Jenks laughed, the wind from his wings shifting the hair about my face. “So get yourself something nice the next time you have some money.”

“Like that will ever happen,” I muttered.

Jenks zipped under the table. Not trusting him, I bent to see what he was doing. “Hey! Stop it!” I cried, moving my foot as I felt a tug on my shoe. He darted away, and when I came up from retying my lace, I found he had pulled the catalog off the textbook. His hands were on his hips as he stood on it, reading. “Jenks!” I complained.

“I thought you didn’t like ley lines,” he said, flitting up and then right back down where he had been. “Especially now that you can’t use them without endangering Nick.”

“I don’t,” I said, wishing I hadn’t told him about having accidentally made Nick my familiar. “But look. This stuff is easy.”

Jenks was silent, his wings drooping as he looked at the charm. “You gonna try it?”

“No,” I said quickly.

“Nick will be okay if you pull your energy right off the line. He’ll never know.” Jenks turned sideways so he could see me and the print both. “It says right here you don’t have to use stored energy but can pull it off the line. See? Right here in black and white.”

“Yeah,” I said slowly, not convinced.

Jenks grinned. “You learn how to do this, and you could get back at the Howlers. You still have those tickets for next Sunday’s game, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” I said cautiously.

Jenks strutted down the page, his wings a red blur in excitement. “You could make them pay you, and since you have Edden’s paycheck coming for your rent, you could get a nice oak shoe rack or something.”

“Ye-e-e-eah,” I hedged.

Jenks eyed me slyly from under his blond bangs. “Unless you’re afraid.”

My eyes narrowed. “Anyone ever tell you you’re a real prick?”

He laughed, rising up with a glittering sunbeam of pixy dust. “If I had a quarter …” he mused. Flitting close, he landed on my shoulder. “Is it hard?”

Leaning over the book, I swung my hair to one side so he could see, too. “No, and that’s what worries me. There’s an incantation, and I need a focusing object. I’ll have to connect to a ley line. And there’s a gesture …” My brow furrowed and I tapped the book. It couldn’t be this easy.

“You gonna try it?”

The thought that Algaliarept might know I was pulling on the line flitted through me. But seeing that it was daylight and we had an agreement, I thought it was safe enough. “Yeah.”

Sitting straighter, I settled myself. Reaching out with my second sight, I fumbled for the line. The sun completely overwhelmed any vision of the ever-after, but the ley line was clear enough in my mind’s eye, looking like a streak of dried blood hanging above the tombstones. Thinking it was really ugly, I cautiously reached out a thought and touched it.