“Nick,” Jenks said, landing next to him on the table. “Have you ever seen a scar like this?” Jenks pushed his sleeve up to show a puckered zigzag from his wrist to his elbow. Jenks always wore a long-sleeved silk shirt and matching pants. I hadn’t known he had scars.

Nick whistled appreciably, and Jenks beamed. “I got that from a fairy,” Jenks said. “He was shadowing the same take my runner was. A few seconds at the ceiling with the butterfly-winged pansy, and he took his runner somewhere else.”

“No kidding.” Nick seemed impressed as he leaned forward. He smelled good: manly without dipping into Were, and no hint of blood at all. His eyes were brown. Nice. I liked human eyes. You could look at them and never see anything but what you might expect.

“What about that one?” Nick pointed to a round scar on Jenks’s collarbone.

“Bee sting,” Jenks said. “Had me in bed for three days with the shivers and jerks, but we kept our claim on the southside flower boxes. How did you get that one?” he asked, taking to the air to point at the softly welted scar ringing Nick’s wrist.

Nick glanced at me and away. “A big rat named Hugo.”

“Looks like he nearly took your hand off.”

“He tried.”

“Lookie here.” Jenks tugged at his boot, yanking it off along with a nearly transparent sock to show a misshapen foot. “A vamp pulped my foot when I didn’t dodge fast enough.”

Nick winced, and I felt ill. It must be hard to be four inches in a six-foot world. Parting the upper part of his robe, he showed his shoulder and a hint of a curve of muscle. I leaned forward to get a better look. The light crisscrossing of scars appeared to be nail gouges, and I tried to see how far down they might go. I decided Ivy was wrong. He wasn’t a geek. Geeks don’t have washboard stomachs. “A rat named Pan Peril gave me these,” Nick said.

“How about this?” Jenks let his shirt fall completely about his waist. I felt my amusement fade as Jenks’s scarred and battered body came to light. “See here?” he said, pointing to a concave, round scar. “Look. It goes right through to the other side.” He turned to show a smaller scar on his lower back. “Fairy sword. It probably would have killed me, but I had just married Matalina. She kept me alive until the toxins worked their way out.”

Nick shook his head slowly. “You win,” he said. “I can’t beat that.”

Jenks rose several inches in pride. I didn’t know what to say. My stomach rumbled, and in the obvious silence afterward I murmured, “Nick, can I make you a sandwich or something?”

His brown eyes meeting mine were warm. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

I rose and shuffled in my pink fuzzy slippers to the fridge. “No trouble at all. I was going to make myself something to eat anyway.”