Pierce put a hand on my shoulder, but I didn’t look up. My heart was breaking, and I held my breath until my head started to hurt. Why? Why hadn’t I just killed them? But what kind of monster would I be if I could choose who lived and who died?

Ivy stood with her arms crossed over her middle, her cast awkward and her eyes red. “Ceri, she’s right. Whether we can convince Jenks to live or not, one of us should be there with him. His wife just died. Don’t let him grieve alone.”

“I never said I wouldn’t do it,” Ceri said tartly, and my head came up. “I just think it’s time for Rachel to grow up. Face the facts. Pixies die young. That’s why you befriend a family, not an individual.”

I spun where I sat to look at her, aghast even as my chest hurt from trying not to cry. “You are a coldhearted bitch. You think it’s time for me to grow up?” I said as I stood. “Accept everything that happens to me as fact? Jenks is not a life lesson to help me grow up. He’s my friend, and he’s hurting!”

I wasn’t thinking clearly, but I didn’t care. Jenks thought his life was over, and I couldn’t get to him.

“He’s a pixy, Rachel,” Ceri said, eyes flicking over Ivy, probably calculating the odds that her next words might send the vamp after her. “This is what they do.”

Emotions jumbled and numb, I looked over the garden for something, anything, seeing the fairies at the edge of their prison, listening. Jenks had let them live. Something no other pixy had ever done.

“Yeah,” I said bluntly, not ready to let him go just yet. “Jenks is a pixy. And pixies die of heartache when their spouses die. But Jenks is more than a pixy. He went into partnership with Ivy and me; no other pixy has done that. He owns property. Has a credit card. Minutes left on his phone. He’s probably going to live another twenty years because I reset his biological clock by accident last summer. He showed mercy and let those who attacked his garden live. What happened with Matalina is tragic. It’s my fault she’s dead. I can’t sit here and just let him die as well. I can’t.”

“People die, Rachel,” Ceri said, her cheeks flushing.

“Not if I can help it,” I snapped. “And not of a broken heart. If you could, I’d be dead already.” I turned away, frustrated. “Please. At least let me be there so he doesn’t die alone.”

Ivy’s breath caught. “I want to go, too,” she said suddenly, and I turned to her, shocked. She would take a curse?

“Me as well,” Pierce offered.