The pixy was beaming. “Yeah, I gave it to Quen.” A burst of light exploded from him, and Glenn winced. “When you didn’t show, Quen took the sample to Trent’s. He tried to take Ceri with him, but she said you’d need her when you got back. Holy crap, I have to send one of my kids to tell her you’re here. I knew you could figure out how to jump the lines. Did you show up at the basilica, too? How come you called Glenn and not us? We would have picked you up.”

He rose from my hand when it started shaking violently. Neither man commented on it, but Jenks’s excitement cut off with a worried expression. He thought I’d learned how to jump the lines. He didn’t know I had been pulled back by riding Algaliarept’s summons. “You’re not listening to the FIB channels, are you,” I said, and Jenks’s eyes widened.

“No…,” he said, his stance turning suspicious. “Why?”

Glenn pulled to the curb before the church and shoved the car into park. “We kept everything off the airwaves,” he said as he leaned over the backseat and groped for his coat. “We didn’t want the I.S. to show up.”

“Rache?” Jenks said warily, hovering as I hid my hands so he couldn’t see them shake. “What did you do?”

I looked at the church, wanting to be in it but too tired to move. “Tom and I had a chat.”

A flash of pixy dust lit the car, and Glenn jumped. “Damn it, Rache,” Jenks swore. “Why didn’t you call us! I owe him his left nut between his teeth.”

Guilt and fear mixed, and it came out as anger. “I didn’t have a choice!” I shouted, and Jenks hovered backward to land on the dash. He said nothing as I fumbled to open the door. Planting my feet on the pavement, I wearily stood to look up at the church. The night was cool, and I shifted uncomfortably in my damp underwear. Crap, I was tired.

Jenks’s wings were a silent blur as he flew too close to me. Not landing on my shoulder, he whispered, “I didn’t want to leave you, Rache.” Guilt lay heavy in his voice. “I must have gotten sucked out when the lines closed. But I knew you could figure it out. You’ll never be stuck in the ever-after again.”

This last was said with heavy pride, and I swallowed, using the excuse of shutting the car door to avoid looking at him. To tell him what had really happened was too hard. Seeing his eager face and happy stance, I was afraid. Jenks was too excited to pick up that things were being left unsaid. Things that were really going to screw my life—and by association, theirs—up.