“He’s coming around back,” he said, his gold dust looking black through my sunglasses.

Damn it back to the Turn. “Pix the sucker,” I said, then waved my hand in negation when Jumoke clearly thought I was serious. The small pixy looked about six, and he took everything literally.

Jenks flew backward as I twisted, yanking on the back of the chair until it slid forward and I could sit more upright. Maybe this was a last-ditch effort to get me to sign that lame-ass paper of his, guaranteeing my safety from the coven but making me Trent’s virtual slave in the process. Tomorrow I’d be on the West Coast, clearing my name and sliding completely out of his clutches. Either that or he was avoiding Ivy—a distinct possibility. He knew she’d be here tonight, and his spies had probably told him she was out now.

Jenks’s wings clattered, and I flicked my gaze to his. “What do you want me to do, Rache?” he asked. “He’s almost at the gate. My kids are mobbing him.”

My jaw clenched, and I forced it to relax. I had a nice silk blouse picked out to wear tonight. Something professional and classy. And here I was in a bikini and with a dirty kitchen. “Let him come back,” I finally said. “If this is about that paper of his, he can suck my toes and die.”

With a nod and a wing chirp for Jumoke to accompany him, Jenks and his son darted to the side of the church and the slate path there. I settled back, tilting my head so I could see the gate without looking obvious about it. Trent’s voice—his beautiful, resonant, soothing, political voice—slipped over me even before he got to the gate, and I touched the braid that Jenks’s kids had put my curly red flyaway hair in this morning. I hated that I liked his voice, but it was a familiar hatred, one that had lost its fire long ago.

The wooden latch to the tall gate lifted, and my heart thumped as I took my sunglasses off. Eyes half closed, I pretended to be sleeping.