“Hey, these are from the restricted section,” I said, taking one. “Did you steal them?”

Trent flushed, the rims of his ears going charmingly red. “No, of course not. They let me take them out.”

My eyes slid to the brown paper bag he’d brought them over in. “Out of the restricted section? Of the library?”

“Yes, so please don’t get anything on them,” he said, moving my cup of chamomile tea to the center counter. “Oh, it’s gone cold,” he said softly, standing up and taking his coat off.

I still couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that they’d let him take restricted books from the library grounds.

Clearly discomfited, Trent dropped his coat over Ivy’s chair. Reaching for his bag of doughnuts, he muttered, “It’s amazing what they let you do when you supply a new roof for the children’s wing and pay for the salary of the children’s events coordinator.”

“They let him take restricted books out,” I said to Jenks, and the pixy shrugged.

Behind the counter, Trent rustled in his bag. “Ah, would you mind if I ate? I sent the staff home Monday and haven’t called them back yet. Ellasbeth can boil water but she won’t.” He paused. “You don’t want any, do you?”

The scent of fried doughnuts was strong. Tearing my gaze from the books, I eyed him standing behind the counter, his head almost touching the hanging utensils. His hair was darker than usual in the electric light, and his face was freshly shaven. Tall and unbowed, the calmness he radiated soaked into me, pushing my panic back to the edges so I could think again. “No, go ahead.”

“Jenks, where are the plates?” Trent asked, and the pixy landed on his shoulder to point the cabinet out.

It felt funny with Trent in here, but the pixy kids were keeping it to a dull roar. The scrape of a plate was loud, and Trent put six pastries on it, taking a stark, plain doughnut from the pile when he set the plate before me and moved the books all the way back to the wall.

“Ku’Sox broke our rings,” Trent said as if it was important, and I watched him take a bite from his plain doughnut, thinking it was odd seeing him here in my kitchen in his suit and tie at four in the morning. “I think that is significant. He didn’t know we were using them as a safety net. He said ‘meld your abilities to an elf to best me.’ Ku’Sox thought we were using them to join our skills, to make ourselves stronger.”

My stomach rumbled at the smell of the fried dough, and hearing it, Trent gestured for me to help myself. I shook my head, eyeing the one with the sprinkles.