“Quen! Take these children. Let me go!” she exclaimed from behind me, and I heard a scuffle. “Take your hands off me!”

The pixies at the window were watching with rapt attention, and I stifled a smirk.

“Don’t do this,” Quen said to her, his low voice gravelly.

“You will take your hands off me!” she insisted, and I let the water run until it got cold.

“Go wait in the car,” Quen said. Then louder, “Go take the girls and wait in the car.” Finally he shouted, “Go wait in the car, or I will stand by and let her say what she really thinks of you!”

I turned around with my glass of water. Jenks was watching from within a copper bowl hanging from the rack, a weird silty dust falling from it. Tense, Quen stood beside and a little in front of Ellasbeth. She was chalk white, her painted lips a bright contrast. I didn’t care if she was insulted. It had needed to be said. I owed Trent that.

“I understand the strain you’re under,” she said, chin high as Lucy’s hand patted her face. “So the door of friendship is still open between us. You mean a lot to Trent. He explained to me what happened at camp, and I understand your feelings for him.”

My feelings for him? What happened at camp? What was she talking about?

Seemingly satisfied at my cautiously puzzled expression, she pulled herself straighter. “Please bring my fiancé home to us.”

“That’s my intent,” I said dryly, and Quen tugged at her elbow. “But when I do, don’t kill him slowly. Let the man breathe.”

Eyes narrowed, she turned slowly under the weight of the girls and stalked to the hall. “Quen?” she said imperiously. “I will be waiting in the car. Call ahead and see that a bath is drawn for both girls by the time we get to Trenton’s holdings. I want to stop on the way for an entirely new set of clothes for Lucy.”

“It’s only the clothes she has on that are tainted,” Quen said, and the woman glared from the hallway.

“This entire church smells! She will have a new wardrobe!” she exclaimed, then click-clacked her slow, ponderous way to the door, the two girls calling in delight at the pixies waiting for them in the sanctuary.

Okay, that was probably going to come back and bite me on the ass, but I didn’t care. Trent would thank me for it someday. Setting the water aside, I scooped up the blanket Ellasbeth had let fall and brought it to my nose. After three wash cycles, I couldn’t smell anything, but I wasn’t an elf.

Jenks whistled long and loud. “Damn, Rache, you sure know how to make friends.”