I had quietly excused myself and took the bus home, saying that as long as I was up, I should make sure Ivy got home all right and that I’d see him later. He hadn’t stopped me. He sat on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands and hadn’t stopped me.

I squinted into the bright afternoon sun, sniffing back any hint of tears. It was the sun. That’s all. I took a bite of hot dog. It seemed to take a lot of effort to chew, and it sat heavy in my middle when I finally swallowed. Below, the Howlers called and threw the ball about.

Setting the hot dog down on the paper wrapping across my lap, I took up a baseball in my injured hand. My lips moved in unvoiced Latin as I quietly sketched a complex figure with my good left hand. The fingers about the ball tingled as I said the last word of the charm. A melancholy satisfaction stirred me as the pitcher’s throw went wild. The catcher stood to reach it, hesitating in question before he returned to his crouch.

Jenks rubbed his wings together to get my attention, giving me a merry thumbs-up for the bit of ley line magic. I returned his grin with a weak smile. The pixy was sitting on Captain Edden’s shoulder so he could see better. The two had mended their fences over a conversation about country western singers and a night out at a karaoke bar. I didn’t want to know. Really.

Edden followed Jenks’s attention to me, his eyes behind his round-framed glasses suddenly suspicious. Jenks distracted him by loudly extolling the features of a trio of women headed up the concrete steps. The squat man’s face reddened but the smile remained.

Grateful, I turned to Glenn, finding he had already finished his hot dog. I should have gotten him two. “How’s Piscary’s court case shaping up?” I asked.

The tall man shifted in his seat with a bound excitement as he wiped his fingers off on his jeans. Out of his suit and tie, he looked like another person, the sweatshirt emblazoned with the Howlers’ logo making him appear comfortable and safe. “With your demon’s testimony, I think it’s reasonably secure,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for a surge in violent crimes, but they’ve dropped.” He glanced at his dad. “I’m thinking the lesser houses are waiting until Piscary is officially incarcerated before they start vying for his territory.”

“They won’t.” My fingers and words sent another ball clean out of the park with a boost of ever-after energy. It was harder to gather the power from the nearby line. The park’s safeguards were kicking in. “Kisten is handling Piscary’s affairs,” I said sourly. “It’s business as usual.”

“Kisten?” He leaned closer. “He’s not a master vamp. Won’t that cause problems?”

Nodding, I sent a pop fly to bounce wrong. The players became slow with tension as it hit the wall and rolled in an odd direction. Glenn had no idea how much trouble it was going to be. Ivy was Piscary’s scion. By unwritten vamp law, she was in charge whether she wanted to be or not. It put the retired I.S. runner in a huge moral dilemma, caught between her vampire responsibilities and her need to be true to herself. She was ignoring Piscary’s summons to his jail cell, along with a lot of other things that were quietly building.