Worry filled me as I watched him watch everyone else, his attention mainly on the cameras in the corners. “How you doing, Jenks?” I asked, the tone of my voice telling him I wasn’t asking about the temperature. He turned, his sharply angular face showing a neutral nothing until I added, “Don’t lie to me.”

Jenks looked away as the sun started to stain the sky. “Fine,” he said flatly.

Fine. I knew what fine was. I had been “fine” for the better part of a year after Kisten died. Since then I’d dated Marshal, had gotten shunned, and had sex with a nineteenth-century ghost named Gordian Pierce who’d been bricked into the ground alive in 1852 by the same group currently trying to give me a lobotomy and steal my ovaries.

Much as I hated to admit it, Pierce was everything I liked wrapped up in a package that might be able to stay alive through the crap my life dished out. He was Al’s familiar, and I saw him every week when doing my stint as a demon student in the ever-after. We’d not had a moment alone together since he’d helped me get a temporary reprieve on my shunning, and it was aggravating, even if I didn’t quite know what to think of Pierce anymore. He’d seen me through one of the most terrifying moments of my life, and we had opened up to each other in ways that left me wondering why I was still hesitant. He was a good man. But the same things that had once attracted me—power, tragic history, and a sexy body—now left me with a mild sense of unease. Ivy would say I was getting smarter, but I just felt…empty.

Twisting, I felt my back pocket for my phone, wondering what time it was.

“Seven thirty-two,” Jenks said, knowing me better than I did myself.

“Thanks.” Sighing, I tucked the phone away. Jenks didn’t like Pierce, agreeing with Al that the charismatic witch would be the death of me, but Pierce wouldn’t hurt me. He loved me. The hard part was I thought I might love him, too, someday. I just didn’t know, and Al wasn’t letting me figure it out. It worried me that Pierce was a little too free with the black magic, even if it had been to help me. I was trying to prove that black magic didn’t make you bad—but still I hesitated, whereas a year ago I’d have been head over heels and damn Al back to the Turn for getting in the way.

“Here she comes,” Jenks said in warning, and I looked up. Sure enough, Ivy was making her way toward us, our two bags left behind on the conveyor belt and a blue-and-gold envelope in her hand. She was wearing an unfamiliar black business suit to make her look both sexy and capable, a mix of brains and body able to get anything done in the boardroom. I’d never be able to carry off that look, but for Ivy, it was easy.