My chin lifted. Bastard. He had scared me on purpose. I didn’t feel bad now at all for burning his eyes, or stomping on his privates, or for him running into my bubble. And I wasn’t going to trust that until we settled this I was immune to him.

“Jenks,” I said softly as Minias looked over my kitchen, “will you send one of your kids to get Ceri?” She was likely over her pique at my sorry-ass ley line skills. And I didn’t want to do this without her.

“I’ll go,” he said. “They aren’t allowed to leave the garden.” My neck went cold from the breeze of his wings, and he hovered, his angular features pinched. “You’ll be okay?”

I watched Minias touch the herbs drying on the overhanging rack, wanting to tell him to get his fingers off them. “I’ll be fine,” I said. “He’s in a good circle.”

Minias’s eyes followed Jenks zipping out with an unusual amount of interest. Looking mildly annoyed, he scuffed his bare feet against the linoleum, and a pair of embroidered slippers appeared on them. Slowly his brow smoothed under his brown curls. I fixed on the alienness of his eyes, trying to see the sideways pupil beside the dark iris. His back against the counter, he crossed his ankles and waited. Beside him was my spell to stop sneezing, and I didn’t like the patronizing look he had favored me with after giving the pentagram a cursory glance.

“You’re vastly deficient in line etiquette,” he said dryly, “but I’ll admit that this is better than the moldy basements I’m always hearing about.”

“I didn’t know you were making me sneeze,” I huffed. “You can’t know what you haven’t been told.”

Minias brought his attention from the dark garden. One eyebrow rose. “Yes you can.” Turning, he started messing in the remnants of my ley line spell. “So what’s it going to be?” he said, holding the crucible in one hand and running a finger through the soot with the other. “Eternal life? Untold wealth? Unlimited knowledge?”

I didn’t like the way he was rubbing his thumb and finger together, smelling the ash as if it had meaning. “Stop that,” I said.

Eyeing me from under his brown curls, he set the crucible down. The sight of his elegantly robed figure doing something as mundane as tearing a paper towel and cleaning his finger looked odd. I frowned, my tension rising when he crouched to see my spell books.

“Leave those alone,” I muttered, wishing Ceri would hurry.