“You should have called me sooner,” Ivy said, her tone accusing as she stepped back into the church. But then her posture slumped, and pain slipped into her black eyes. “How’s Quen doing?”

Mood darkening, I followed her in, waving the new pixy dust aside as Jenks’s kids dove into the bag to see what I’d brought back. “He’s fine, meaning he’s holding everything in, letting it fester.”

She said nothing, and I looked up, reading the concern in her eyes. She had liked Ceri, too. “How are you doing?”

A hundred answers rose up, a hundred frustrations, a hundred raging cries at the world. “I’m fine, too,” I said flatly.

Ivy’s new boots scuffed on the sanctuary’s old floor, her hair falling to hide her face as we headed to the kitchen. Nina’s excited and cheerful voice—no sign of Felix—stood at dark odds with my thoughts.

“So how are Glenn and Daryl?” I asked, and her chin lifted. Concerned, I pulled her to a stop at the top of the hallway. “Ivy?” But she wouldn’t bring her eyes down from the rafters, a hint of emotion welling up as she bit her lip. “Shit,” I whispered, flushing as I realized what I’d done. “I shouldn’t have called you.”

Her eyes flicked to mine, and she shook her head. “I was already on my way back.”

She tried to push past me to go into the hallway, and I got in her way. “What happened?” I demanded. “Did he dump you?”

Ivy’s eyes went pupil black, but I didn’t back down, even when her lips parted to show her teeth. Finally she dropped her head, saying, “Someone tried to sideswipe us on the expressway yesterday.” The way she said it precluded that it was an accident. “Glenn handled it,” she added, voice low as Nina laughed, oblivious to us. “Apparently he’s had some defensive driving classes. Almost as good as the vampire who tried to kill us.”

Her voice was light, but I was too befuddled to do anything as she pushed past me with the intoxicating scent of angry vampire, the complex cocktail plinking through my brain to make my skin ache. I’d thought it was a mistake for her to leave Cincy, but I knew how badly she’d wanted the relationship to work.

“Cormel told me not to leave. I stayed too long. His lapdog is back in the fence,” she said bitterly, halfway down the hall. “He was right. I was wrong. Everything will be fine now.”

She’d given me a reason, but something else had happened out at Flagstaff, something she didn’t want to talk about but probably needed to. Groceries on my hip, I followed her into the brightly lit kitchen. I’d mention it to Jenks. He could push her a lot further than I could, seeing as he couldn’t get bitten.