I heard the dry clatter of pixy wings when my feet hit the walk, and I swung my hair out of the way for whomever it was. My money was on Jenks; it was his habit to stay awake with the few kids on sentry duty, sleeping odd hours when everyone else was up.

“Rache,” Jenks said in greeting, his swooping dart to land on my shoulder shifting at the last moment when he saw my sour expression. Hovering, he flew backward in front of me. I hated it when he did that. “Ivy called you, huh?” he said, his attitude one of affronted righteousness. “It’s in the eaves in the front. I can’t wake the damn thing up. You need to use a spell or something.”

My eyebrows rose. It’s in the eaves? “What’s in the eaves?”

“A gargoyle,” Jenks said angrily, and my alarm vanished. “A clumsy-ass, pimply-faced, big-footed gargoyle.”

“Really?” I said as I stopped right there and peered up at the steeple, not seeing the gargoyle. “How long has it been here?”

“How the hell should I know!” he shouted, and I realized that was where his anger was coming from. Someone had slipped through his lines, and he didn’t like it. Jenks saw my smile, and he put his hands on his hips as he hovered backward. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing.” I pushed myself into motion, making a left on the sidewalk to go to Keasley’s instead of the church. Jenks’s wings hummed when I took the unexpected direction, and he hastened to catch up. “We’ll talk to him or her tonight, okay?” I said, wanting to get Ivy’s take before we made any sweeping decisions. “If it’s young, it’s probably just looking for somewhere to hang.”

“They don’t hang, they lurk,” he muttered, wings clattering aggressively. “Something’s wrong with it, or it would be with its kin. They don’t move, Rachel, unless they did something really bad.”

“Maybe he’s a rebel like you, Jenks,” I said, and the pixy made a tiny huffing sound.

“Where are we going?” he asked shortly as he turned to look at the church behind us.

Immediately my bad mood returned. “To talk to Ceri. I ran into Trent trying on costumes.”

“What does that have to do with Ceri?” Jenks interrupted, as protective of the small but self-assured woman as I was.

Toes edging the drop off of the curb, I pulled myself to a stop so I could watch his expression. “He got her pregnant.”

“Pregnant!”