Jenks’s arm slipped around from behind me, and I gasped when my toes lifted and I was airborne. In three seconds flat, my bare feet were stumbling on the faded wood of the stoop.

“Holy crap! How about some warning?” I exclaimed, but I turned in his arms, not letting him go. This might be my last chance. “I’m sorry, Jenks,” I said, giving him another hug. “Take what time you need. Ivy and I can finish this coven thing. I’ve got an idea.”

He gave me a squeeze, then space appeared between us. “Just tell me where to fly, Rache. That’s what I’m here for. I’ll be ready.”

Ivy was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, her hand on her hip. She could just stand there for a few moments more. Pierce, too. “This is hard,” I said, sniffing.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said, his roving eyes returning.

“You’re going to be all right?”

Jenks looked across the garden to the sound of his children. “I think so. I’ve never done anything like this before.”

I touched his arm, trying to smile. “You’re good at doing new things.”

Finally he looked at me, and the full force of his heartache hit me. My smile faltered, and tears threatened. “I… I’d better get Pierce,” he said, and in a clattering of wings, he was gone.

Blinking hard, I looked at the fastened cat door. Where’s Rex?

The stairs shook, and I stumbled when Ivy clomped up them. “You changing?” she asked quietly, but before I could answer, she opened the screen and interior door both.

An exuberant howl pulled my attention up to see Jenks flying past with Pierce dangling.

“That’s something you don’t see every day,” Ivy muttered as they vanished into the hall and presumably to my bathroom where Ivy had put his clothes.

My kitchen looked awe inspiring from my new vantage point, and Ivy stayed behind me as I hugged the wall to my room. “I’ve got this!” I shouted, and she looked at me.

“I lost track of Rex,” she said, not hearing me, but my waving hands were clear enough.

“Oh.” Suitably subdued, I waited by the nicked floor molding while she pushed my door open and did a quick look for felines. “Uh, she’s under the bed!” I exclaimed when a pair of yellow eyes looked at me from beside the laptop Ivy had given me last summer.

Ivy didn’t hear, her head in my closet, and panic iced through me when the cat stood and started pacing forward. “Non sum qualis eram!” I shouted.