nothing broke.
I sighed, leaning on the stick as I looked over the sunlit table. From behind me came Ivy’s somewhat threatening “They’re going to get grease on everything.”
I sashayed to the table, deciding to try the trickier bank shot if Wayde wasn’t here to tell me how to do it. “You weren’t worried about it last week.”
“Last week, it was a crappy table.”
Her magazine rustled, and I took my shot and missed. Standing, I looked over the table again, deciding to take another. It wasn’t a serious game, and if he said anything, I’d just play stupid. My lips curled up in a smile as I bent over the table.
“Jenks tells me the charms on the counter are Trent’s,” Ivy said, her tone rising in question. I could understand why. I hadn’t touched them: him making me a macaroni statue would have been better. If I used them, I’d feel like I owed him a favor. But to leave them there would be stupid if they would help. Damn it, why did I see ulterior motives in everything?
Disconcerted, I ignored her question, exhaling as I sent my cue gently forward. The balls cracked together, and one dropped in. It was Wayde’s. Sloppy. “Yup,” I said, avoiding her eyes as I maneuvered around the table. She was silent, and I looked up from where I was leaning over the table. Ivy was waiting for more. “He made them. In his spare time. Wild magic.” Which was another reason not to use them. Who knew how the magic had to be broken?
“Mmm,” she said, attention returning to her magazine.
“ ‘Mmm’?” I held the cue stick with both hands, hip cocked. “What does that mean?”
Ivy didn’t look up, still reading as she said, “Maybe I misjudged the little cookie maker. Most of your ex- boyfriends would have told you not to do it. He gave you a weapon.”
“Trent’s not my boyfriend,” I said quickly, and her eyes widened.
“Good God, no,” she said just as fast. “That’s not what I meant. I meant Nick would’ve told you to summon a demon to solve your problem. Marshal would’ve told you to not go at all. Pierce would probably have demanded to go with you, then gotten in the way and screwed it up. Trent, though, gave you a weapon. One you might use.”
I couldn’t help but notice that she’d left Kisten off the list. Lips pressed, I reached for the chalk. “Of course he gave me a weapon,” I said as I chalked the tip and blew the excess off. “He’s a murdering bastard, and he’s protecting his investment.” But it hadn’t looked like he was worried about money when he’d told Al I was going to be of sun and shadow both. What in hell did that mean anyway? Sun and shadow both.
“Turn-blasted businessman,” she said lightly, mockingly.
I leaned against the table, my focus becoming vacant. I was never going to call him that again.
“So are you going to use them?” she said, and shifted uncomfortably.
“The charms?” I thought about the Pandora charm he’d made that almost killed me, him freeing Ku’Sox with the singular intent of giving the world something worse than me to deal with and to make me look harmless, and then the finesse he’d needed to first weave a charm that cut me off from the universe, and second bring me back into it as well. “I don’t think so.”
“Mmm.”
Ivy played with the ends of her hair as she turned a magazine page. “He didn’t tell me.”
Her attitude was stiff, and I frowned as I smacked the balls around, not paying attention. “Is it Nina?” I carefully asked as the balls bounced, most of them ending up on the bumper.
Ivy’s brow furrowed. “No. She’s coping. Felix is taking the situation seriously, and with the three of us together, we might all make it out alive.”
But her jaw was still tense, and I flicked a glance at the empty hallway, listening to pixies arguing over barbecue or ranch. “Daryl?” I asked, not knowing how much leeway I had when it came to her relationships—now that I wasn’t one of them.
“No.” She grimaced at her magazine. “Yes. But that’s not what’s bothering me.”
Tension furrowed my brow, and I forced it smooth as I took a shot and missed. I’d asked. She knew I wanted to know. If I pushed now, she’d shut down.
“Glenn’s not telling me something,” she said softly, and I turned, sitting against the edge of the table to give her my full attention.
“You think he wants to break up?” I asked, fishing for an answer.
Ivy let her magazine fall forward on her lap. “Rachel, listen to me. It’s this HAPA thing. He knows something, and he’s not telling me.”
“Oh.” Moving around the table, I pushed half the striped balls to the center for better play. I was relieved that it wasn’t anything to do with her, Daryl, and Glenn, but I didn’t like the idea that he was withholding information. I didn’t want to chalk it up to human/Inderland tensions, but what else could it be? David’s warning drifted through me, and I shoved it away—but still the thought lingered.
“I think it seriously bothered him that we knew Nick was alive and didn’t tell him,” Ivy said, chewing on her bottom lip, her gaze distant.
“That was my decision, not yours,” I said, and she shrugged. “I’ll talk to him,” I said, giving the cue ball a smack and sending the balls bouncing around the table.
Ivy was wincing when I looked up. “Don’t. Please?” she asked, and I hesitated in my anger. “I’ll talk to him myself. I don’t know how long this is going to last anyway.”
I stood up, leaning against the table. “Oh, man. I’m sorry. Is it his dad?”
Her expression twisting into one of doubt and heartache, Ivy shrugged. “Glenn is having a hard time keeping up, and it’s starting to bother him.” Her gaze became distant, and I wondered if she was thinking of Nina as she played with the collar of her baggy sweater.
“Oh.” I looked at the table, not sure I liked the sound of this.
Ivy’s head shifted, and I heard the hum of Jenks’s wings. Half a second later, he darted into the room, his youngest daughter on his hip as she cried about the chips. Wayde followed him in with a bowl of chips and a garden of pixies wreathing him.
Wayde was eyeing the table as he set the bowl in front of Ivy, clearly oblivious to the fact that I’d been taking shots at his balls as well as generally moving things around. Sure it was illegal, but it wasn’t as if we were playing a serious game. “Cool,” he said as he noticed that a few of my balls had been sunk. “See? You just have to slow down.” Then he frowned, and I watched his lips move as he counted his own set and came up short.
“And exhale on the downstroke, baby. Nice and slow,” Jenks said, gyrating.
Ignoring Jenks, I handed the stick to Wayde. Ivy took a single chip, placing it between her teeth with a careful precision and crunching down. Jenks’s kids shrieked, and my eyes widened as Ivy snatched up her phone an instant later. Seemed as if she had it on ultrasonic instead of her usual vibrate. Vamps and pixies could hear it, but not witches.
I watched her listen, and Jenks went to eavesdrop, hovering when she waved her hand at him to stay off her shoulder. I found I was holding my breath, taking the stick without looking when Wayde missed his shot and handed it to me.
“Got it,” Ivy said, her voice tight, and her eyes went to the door. My gut tightened, and sweet adrenaline poured into me. The soft ache in my head from the lingering epoxy fumes vanished, and I smiled. We were on.
Saying nothing more, Ivy clicked her phone closed. She brought her attention from the door, smiled, and stood—all in a fluid motion that sent Jenks back-winging to get out of her way.
“Here,” I said, handing Wayde the cue stick without looking at him. “You win.”
“What?” he said, mystified for only an instant, and then his brow furrowed. “Hey, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about this.”
Jenks rose up with a war whoop, whistling for his kids. From the belfry, Rex padded in with Belle on her shoulder, the gaunt fairy riding the cat like a horse, partly to stay warm, I think, in the drafty church. Things were going to move fast from here on out.
