to be organized, I suddenly realized. It was a front to disguise her feelings of inadequacy. “Damn,” I whispered. This wasn’t good. Ivy was a lot more fragile than she let on. She was a vampire, molded from birth to look to someone for guidance even if she could garner the attention in a room from simply walking in, and could snap my neck with half a thought.

Telling myself that Nick needed me more right now than Ivy needed me to keep her sane, I pushed my worry aside and looked at the island Jax had said Nick was on. According to the fishing pamphlet I took from the front office, Bois Blanc Island had been publicly owned before the Turn. A rather large Were pack had bought everyone else out shortly afterward, making the big island into a hunting/spa kind of thing. Trespassing wasn’t a good idea.

Tension quickened my pulse when Jenks put Rex on the bed and edged closer, an odd mix of angsty teen and worried dad. Taking a breath, I said to the map, “I need your help, Jenks. I’ll do it without backup if I have to. But every time I do, my ass hits the grass. You’re the best operative outside of Ivy that I know. Please? I can’t leave him there.”

Jenks pulled a straight-backed chair from the kitchen, bumping it over the carpet, and sat down next to me so he could see the map right side up. He glanced at Jax on the lamp, pixy dust sifting upward from the heat of the bulb. I couldn’t tell if he was going to help me or not. “What did you two get caught doing, Jax?” he said.

The pixy’s wings blurred, and dust drifted from him. “You’ll get mad.” His tiny features were frightened. It didn’t matter that he was an adult in pixy terms, he still looked eight to me.

“I’m already mad,” Jenks said, sounding like my dad when I took a week’s grounding instead of telling him why I’d been banned from the local roller rink. “Running off with a snapped-winged thief like that. Jax, if you wanted a more exciting life than a gardener, why didn’t you tell me? I could have helped, given you the tools you need.”