He was on top of my dad's box of stuff, trying to wedge it open. "Ceri gave it to me," he said, puffing. "Why?"

I took a breath to tell him where it had come from, then changed my mind. "No reason," I said, letting Rex slip from me. "It's really unique, is all."

"So, what's in the box?" he asked, giving up and putting his hands on his hips.

I smiled and crossed the kitchen. "My dad's charms. You should see some of this stuff."

As Jenks and I talked, I brought out wrapped gadgets and utensils, laying them down for him to unwrap. Jenks buzzed around in the cupboards to find nooks and crannies, his wings slowly losing their red tint to become their normal grayish hue. He was better than a flashlight for seeing what was at the back of a cupboard.

"Hey, Jenks," I said as I set a box of uncharmed ley line amulets and pins at the back of my silverware drawer. "I'm, uh, really sorry about pasting you against my bathroom mirror with sticky silk."

The pixy flashed red, the dust slipping from him mirroring his embarrassed color. "You remember that, huh?" he said. "It sure made the decision easy to down you with that forget charm." He hesitated, then added softly, "Sorry about that. I was only trying to help."

The box was empty, and not seeing Ivy's scissors, I ran my ceremonial knife along the tape lines to collapse the box so the rani of recycling wouldn't yell at me. "It's okay," I said as I wrestled the thing flat. "I've forgotten about it already. See?" I quipped.

Tired, I tucked the box in the pantry and began sorting the remaining charms. Jenks landed beside me, watching. The sound of his kids was nice. "I'm sorry about Kisten," Jenks said, surprising me. "I don't think I said that yet."

"Thanks," I said, grabbing a handful of spent charms. "I still miss him." But the pain was gone, burned to ash under the city, and I could move on.

The old spells went into my dissolution vat of salt water, making a soft splash. I missed Marshal, too. I understood why he'd left. He hadn't been my boyfriend, but something more—my friend, one I'd really messed up with. Doing a power pull with him made the entire situation look worse than it really was.

I held nothing against him for leaving. He hadn't betrayed me by walking away, and he wasn't a coward for not sticking around. I'd made a very large mistake by getting shunned, and it wasn't his responsibility to fix it. I didn't expect him to wait for me until I did. He hadn't said he would. He was rightfully ticked at me for screwing up. If anything, I'd betrayed him, breaking his trust when I told him I could keep everything under control.

"Rache, what does this one do?" Jenks said as he messed around with the last charm I'd left on the counter.

Finding my keys in my bag, I came closer. "That one detects strong magic," I said, pointing out the rune scratched on it.

"I thought that's what that one does," he said as I wedged it on my key ring beside my original bad-mojo, or rather, lethal-amulet, detector.

"This one detects lethal magic," I explained, flipping the original earth-magic amulet and letting it drop. "The one from my dad detects strong magic, and since all lethal magic is strong, it will do the same thing. I'm hoping it won't set off the security systems at the mall, like the lethal amulet does, since they're both ley line based. I'm going to take them shopping and see which works best."

"Gotcha," he said, nodding.

"My dad made it," I said, feeling closer to him as I dropped my keys back in my bag. The charm was over twelve years old, but because it had never been used, it was still good. Better than batteries. "You want some coffee?" I asked.

Jenks nodded, and a chorus of pixy shouts pulled him into the air. I wasn't surprised when the front bell rang. The pixies were better than a security system.

"I'll get it," Jenks said, darting away, but before I could do more than get the coffee grounds out, he was back. "It's a delivery service," he said, slipping a thin trace of silver pixy dust as he came back in. "You need to sign for something. I can't do it. It's for you."

A pang of fear slipped into me, and vanished. I'd been shunned. It could be anything.

"Don't be a baby," Jenks said, instinctively knowing my warning flags had been tripped. "Do you have any idea of the penalty for sending a bad charm through the mail? Besides, it's from Trent."

"Really?" Interested now, I flicked on the coffeemaker and followed him out. A bewildered human was standing on my doorstep in the light from the sign overhead. The door, gaping open, was letting out the heat, and pixies were darting in and out on dares.

"Stop it! Enough!" I called, waving them back inside. "What's wrong with you?" I said loudly as I took the pen and signed for a thickly padded envelope. "You all act like you were born in a stump."

"It was a flower box, Ms. Morgan," one of Jenks's kids said merrily, perched on my shoulder, out of the cold night and nestled in my hair.

"Whatever," I muttered, smiling at the confused man and taking the package. "Everyone inside?" I asked, and when I got off a round of counting up to fifty-something, I shut the door.

A good dozen of Jenks's kids braved the chill of the kitchen, curiosity winning out over comfort, and they all wove in and out before me in a nightmare of silk and high-pitched voices that scraped along the inside of my eyelids. It wasn't until Jenks made that awful screech with his wings that they quit. Nervousness hit me as I tossed the manila-wrapped package on my spot at the table to deal with later. I'd wait until Ivy got home so she could pick me up off the floor when the joke charm Trent had sent me exploded in my face.

Arm around my middle, I got my Vampiric Charms mug out of the cupboard. I hadn't had a good cup of coffee in a week. Not since the last one at Junior's. I wanted another one, but was afraid to go back. Not that I remembered what it was, anyway. Cinnamon something.

Jenks buzzed close, then away. "You going to open it?" he prompted as he hovered over the table. "It's got bumps inside."

I licked my lips and looked askance at him. "You open it."

"And get blasted by whatever nasty elf charm he put in there?" he said. "No way!"

"Elf charm?" I turned around, curious. Crossing the kitchen, I dug my keys out of my bag, watching the heavy-magic amulet glow a faint red. The lethal one was quiet, though. Interested, I waved the pixies off it. It wasn't lethal…but still.

"Open it, Rache! Tink's tampons!"

The coffeemaker finished with a hissing gurgle, and enduring the complaints of twenty-some pixies, I smiled and poured myself a cup. I took a careful sip as I brought it to the table, frowning. Maybe I could get some raspberry syrup to put in it the next time I was at the store.

Pixies clustered on my shoulders, shoving each other as I used my ceremonial knife, still out on the counter, to cut the brown envelope open. Not looking inside, I angled the envelope and cautiously shook whatever it was out and away from me.

"It's a rope!" Jenks exclaimed, hovering over it, and I peeked inside the envelope to make sure there wasn't a note. "Trent sent you a rope? Is that a joke?" he said, looking so angry that his kids started to back off, whispering. "To hang yourself with, maybe? Or is it an elven version of getting a horse head in your bed? It's made out of horsehair."

I cautiously picked up the short length of rough rope, feeling the knotted bumps. "It's probably made from his familiar," I said, remembering Trent once telling me that his familiar was a horse. "Jenks," I said, heart beating fast. "I think it's a Pandora charm."

Immediately Jenks lost his anger. From behind us, I heard a rumble and chunk of an ice cube dropping onto the floor, and his kids swarmed it. Rex appeared at the doorway and hunched down, watching Jenks's kids push and shove to be the first five on the long cube of ice. Wings going in tandem, they shot across the floor, under the table, and around the island. Pixy squeals rose high, and they all flew off an instant before the cube hit the wall, out of control.