“Yes, of course. He’s just having a bad day. He is the strongest person I know. Except for Ivy.” My fingers lightly touched Rex as the cat purred, and I wondered if I could beat someone I loved that badly, even if it was for the greater good.

“I often punished fledglings-s-s for risking the nest.”

“My mother grounded me a lot,” I said, thinking it hadn’t done me any harm. It hadn’t made me any smarter, either.

“Jenks-s-s shouldn’t be hard on himself,” Belle said firmly. “He’s a warrior.”

“Jenks is a gardener in a savage Eden,” I said, believing it. He was a savage gardener with a protective streak. Ivy was just as savage, just as protective, when push came to shove. And me? What was I? What choices would I make when the world hung poised on the arc of the pendulum and I was ready to send it in a new direction?

“You will call your demon now for advice?” Belle asked, and I followed her gaze to my scrying mirror.

“I don’t know,” I said, shifting my feet down a step. “He might not be healed enough.”

Again, the silence stretched. “I’m sorry about Ceri,” Belle said stiffly. “And Pierce.”

I almost smiled. The three of us had killed most of her clan and left her wingless, but perhaps it made more sense to her with her warrior mind-set. “Thank you, Belle.”

“They were great warriors. Pierce . . . Jenks tells me you were nearly joined with him.”

I nodded, bringing up my second sight. Newt’s ley line hung at chest height, a hundred shades of red glowing, mixing, swirling. I desperately wanted to see Pierce there, or even Al. But there was nothing.

“It would have been a good match. You’re both strong.”

“Perhaps,” I said softly. I’d thought I had loved him once, but after the shine of his uniqueness had dulled, I’d come to dislike his loose morals more than I had been attracted to his power and dark strength.

Steadying myself, I reached for my mirror. Reluctantly, slowly, I lifted Rex down and set the heavy glass on my lap instead. I stared into the wine-colored depths in the sunset shadow-light, seeing the roof of the church rising overhead, the steeple distressingly free of Bis. It had been three days. Al should be healed by now.

“Have Jenks and Ivy summon me if I’m not back in two hours,” I said, and Belle nodded, swinging up onto Rex for her warmth. I shivered in my jacket, feeling as if I was being watched as I took a last look over the sunset-gloomed garden. Gargoyles, I thought.

My way home settled, I closed my eyes and put my hand on the mirror, hoping he was healed. Al?

There was only the uncomfortable screeching that the collective had absorbed from the unbalanced line.