“Matalina?” I said loudly as I padded through the sanctuary. “We have a client.” But the pixy woman had already hustled the last of her brood down the hall and out through the chimney in the back living room. It was only the youngest that were giving her trouble, not remembering the drill from last year. They would stay out of the church until Rynn Cormel left, or they’d be cleaning my windows tomorrow.

I scuffed on my slippers by the back door and unlocked it, darting into the kitchen to see if I could do a quick tidy. I elbowed the rocker switch for the lights, already reaching to shove a crumb-strewn plate into the dishwasher before the fluorescent tubes finished flickering to a bright, steady glow. Mr. Fish, my Betta, flipped his tail nervously at the sudden light, and I made a mental note to feed him. Beside him on the sill was a tiny pumpkin that I had bought for Jenks and his kids, hoping that they would go for it instead of the huge pumpkin they’d grown off the compost pile this summer. Chances looked slim since the obnoxious but beautiful vegetable was sitting under the table, warming up. The thing was huge, and I wasn’t looking forward to a repeat of last year’s fiasco. Pumpkin seeds could be shot with painful accuracy, it turns out.

I loved my kitchen, with its expansive counters, two stoves, and huge stainless-steel fridge that was big enough to hold a goat, at least in theory. There was a heavy antique table against the interior wall holding Ivy’s computer, printer, and desk stuff. One side of it was mine, and lately I’d lost all but the last corner of it, having to continually shove her stuff back so I’d have somewhere to eat. I had taken the center island counter for me, though, so fair was fair.

The small island counter was covered in herbs I was experimenting with, last week’s mail stacked on a corner and threatening to spill off, and a mishmash of earth-magic spelling hardware. Copper pots and utensils hung over it from a huge rack where the pixies loved to play hide-and-seek among metal that wouldn’t burn them. Below the counter was the rest of my spelling stuff jammed together in no particular order, as it was mostly ley line paraphernalia that I didn’t know what to do with. My splat gun, with its sleepy-time charms, was nestled in another set of nested copper pots, and my small library of spell books was propped up with my more mundane cookbooks on a low shelf that was open on both sides. Three of them were demon curse books and they gave me the willies, but I wasn’t going to store them under my bed.