Jenks made an ugly sound and flew to the corner of the room to sulk. Jih took the opportunity to flit in to hide in the ladle hanging over the center counter, the tips of her wings showing a brilliant red above the copper rim.

Ivy’s brown eyes met mine over her glass. Her perfect oval face was almost featureless as she hid her emotions behind the cool facade of indifference she maintained when there was someone in the room beside us two, Jenks included. “I’m glad it worked,” she said as she set the glass on the counter. “Are you all right?”

I nodded, seeing her relief in the slight trembling of her long pianist fingers. She would never tell me how worried she had been, and I wondered how long she had stood in the hallway listening and collecting herself. Her eyes blinked several times, and her jaw clenched in an effort to stifle her emotion. “I didn’t know it was tonight,” she said softly. “I wouldn’t have left.”

“Thanks,” I said, thinking Jenks was right. I had been an ass for not telling them. I just wasn’t used to having anyone but my mother care.

Ceri was watching Ivy with a puzzled, rapt attention. “Partner?” she hazarded, and Ivy flicked her attention to the small woman.

“Yeah,” Ivy said. “Partner. What’s it to you?”

“Ceri, this is Ivy,” I said as the small woman got to her feet.

Ivy frowned as she realized the precise order she kept her desk in had been altered.

“She was Big Al’s familiar,” I warned. “She needs a few days to find her feet is all.”

Jenks made an eye-hurting noise with his wings, and Ivy gave me a telling look, her expression shifting to an annoyed wariness when Ceri came to stand before her. The small woman was peering at Ivy in confusion. “You’re a vampire,” she said, reaching to touch Ivy’s crucifix.

Ivy sprang back with a startling quickness, her eyes flashing black.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” I said as I stepped between them, ready for anything. “Ivy, take it easy. She’s been in the ever-after for a thousand years. She may not have seen a living vampire before. I think she’s an Inderlander, but she smells like the ever-after so Jenks can’t tell what she is.” I hesitated, telling her with my eyes and my last sentence that Ceri was an elf, and therefore a loose cannon as far as magic was concerned.

Ivy’s pupils had dilated to almost a full, vampire black. Her stance was domineering and sexually charged, but she had just slaked her blood lust and so was capable of listening. I shot a quick glance at Ceri, glad to see she wisely hadn’t moved. “We all okay here?” I asked, my voice demanding they both back down.

Thin lips pressed tight, Ivy turned her back on us. Jenks dropped to my shoulder. “Nicely done,” he said. “Got all your bitches in line, I see.”

“Jenks!” I hissed, knowing Ivy had heard when her knuckles on her glass turned white. I flicked him off me, and laughing, he rose up and then back down to my shoulder.