I breathed easier when we left the front behind and entered a sterile fluorescent-lit hallway. Glenn, too, relaxed into a slower pace. I could feel the office politics flowing behind us like unseen currents but was too dispirited to care. We passed an empty meeting room, my eyes going to the huge dry-marker board where the week’s most pressing crimes were plastered. Pushing out the usual human-stalked-by-vamp crimes was a list of names. I felt ill as my eyes dropped. We were walking too fast to read them, but I knew what they had to be. I’d been following the papers just like everyone else.

“Morgan!” shouted a familiar voice, and I spun, my boots squeaking on the gray tile.

It was Edden, his squat silhouette hastening down the hallway toward us, arms swinging. Immediately I felt better.

“Slugs take it,” Jenks muttered. “Rache, I’m outta here. I’ll see you at home.”

“Stay put,” I said, amused at the pixy’s grudge. “And if you say one foul word to Edden, I’ll Amdro your stump.”

Glenn snickered, and it was probably just as well I couldn’t hear what Jenks muttered.

Edden was an ex–Navy SEAL and looked it, keeping his hair regulation short, his khaki pants creased, and his body under his starched white shirt honed. Though his thick shock of straight hair was black, his mustache was entirely gray. A welcoming smile covered his round face as he strode forward, tucking a pair of plastic-rimmed reading glasses into his shirt pocket. The captain of Cincinnati’s FIB division came to an abrupt halt, wafting the smell of coffee over me. He was my height almost exactly—making him somewhat short for a man—but he made up for it in presence.

Edden arched his eyebrows at my leather pants and less-than-professional halter top. “It’s good to see you, Morgan,” he said. “I hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time.”

I shifted my canister and extended my hand. His stubby thick fingers engulfed mine, familiar and welcoming. “No, not at all,” I said dryly, and Edden put a heavy hand on my shoulder, directing me down a short hallway.

Normally I would have reacted to such a show of familiarity with a delicate elbow in a gut. Edden, though, was a kindred spirit, hating injustice as much as I did. Though he looked nothing like him, he reminded me of my dad, having gained my respect by accepting me as a witch and treating me with equality instead of mistrust. I was a sucker for flattery.

We headed down the hallway shoulder-to-shoulder, Glenn lagging behind. “Good to see you flying again, Mr. Jenks,” Edden said, giving the pixy a nod.

Jenks left my earring, his wings clattering harshly. Edden had once snapped Jenks’s wing off while stuffing him into a water cooler, and pixy grudges went deep. “It’s Jenks,” he said coldly. “Just Jenks.”