A party? I thought as the air around Jenks and Ivy was suddenly empty of pixy wings. In celebration of a peaceful resolution and three gallons of maple syrup? Smiling, I strode to Jenks, still perched atop the wall. “Are you okay?” I asked, falling to kneel before him, hands curling around him but unable to touch. Never able to touch.

“I’m fine,” he muttered, looking embarrassed as he wedged that clip off his wing and wobbled three inches into the air and back down. “Bought for the price of a gallon of syrup.”

Ivy’s shadow covered us, and I looked up at her as she chuckled. “It was three,” she said. “And better that than my life.”

Jenks nodded ruefully. “I’m never going to wear red again. Can we just write them a voucher and go?”

I stood, pushing my nasty hair from my shoulder in invitation. “One of us will run into town for it, and then we’ll get out of here. Trent will just have to suck it up.”

Jenks rose unsteadily and laboriously flew to my shoulder, and my earring pulled as he fell against it. I looked up the path to the unseen car, taking Ivy’s arm to be sure she was okay, too.

“You didn’t get hit by anything, did you?” I demanded, but she wasn’t listening, her eyes riveted to the outcrop of stone behind me. The pixies were shrilling at the piercing croak of a bird, and I turned.

A bird? I thought, and then everything shifted. The Ku’Sox Sha-Ku’Ru wasn’t a party; it was a bird. A big-ass bird, like a stork. And it was…“It’s eating them,” I whispered, horror filling me. “Oh my God, that bird is eating them!”

I stood frozen in disbelief, not comprehending it. The second and third leaders were shouting directions, so fast and high-pitched that I couldn’t understand them, but it was clear enough as the arrows and spears once pointed at us now fell on the bird. It cawed, the harsh sound crawling through my mind and making me shudder as it echoed off the stone.

“Oh my God,” Ivy gasped.

I spun, blinking when a new shadow fell over us. “You!” I exclaimed stupidly as Trent half-slid to a halt beside us, breathing hard and looking tired. “I told you to wait in the car! We’ve got this!”

“I can see that.” His words clipped, Trent eyed the battle, his lips pressed tight. “Shouldn’t we be going?”

Pixies were screaming, the sound becoming panicked. “What, now?” I exclaimed. “We have to help them!”

“The pixies who kidnapped your partner?” Trent said, frowning. “Why?”

“Why?” I echoed him. “Because it was a misunderstanding! We got it worked out. I just need three gallons of maple syrup!”

Trent’s face became white. “Oh.” He licked his lips and shifted from foot to foot. “Um, maybe we should leave anyway,” he said, taking my arm and pulling me a step up the path.

“Rache?” Jenks warbled. “I can’t fly.”