Ever After (Rachel Morgan)

noise of his wings increased when the cat-size shadow of Bis joined them; then he relaxed.
    “Thanks,” I said in relief as I took my sandwich to the table. “They don’t listen to me.”
    Jenks frowned as he flew over the center counter, spilling a sour green dust on the cheese and making it glow briefly. “They don’t listen to me, either.”
    It was a not-so-subtle reminder of Jax. Nick’s sudden appearance had us both in a stellar mood. Uptight, I shifted to try to make the dress feel more comfortable, finally sitting sideways to the table in the hard-backed chair. My clutch purse and shawl were at Ivy’s empty spot, trying to make it look less . . . empty.
    Suddenly Nick didn’t seem so important, and depressed, I leaned sideways over the table as I took a bite of my sandwich, trying not to get any of it on my dress. The coffeemaker on the counter gurgled its last, but I didn’t bother to get up. Jenks descended from the utensil rack, using his sword to cut a pixy-size chunk of cheese. Spearing it on the tip, he angled the short sword up to eat it right from the blade.
    “So-o-o-o,” he drawled, his dust shifting to a more normal gold. “You never did tell me what Quen wanted.”
    I froze, then took another bite to give myself time to think. Nick had been on my mind when Quen dropped me off: Nick, demons, Rosewood babies. Quen’s request hadn’t even been in the theoretical kitchen, much less on a back burner. “Ah, he wanted to know if I’d take over some of his security duties.”
    “Tink loves a duck, really?” It wasn’t the reaction that I had expected, and my chewing slowed when Jenks flew to sit on the back of Ivy’s monitor where he could see me better. “You told him no, right?”
    I made a little huff, trying to forget that surprising hug. “Trent doesn’t need my help. You’ve worked with him. Tell me I’m wrong. Quen is a nervous worrywart. Trent can handle anything Cincinnati can dish out.”
    His eyes fixed on mine, Jenks tilted his head and bit off a chunk of cheese. “Sure, like his best friend locking him on a boat and blowing it up. Demons possessing said best friend. Said demon’s ex-familiar living in his home, mothering the child he had with the woman who tried to kill him last summer.”
    I sighed. “You think I should have said yes?”
    Jenks shrugged. “Trent always pays his bills.”
    I stared at him. “Who are you and how did you kill my partner?” I asked, and a faint red dust of embarrassment slipped from him. Last year, he would have been insulting Tink with a brandished sword for my even considering the idea, but then again, he had worked with Trent to rescue his daughter.
    Head tilting the other way, he plucked the last chunk of cheese from the tip and ate it, licking the crumbs from his fingers. “Cincy is a fickle woman. One day you’re leading her in a waltz, and the next she’s smacked you and is walking on your face. Round the clock would be an insult, but someone to watch his back, someone in a dress who looks like a pushover and isn’t always telling him what to do? Yeah, he’d go for that.” His eyes met mine. “Especially if it was you.”
    The sandwich went tasteless, and I set it down, two bites in. I’d worked with Trent three times: the first to steal a thousand-year-old elven DNA sample from the ever-after—which ended badly; the second to apprehend HAPA—which turned out okay; and the last at a museum fund-raiser—where the assassins were aiming at me, not him. And yet . . . “I can’t do it, Jenks. I can’t work for him.”
    “So work with him, not for him,” Jenks said, as if that distinction was the easiest thing in the world. “Hell, if I can work with him, you can.”
    “Sure, because you’re great at backup,” I protested. “But I’m not a backup kind of girl.” Jenks nodded solemnly and I slumped, shoving the tomato back into my sandwich. “Trent isn’t either,” I muttered. “ I’m not going to change, and I’m not going to delude myself that I can change him. I don’t know if I would if I could.” Focus blurring, I gazed past the kitchen’s blue curtains to the foggy night beyond.
    “Good, because you can’t.” Jenks dropped down, his wings rustling as they lay flat on his back. “No one can change anyone but themselves.”
    My thoughts drifted again to the unusual hug Trent had given me, and then his request that I come out to talk about the abducted infants. I knew the subject of