“Thanks,” I stammered.

“I don’t trust you, though,” she said, and I blinked. She was as direct as her husband, and just about as tactful. “Is it true you made him a partner? For real and not just a cruel prank?”

I nodded, more serious than I had been all week. “Yes, ma’am. He deserves it.”

Mrs. Jenks took a pair of tiny scissors in hand. They looked more like an heirloom than a functional piece of equipment, their wooden handles carved into the shape of a bird. The beak was metal, and my eyes widened as she took the cold iron and knelt before Jenks. “Please stay asleep, love,” I heard her whisper, and I watched in astonishment as she delicately trimmed the frayed edges of Jenks’s wing. The smell of cauterized blood rose thick in the shut-up room.

Ivy appeared in the doorway as if having been summoned. “You’re bleeding,” she said.

I shook my head. “It’s Jenks’s wing.”

“No. You’re bleeding. Your foot.”

I straightened, squashing a flash of angst. Breaking eye contact, I swung my foot up to look at its underside. A red smear covered my heel. I had been too busy to notice.

“I’ll clean it up,” Ivy said, and I dropped my foot, shrinking back. “The floor,” Ivy said in disgust. “You left bloody footprints all over the floor.” My gaze went to where she pointed to the hallway, my footprints obvious in the growing light of the new day. “I wasn’t going to touch your foot,” Ivy muttered as she stomped out.

I flushed. Well … I had woken up with her breathing on my neck.

There was a thumping of cupboard doors and a rush of water from the kitchen. She was mad at me. Maybe I ought to apologize. But for what? I already said I was sorry for hitting her.

“You sure Jenks is going to be okay?” I asked, avoiding the problem.

The pixy woman sighed. “If I can get the patches in place before he wakes up.” She sat back on her heels, closed her eyes, and said a short prayer. Wiping her hands on her skirt, she took up a dull blade with a wooden handle. She set a patch in place and ran the flat of the blade along the edges, melting it to Jenks’s wing. He shuddered, though didn’t wake. Her hands were shaking when she finished, and pixy dust sifted from her to make her glow. An angel indeed.

“Children?” she called, and they appeared from everywhere. “Bring your father along. Josie, if you would go and make sure the door is open?”

I watched as the children descended upon him, lifting him up and carrying him out through the flue. Mrs. Jenks wearily got to her feet as her eldest daughter packed everything away in the bag. “My Jenks,” she said, “sometimes reaches for more than a pixy ought to dream for. Don’t get my husband killed in his folly, Ms. Morgan.”