The coffee had finished, and as Keasley took her temperature, checked her reflexes, her blood pressure, and made her say “Ahhhh,” I took a cup into the living room for Ivy. She was sitting sideways in her cushy chair with her earphones on, head on one arm, feet draped over the other. Her eyes were shut, but she reached out without looking, taking the cup the instant I set it down. “Thank you,” she mouthed, and still not having seen her eyes, I walked out. Sometimes Ivy gave me the creeps.

“Coffee, Keasley?” I asked as I returned.

The old man peered at the thermometer and turned it off. “Yes, thank you.” He smiled at Ceri. “You’re fine.”

“Thank you, sir,” Ceri said. She had been eating her fries while Keasley worked, and she looked glumly at the bottom of the carton.

Immediately Jenks was with her. “More?” he prompted. “Try some ketchup on them.”

Suddenly Jenks’s zeal to get her to eat french fries became very clear. It wasn’t the fries he was interested in, it was the ketchup. “Jenks,” I said tiredly as I took Keasley his coffee and leaned against the center island counter. “She’s over a thousand years old. Even humans ate tomatoes then.” I hesitated. “They did have tomatoes back then, right?”

The hum of Jenks’s wings audibly dropped. “Crap,” he muttered, then brightened. “Go ahead,” he said to Ceri. “You try working the nuker this time without my help.”

“Nuker?” she questioned, carefully wiping her hands on a napkin as she stood.

“Yeah. Don’t they have microwaves in the ever-after?”

She shook her head, sending the tips of her fair hair floating. “No. I prepared Al’s food with ley line magic. This is…old.”

Keasley jerked, almost spilling his coffee. His eyes tracked Ceri’s grace as she went to the freezer and, with Jenks’s encouragement, pulled out a box of fries. She meticulously punched the buttons, her lip caught between her teeth. I thought it odd that the woman was over a thousand years old but thought the microwave was primitive.

“The ever-after?” Keasley said softly, and my attention returned to him.

I held my coffee before me with both hands, warming my fingers. “How is she?”

He shifted his shoulders. “She’s healthy enough. Maybe a little underweight. Mentally she’s been abused. I can’t tell what or how. She needs help.”

I took a deep breath, looking down into my cup. “I’ve got a big favor to ask.”

Keasley straightened. “No,” he said as he put his bag on his lap and started putting things in it. “I don’t know who—or even what—she is.”

“I stole her from the demon whose work you stitched up last fall,” I said, touching my neck. “She was its—I mean, his—familiar. I’ll pay for her room and board.”