Suddenly overcome with missing my dad, I shuffled through the cabinet behind the mirror until I found the wooden ring he’d given me on my thirteenth birthday. It had been the last one we’d shared before he died. I looked at it, small and perfect in my palm, and on impulse I put it on. I hadn’t worn it since the charm it once held to hide my freckles had been broken, and I hadn’t needed it since twisting that demon curse. But I missed him, and after being attacked by a demon this morning, I could use some serious emotional security.

I smiled at it circling my pinkie, feeling better already. The ring had come with a lifetime charm reinstatement, and I had an appointment every fourth Friday in July. Maybe I’d take the madam out for coffee instead. Ask her about maybe changing it to a sunscreen charm—if there was such a thing.

The give-and-take of masculine and feminine voices from the kitchen became obvious as I toweled my hair. “He’s here already?” I grumbled, finding a pair of underwear, jeans, and a red camisole in the dryer. Slipping them on, I dabbed some perfume behind each ear to help block my scent and Ivy’s from mixing, combed my damp hair back with my fingers, and headed out.

But it wasn’t a holy man I found in the kitchen covered in pixy children, it was Glenn.

THREE

“Hi, Glenn,” I said as I slumped barefoot into my chair. “Who’s pinching your ass today?”

The clearly uncomfortable, rather tall FIB detective was in a suit, which didn’t bode well. He had Jenks’s kids all over him, which was really weird. And Ivy was glaring at him from her computer, which was mildly troubling. But considering that the first time she met him, she almost bit him in anger and he almost shot her, I guessed we were doing okay.

Jenks scraped his wings, and his kids scattered, rising up through my rack of spelling supplies and herbs in a swirl of silk and shouts that hurt my eyeballs before flowing into the hall and probably out the chimney in the living room. I hadn’t seen him on the sill until now, standing by his pet sea monkeys. How come a pixy has more pets than I do?

I smiled tiredly at Glenn across the table, trying to make up for my roommate’s stellar attitude. There was a paperboard tray with two cups steaming between us, and the warm breeze coming in from the garden was pushing the heavenly aroma of freshly brewed coffee right to me. I wanted one in the worst way.

Ivy’s fingers hit her keyboard aggressively as she weeded out her spam. “Detective Glenn was just leaving. Weren’t you?”