Demons of Good and Evil by Kim Harrison

            “She’s in the garden. You knew it all the time?!” Jenks said, and Getty flew close, her wings somehow not tangling with his as she landed beside him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

            Getty arranged his shirt, sighing at its worn state. “It was part of our deal. I don’t tell you where she sleeps so you can’t kill her, and she doesn’t kill you where you sleep. I thought it was a good deal. If she broke it, I was going to stake her right through her shriveled heart.”

            Annoyed, Jenks backed up out of Getty’s reach.

            “It’s okay,” I said, willing to try anything to get Constance to stop. “I don’t need to know where she is as long as I know she’s alive—or undead, rather.” I wondered, though, how she had gotten six feet down the night she’d bitten Doyle and he dropped her cage. Being a mouse did not negate her vampiric needs and drawbacks. Where she was getting her blood was a mystery I wasn’t sure I wanted to solve. “Do you really think she’ll quit messing with my stuff for a scarf?”

            Getty beamed. “No, but it will open a dialogue.” Her expression went severe. “Stay here,” she said to Jenks. “I mean it. I don’t want you following me. You do, and you will find worse than mouse tracks in your sock drawer.”

            Scowling, Jenks crossed his arms and slumped against the cookie jar. At least, until Getty leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheek before zipping out the window again.

            I stared, mouth dropping open. “She . . .”

            “Yeah.” Jenks’s tan darkened in a flush as he wiped his cheek to look like a disgruntled sixth grader. “She’s been doing that lately. It don’t mean anything.”

            “It means she’s happy,” I said as I tested the griddle. “Something she probably has never been before. It’s a good thing.” I hesitated, thinking of his wife. “Isn’t it?”

            “I suppose.” Glum, Jenks picked at the seam of his scabbard.

            Silence took hold of the sunny kitchen. The soft hiss of the batter hitting the griddle was pleasant, and I breathed in the scent of cinnamon and nutmeg. He had been devastated when Matalina died defending the garden. I convinced him to keep living, just as Jenks had helped convince me when Kisten had died.

            Why is my life so full of change? I wondered, melancholy as I sprinkled wolfsbane on the cooking batter. But life was change. Death was when change stopped.

            “So . . .” Stef said as the silence began to get uncomfortable. “You’re going through your books. Is this for David? You’ve got lots of sticky notes. That’s good, right?”

            Jenks slumped against the cookie jar, fingering the hem of his worn jacket. It’s going to be okay, Jenks. Give it some time. “Yep. I’m pretty sure the curse that downed David is the same one that put Cassie’s employees in a coma. I might be able to identify it from the invocation phrase.”

            “That’s the good news,” Jenks said from atop the fridge.

            “Bad news is that it’s not in any of my books,” I said. “Al might know.” It would explain why he ran off, maybe. Not knowing for sure, I wedged a spatula under the pancake, then let it fall. Not done yet. “Hodin is the linking factor between the two curses. You don’t happen to know if he was working on anything in his room, do you?”

            “He was, but I don’t know what it is. Sorry.” Stef winced. She’d narrowly escaped being the demon’s involuntary familiar, and Hodin’s “friendship” hadn’t extended to giving her passage past the locked door. Even more frustrating was that she knew his room was as he had left it. The satchel she’d supposedly filled the night Hodin had fled had held nothing. She’d been too scared to put anything in it.

            “And then there’s what’s behind door number three,” I said. “Cassie gave me a tuft of Walter’s fur. We find him, we probably find his magic user. Beat the countercurse out of him. Soon as Patricia’s opens, I’m picking up a pack of blank finding amulets.”

            Stef took a sip of coffee. “Don’t look at me to help you there. She won’t sell to me, either. Patricia knows I’m your roommate.”

            “Which is why I only go in on Thursdays,” I said, smiling. “Her day off.”

            Jenks’s wings rasped as he went to sit on Stef’s shoulder. It gave him a clear view of the garden, and I felt a stab of hope when Getty zipped in, awash in happy glitters. The scarf was gone.