Jenks alighted on my earring, swearing up a blue streak. I repeatedly flicked the switch for the window, but Glenn had locked it. I settled back with a huff. I could jam my finger in Glenn’s eye and force us off the road, but why? I knew where I was going. And Edden would see that I had a ride home. It ticked me off, though, running into a human who had more gall than I did. What was the city coming to?

A sullen silence descended. I took my sunglasses off and leaned over, noticing the man was going fifteen over the posted limit. Figures.

“Watch this,” Jenks whispered. My eyebrows rose as the pixy flitted from my earring. The autumn sun coming in was suddenly full of sparkles as he surreptitiously sifted a glowing dust over the detective. I’d bet my best pair of lace panties it wasn’t the usual pixy dust. Glenn had been pixed.

I hid a smile. In about twenty minutes Glenn would be itching so bad he wouldn’t be able to sit still. “So, how come you aren’t scared of me?” I asked brazenly, feeling vastly better.

“A witch family lived next door when I was a kid,” he said warily. “They had a girl my age. She hit me with just about everything a witch can do to a person.” A faint smile crossed his square face to make him look very un-FIBlike. “The saddest day of my life was when she moved away.”

I made a pouty face. “Poor baby,” I said, and his scowl returned. I wasn’t pleased, though. Edden sent him to pick me up because he had known I couldn’t bully him.

I hated Mondays.

Two

The gray stone of the FIB tower caught the late afternoon sun as we parked in one of the reserved slots right in front of the building. The street was busy, and Glenn stiffly escorted me and my fish in through the front door. Tiny blisters between his neck and collar were already starting to show a sore-looking pink against his dark skin.

Jenks noticed my eyes on them and snorted. “Looks like Mr. FIB Detective is sensitive to pixy dust,” he whispered. “It’s going to run through his lymphatic system. He’s going to be itching in places he didn’t know he had.”

“Really?” I asked, appalled. Usually you only itched where the dust hit. Glenn was in for twenty-four hours of pure torture.

“Yeah, he won’t be trapping a pixy in a car again.”