They didn’t understand. This was my place. My security. I’d made it, and to leave it felt wrong. “It doesn’t feel right,” I said, thinking it sounded lame, yet my gut said stay. But what the hell did my gut know? It told me there was just as much good in Trent as bad.

“Your ‘doesn’t feel right’ will get you killed,” Pierce said.

Jenks darted from me. “We can keep her safe,” he said, inches from Pierce’s face.

“But not from witches, and especially not from the coven.” Frowning, Pierce backed up, touching everyone’s gaze before returning to Jenks’s. “I’ve been betrayed by them before. Witch magic is Rachel’s greatest liability, and until she sets herself beyond it, she won’t have a chance. She’s not good enough.”

“But you are, huh?” Jenks said snidely, hand on the hilt of his sword.

“I’m better than you, pixy.”

This was getting out of hand, and I glanced at Ivy, who was watching it all with growing agitation. And what had Pierce meant by “set myself beyond it”? Did he mean until I started doing deadly black magic, like him? “Jenks, relax,” I said, and he drifted back, hands on his hips and his wings clattering harshly.

“One spell, and poof,” Pierce said casually, and Ivy’s face creased.

“I can take a coven of witches, you fairy fart!” Jenks exclaimed. “And I can take you!”

Concerned, I looked at the broken glass on the floor, remembering Ivy lying on it. I couldn’t have saved her, white magic or not. Jenks was clueless as to how close it had been. “Maybe I should go,” I said softly, and Jenks spun in the air, dropping three inches.

“Tink’s titties. Rache, we have this!”

I took a deep breath, my stomach knotting as I exhaled. This felt wrong.

Ivy, too, looked uneasy. “I don’t think this is beyond us,” she said, “but Pierce is right. A moving target is harder to hit. Rachel should go.”

Jenks flipped her off, and my stomach hurt even more.

“I’ll talk to Rynn Cormel,” Ivy said, adjusting her purse and clearly ready to leave. “He can put us up for a few days. Sound good?”

No, it didn’t sound good, but even the coven would think twice about taking on the master vampire who had run the free world during the Turn. “Okay,” I said softly, and Jenks flew an erratic path to come between Pierce and me.

“Rache, no,” he pleaded. “This is wrong!”

I glanced at Ivy and Glenn, neither one looking happy. “I don’t like it either.”

Pierce cleared his throat, and Jenks glared at him, a burst of light seeming to push him into the air. “I’m going, too,” he said. “I don’t want you alone. And not with him! His aura is freakier than shadows during an eclipse.”