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Chapter One

Brown or green for the drapes, Rache?"

Jenks's voice slid intostate, and I opened an eyelid a crack to find hi inches from my nose The sun was hot, and I didn't want to s provided a cold draft "Too close I can't see," I said as I shifted in the webbed lounge chair, and he drifted back, his dragonflylike wings huh to spill a red-tinted pixy dust over , and Cincinnati noret a tan before I headed west for

Two bundles of fabric were draped over Jenks's arhters His shoulder-length curly blond hair-uncut since his wife's death-was tied back with a bit of twine to show his angular, pinched features I thought it odd that a pixy able to fend off an entire team of assassins orried about the color of his drapes

"Well," I hedged, not oes with the floor, but I'd go with the taupe You need some visual warmth down there"

"Brown?" he said, looking at it doubtfully "I thought you liked the green tile"

"I do," I explained, thinking that breaking up a pop bottle for floor tile was ingenious "But if youthe same color, you'll wind up back in the seventies"

Jenks's wings dropped in pitch, and his shoulders slu melancholy as he remembered Matalina "Tell me which one"

I cringed inside I wanted to give hi, but he was only four inches tall Small, yes, but the pixy had saved my life more tih, I felt as if orlds apart "Taupe," I said

"Thanks" Trailing dull gold dust, Jenks flew in a doard arc to the knee-high wall that separated raveyard wasthat he owned the deed, but I was the one who mowed the lawn

Heartache took me, and the sun seemed a little cooler as I watched Jenks's dust trail vanish under the sprouting bluebells and moss, and into his new bachelor-size home The last few months had been hard on hi able to becoh that first difficult day had gone a long way in convincing ic wasn't bad unless you used it for a dark purpose

The breeze cooled the corner of my eye, and I smiled even as I dabbed the alrass, and the noise of a nearby h over the distant hum of Cincinnati, across the river There was a stack of decorating lass of melted iced tea-the lull before the stor ofto last the entire week, through the annual witches' conference What happened after that was anyone's guess

Nervous, I shifted the straps ofin ar had started yesterday on the other side of the continent I was the last on the docket-like saving the biggest circus act for the end

The coven of moral and ethical standards had already shunned me, tried to incarcerate me without a trial in Alcatraz, sent assassins when I'd escaped, and finally accepted a staleo public with the fact that witches had their beginnings in demons and I was the proof The rescind ic At least that was the theory

Asforward to it Iblackwith de to change, but if I couldn't pull this off, I'd be hiding out in the ever-after for the rest of my life Not only did I not particularly like de and he'd never let me live it down

I looked up, squinting into the oak tree as the fah the drone of a mower It was no surprise when Jenks darted out fro toin from sentry duty at the front of the church

"What's up, Jenks?" I called out as I grabbed