Knowing we were being watched by a handful of lethal assassins, I leaned back into my chair and tried to look relaxed instead of uptight. Trent’s glassed-in garden felt stuffy; the propped-open door leading to the exterior gardens let in very little air. Outside, the early afternoon sun shone thinly on the largely empty spring gardens, but it was here that Trent had brought me for tea—which I thought totally weird. I’d thought that “tea” had been an excuse, something he could tell people instead of the ugly reality that he wanted me to come out so he could show me some illegal black-magic books—and maybe that’s all it was. But tea and cookies were on the table, and I was hungry . . . Besides, Ellasbeth had arrived late, and I had bowed out of going to meet her. Ellasbeth had thought I was a hooker the night we had met. Arresting Trent at their wedding probably hadn’t helped.

The cord Belle’s sister had climbed snaked upward out of sight, and Jenks sniffed, nervously adjusting his garden sword on his hip.

“I thought you were beyond that,” I said, fingering my cup of cooling tea. It smelled like Earl Grey, but I could take a few sips to be social. Jenks’s comment that Trent shouldn’t be alone drifted through me.

Jenks edged to the silver tray, his steps hesitant and his unmoving wings catching the light. “I don’t know her,” he said as he glanced up into the potted fig trees.

“Well, knock it off,” I grumbled. “You’re making me nervous.”

“I don’t know any of them,” he said again. “It’s not like I trust her with my kids.”

But he trusted Belle with them, I thought. Small steps could make large journeys, if admittedly very slow ones. Fidgeting, I lolled my head back to look at the plate-glass ceiling as I waited for Trent to return. Ellasbeth was an idiot. How long did it take to drive half a mile and get settled? There were three chairs here.

“I still think you should let the ever-after collapse,” Jenks said, his knees up almost to his ears as he sat on the rim of the silver tray, then got up when he realized his pants weren’t as good of an insulator as he had first thought.

Frowning, I stood to look at the orchid jammed into the crook of two branches. Jenks followed me, and the brush rustled as the fairies shifted to keep him in their sights. “Earth magic will work for a while before it fades,” he said, demanding my attention as he hovered between me and the orchid. “A year at least. You could take down a reality-based Ku’Sox before that. Ivy and I would help.”