Chapters (42)
- Title Page
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Acknowledgements
- Also by Kim Harrison
- Copyright
- About the Publisher
- Cover
Matalina huffed. Pixies were terribly straightforward when it came to relationships. Jih, her eldest daughter, had courted and married in less than a summer—and seemed all the happier for it. “With Jenks, I just knew,” she said, a fond smile erasing her fatigue lines. “You’re making this harder than it should be.” I gave her a wry look as I sprayed detangler in my hair, and she added, “Does Pierce make your heart beat faster? Did Marshal? Did Nick? Did Kisten, bless his undead soul? I mean, really?”
I didn’t have to think about it, and I felt like a tramp. “Yes. They all do. Did, I mean.”
The pixy woman frowned. “Then you are in trouble, Rachel.”
Don’t I know it.
Shifting my towel higher, I minced to the door, listening for a moment before cracking it. The cooler, dry air slipped in, and I gazed first longingly at the kitchen across from the back living room, then closer, to the open door to my room. From the back of the church, I could hear Pierce and Nick “discussing” things.
Knees hurting, I made the dash, Matalina zipping ahead of me to shoo her kids out of the way. Breath held, I closed the door without a sound and leaned back against it. “Thanks,” I whispered to the matronly pixy. “But I’m okay. Really. Go talk to Jax.” But she only flitted to the thick cement sill of the stained-glass window and settled herself as if to watch for danger.
My shoulders slumped and I glanced at Vivian’s pin, now sitting on my dresser. I’d forgotten about the coven. It would be just my luck for Vivian to take a potshot at me. I was sure she was still here, “willing to take a calculated risk.”
The box from my mom was sitting on my dresser, the bottles of perfume it had displaced carefully arranged on the top of my music box to make me wonder if Ivy had moved it. My mother had been sending me things for the last couple of months as she continued to find them. Last week it had been my entire collection of Nancy Drew. Ivy had taken them off my hands, presumably to give them to the brat pack at the hospital. The way I figured it, if I had gotten along without it the last five years, I really didn’t need it. Everything was precious to my mom, though, and I wasn’t too keen on seeing what oddity she thought I couldn’t live without.