“Why the hell not? Plan B worked with that fish. It will work for Trent!”

Ceri’s eyes darted to mine and then back to Jenks’s. “Whoever Rachel buys the trips from will simply snag her. Or tell Newt, who now has a solid claim on her.”

I scuffed my foot, almost able to feel the raised, slashed circle on the bottom of it. “What if I just go through Newt?” I threw out there, desperate. “She might forget about it.”

Ceri stiffened. “No,” she said, and Ivy’s expression went guarded at the woman’s almost-panic. “Not Newt. You already wear one mark from her. She’s insane. She says one thing, then does another. You can’t trust her. She doesn’t follow demon law, she makes it.”

I flipped to the next sketch, which showed what looked like the layout for the university library, and Jenks moved to my shoulder, where I was able to judge his agitation by the strength of the draft he was making on my neck. It was cold, and I reached back and covered my bites with my hand.

“Minias maybe?” Ivy suggested, and Ceri shook her head.

“Minias is trying to get back into Newt’s good graces. Rachel may as well wear a big bow and sing ‘Happy Birthday.’”

I flipped the maps closed. “Why?” I asked, eating another cracker. “They fired him.”

Ceri’s gaze went serious. “Because Newt is the only female demon left. And just like everyone else, he would risk his life for the chance to engender a child. That was his job. They took a vote and he lost. I told you this before.”

Her voice had gotten sharp, but her temper was her way of hiding her fear. Excising it, maybe. “You didn’t tell me he was trying to seduce her,” I said tartly, egging her on for some inane reason. Perhaps I needed the release of yelling at someone, too. “You told me he was babysitting her.”

Jenks’s wings brushed my neck, tangling in my hair. “He’s been with her, what? A few hundred years? What’s his problem? Can’t get it up?”

Ceri’s eyebrows went high, and she replied dryly, “She killed the last six demons she became intimate with. Pulled an entire line through them and—”

“Fried their little kitty brains,” Jenks finished.

I looked for Rex in the threshold, but the cat had yet to come out from under my bed.

“Minias is understandably cautious,” Ceri said, and Ivy snorted as she pushed her forearms up from the counter and went to the coffeemaker.

“If it’s just a matter of getting there, can’t Rachel just stand in a line and…move?” Ivy asked, her unusual look of ignorance hinting at her fright.