The woman huffed, but the man beside her had handed me my things.

Sliding the straps of my bag over my shoulder, I accepted the unwieldy garment bag. “Thanks,” I said, surprised that calm and pleasant had gotten me further than hotheaded threats. Maybe there was something to a demon’s methods. My bags had never been out of my sight, but I hesitated, finding and holding the man’s attention. “Are they bugged?”

“No,” he said, his eyes flicking from me to the distant doors behind me and back again. “But your checked luggage probably is. Good luck, Ms. Morgan. You helped my grandfather once. About three years ago, on a bus. I think you’re getting a bum rap.”

I hesitated, then smiled as I searched my memory for a familiar face and found a close match. “He was being harassed by Were pups? Winter, wasn’t it?” I asked, getting a flustered nod in return. “It was my pleasure. You take care of yourself, okay? And thanks.”

He smiled, totally ignoring the woman behind him having a hissy, and with my pride intact, I spun on a heel and strode for the big plate-glass doors.

The second I emerged from the low-ceilinged hallway, Jenks dropped down to me. “I told you so,” he sang out, wings spilling a yellow dust over me like a sunbeam. Somehow, though, I didn’t have it in me to be mad. It wasn’t often that I ran into anyone who knew me, and even less frequent that they thanked me.

“Yes, you did,” I said, disappointed. Six hours on a plane, and I’d have been there. Now I had three days to get to the West Coast. Stiff, I pushed the automatic door aside when it didn’t slide quickly enough. The fresh air hit me, and I hesitated, fumbling in my bag for a moment until I remembered that I’d sat on my sunglasses yesterday.

“What about your luggage?” Jenks asked, and I shook my head, squinting in the bright morning light and brisk wind, looking for Ivy.

“Forget it. It’s bugged,” I said. “I’d have to dip everything in salt water.”

My new jeans, the silk sweater I was going to impress Robbie with, the swimsuit that took me three weekends to find…gone. At least I still have my dress, I thought, hiking it farther up on my shoulder. “Where’s Ivy?”

Jenks’s wings hit a higher pitch, and when he started swearing in one-syllable words, I followed his line of sight down to the end of the curb. Sighing, I pushed myself into motion and made my way past the chatting skycaps to the low black car. Ivy was there with her briefcase at her feet, the flat of her arms on the open front window as she talked to the driver. Her butt was giving the porters something to stare at, and not all the oglers were men. It had to be Trent. Whoopie friggin’ surprise.

From somewhere above me, Jenks shrilled, “Listen to me! Listen this time, witch! This is Trent’s doing! He wants to get you alone and brainwash you with a charm! Hit you with an enthrallment spell. What about yesterday, huh? You saw what he did! How stupid can you get?”