Unhappy, I sat back on my heels and considered my smaller library. I’d never be able to replace the book he had burned. Sure, I could pick up another at just about any charm shop, but mine had had notes and everything in it. I wondered if perhaps I ought to move the more valuable demon curse books onto hallowed ground. I’d been lucky Al hadn’t destroyed one of them instead. Or maybe I was unlucky, seeing as I still had them.

My fingers tingled as I pulled out the three books in question. I stood, and after running my arm across the counter to make sure it was dry, I set them down.

“Moving them?” Jenks questioned, and I looked to where he was examining my handiwork, his fists on his hips as he hovered at the mended rack.

“Maybe,” I said glumly.

His wings made a soft hum, and I swung my hair out of the way as he approached, but he landed on the counter instead. “If that gargoyle weren’t up there, I’d say put them in the belfry.”

A wince crinkled my eyes as I imagined the extreme temperatures. “He’s in the belfry?”

Jenks lifted a shoulder and let it fall. “No, but he’s on the roof beside the window. Tink’s titties, I never see the thing move. One minute he’s here, the next he’s there, and when he’s not asleep, I don’t know where he is. At any rate, it might be better than putting them under your bed. Ivy said the guy who blessed the church said the belfry was super holy.”

Super holy, eh? Maybe I should sleep up there. Worried, I pushed the books to the corner to make room for the rest of the under-counter stuff. “I don’t know….” My nose tickled as I weeded through the stack of herbs I’d been messing with to modify an existing charm to give Ivy a measure of control over her blood lust. It wasn’t going well. She didn’t like trying them out, taking them on her dates so if it didn’t work, I wouldn’t have to fight her off. Nothing seemed to have an effect, and I wondered if she was really trying them or just telling me she was. Ivy didn’t like my magic touching her, though she thought me blasting anyone else was cool.

Jenks dropped to land beside the curse books. His tiny features were worried as he watched me shake a sheaf of feverfew to get the tansy off it. “You aren’t going to keep that, are you?” he asked, and I glanced up from picking cat hair off it.

“You don’t think I should?”