said, reaching up to take her hand and draw her to him.
His wife sat beside him, perched on the very edge of the couch with her hands holding his. “Times were harder. I’m proud of you, Jenks. None has done better. None.”
Jenks scanned the nearly empty desk, the sounds of his children playing filtering in over the radio talking about the freak tornado that had hit the outskirts of Cincinnati last night. Not wanting to accept her words, he pulled her to sit on his lap, tugging her close and resting his chin on her shoulder and breathing in the clean smell of her hair. He could have done better. He could have given up the garden and gone to work for the I.S. years sooner. But he hadn’t known.
“You need to help this family,” she said, interrupting his thoughts. “I don’t understand why you do some of the things you do, but this…This I understand.”
“I can’t do it alone,” he said, grimacing as he remembered Daryl controlling the wind, taking the very element he lived in and turning it against him.
“Wasn’t Bis a help?” she asked, sounding bewildered.
Jenks started, not realizing what his words had sounded like. “He was the perfect backup,” he said, his words slow as he remembered almost being squished, and then Bis’s frantic flight in the streets. “He’s no fighter, but he yanked my butt out of the fire twice.” Smiling, Jenks thought he couldn’t count how many times he’d done the same for Rachel. “I’d ask Rachel to help,” he said, “but she won’t be home until tomorrow.”
Still on his lap, Matalina reached for Jenks’s half of sweetball and put it in his mouth. “Then ask Ivy,” she said as he shifted it around. “She’ll help you.”
“Ivy?” he said, his voice muffled. “It’s my job, not hers.”
Collapsing against him in irritation, Matalina huffed. “The vampire is always asking
you
to help
her
,” she said severely. “I don’t begrudge it. It’s your job! But don’t be so slow-winged that you won’t ask for help in return. It would be more stupid than a fairy’s third birthday party for Vincet to lose a newling because you were too proud to ask Ivy to be a distraction.”
Jenks thought about that, lifting Matalina to a more comfortable position on his lap. “You think I should ask her?” he asked.
Matalina shifted to give him a moot look.
“I’ll ask her,” he said, feeling the beginnings of excitement. “And maybe have Jumoke come out with me, too. The boy needs something other than his good looks.”
Matalina made a small sound of agreement, knowing as much as he did that his dark hair and eyes would make finding a wife almost impossible.
Grinning, Jenks pushed them both into the air. She squealed as their wings clattered together, and a real smile, carefree and delighted, was on her as he spun her to him, hanging midair in the closed rolltop desk. “I’ll teach Jumoke a trade so he has something to bring to the marriage pot beside cold pixy steel and a smart mind,” he said, delighting in her smile. “I can teach him everything I know. It won’t be like Jax. I’ll make sure he knows why he’s doing it, not just how. And with Ivy distracting the nymph, I’ll blow up the dryad’s statue. I already know how to make the explosive. I just need a whopping big amount of it.”
Matalina pulled from him, holding his hands for a moment as she looked at him in pride. “Go save them, Jenks. I’ll be in the garden when you get back. Bring me a good story.”
Jenks drew her close, their dust and wings mingling as he kissed her soundly. “Thank you, love,” he said. “You always make things seem so simple. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“You’ll get along just fine,” she whispered, but he was gone, already having zipped through the crack in the rolltop desk. Smile fading, Matalina looked over the empty desk. Picking up the discarded fabric, she followed him out.
4
T he shouts of his kids came loud through the
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