Jenks dropped the mushroom, his tiny face shifting with anger. His wings blurred to nothing. “How should I know if Trent is a Were?” he snapped. “I didn’t get close enough. I got caught. Okay? Jenks got caught. Happy now?” He flew to the window. Standing beside Mr. Fish with his hands on his hips, he stared into the dark.

Ivy shook her head with a look of disgust. “So you got caught. Big freaking deal. They knew who Rachel was, and you don’t see her whining over it.”

Actually, I had thrown my tantrum on the way home, which might have accounted for the odd noise Francis’s car was making when I left it in the mall parking lot in the shade of a tree.

Jenks darted to hover three inches before Ivy’s nose. His wings were red in anger. “You have a gardener trap you in a glass ball and see if it doesn’t give you a new outlook on life, Little Miss Merry Sunshine.”

My bad mood slipped away as I watched a four-inch pixy confront a vamp. “Knock it off, Jenks,” I said lightly. “I don’t think he was a real gardener.”

“Really?” he said sarcastically, flying to me. “You think?”

Behind him, Ivy pretended to squish Jenks between her finger and thumb. Rolling her eyes, she returned to her maps. A silence grew, not comfortable, but not awkward, either. Jenks flitted down to his mushroom and brought it to me, dirt and all. He was dressed in a loose, very casual outfit. The flowing silk was the color of wet moss, and the cut of it made him look like a desert sheik. His blond hair was slicked back and I thought I smelled soap. I’d never seen a pixy relaxing at home. It was kind of nice.

“Here,” he said awkwardly, rolling the mushroom to a stop beside me. “I found it in the garden. I thought you might want it. For your pizza tonight.”

“Thanks, Jenks,” I said, brushing off the dirt.

“Look,” he said as he backed away three steps. His wings were a confusing flash of motion and stillness. “I’m sorry, Rachel. I was supposed to back you up, not get caught.”

How embarrassing, I thought. Having someone no bigger than a dragonfly apologizing for not protecting me. “Yeah, well, we both screwed up,” I said sourly, wishing Ivy wasn’t witnessing this. Ignoring her puff of noise, I rinsed off his mushroom and sliced it. Jenks seemed satisfied and went to make annoying circles around Ivy’s head until she swatted at him.

Abandoning her, he came back to me. “I’m going to find out what Kalamack smells like if it kills me,” Jenks said as I placed his contribution on the pizza. “It’s personal now.”

Well, I thought, why not? I took a deep breath. “I’m going back tomorrow night,” I said, thinking about my death threat. Eventually I was going to make a mistake. And unlike Ivy, I couldn’t come back from the dead. “Want to go with me, Jenks? Not as a backup, but as a partner.”