“Shut up, Jenks.”

“And the cutest little tail you’ve ever seen on a witch!”

“Put a cork in it!” I said, lunging for him. Fighting Pam hadn’t been a fair contest, and I wondered who had credited me with the win at the Were registery. Brett maybe?

Laughing, Jenks zipped up and out of my reach. Ivy smiled softly, never moving except for putting her feet on the floor where they belonged. She looked proud of me, I think.

“Red wolf,” David murmured, as if it was curious but not important. He had scooted his chair to the table and was reaching to the statue. Breath held, he touched it, and the carved bone gave way under his pressure like a balloon. He pulled back, an odd sound slipping from him.

Nervous, I sat down kitty-corner to him, the statue between us. “When I moved the curse to it, it looked like a totem pole, but every day it looked more like it did when we first got it, until now it looks like this. Again.”

David licked his lips, dragging his attention from it for a brief second to meet my eyes, then back to the statue. Something had shifted in him. The fear was gone. It wasn’t avarice in his gaze, but wonder. His fingers curled under, a mere inch from touching it, and he shuddered.

That was enough for me. I glanced at Ivy, and when she nodded, I turned to Jenks. He stood beside Mr. Fish and his tank of sea monkeys on the windowsill, his ankles crossed and his arms over his chest, but I still saw him as six-foot-four. Feeling my gaze on him, he nodded.

“Will you hold it for me?” I asked.

David jerked his hand away and spun in his chair. “Me? Why me?”

Jenks lifted smoothly into the air in a clatter of wings and landed next to it. “Because if I don’t get that freaky thing out of my living room, Matalina is going to leave me.”

My eyebrows rose, and Ivy snickered. Matalina had almost pinned Jenks to the flour canister when we had walked in, crying and laughing to have him home again. It had been hard on her, so hard. I’d never ask him to leave again.

“You’re the only Were I trust to hold it,” I said. “For crying out loud, David, I’m your alpha. Who else am I going to give it to?”

He looked at it, then back to me. “Rachel, I can’t. This is too much.”

Flustered, I moved my chair beside him. “It’s not a gift. It’s a burden.” Steeling myself, I pulled the statue closer. “Something this powerful can’t go back into hiding once it’s in the open,” I said, looking at its ugly curves. I thought I saw a tear in its eye—I wasn’t sure. “Even if accepting it might cause everything I care about to go down the crapper. If we ignore it, it’s going to bite us on our asses, but if we meet it head on, maybe we can come out better than when we went in.”