Jenks rasped his wings, darting to the group of pixies who had circled Rex.

“Be careful!” I called, and his dust flickered red.

“I’m not going to be eaten by my own cat, woman!”

I hadn’t been talking about the cat. Jenks was one sword to their many, and though pixies generally didn’t fight other pixies for land, it was a large, productive garden. Remind me again why we’re trading it for a few roof boxes?

Someone, a construction worker, presumably, had put a fifty-five-gallon drum on end as a step. That got me partway down, and from there, a couple of stones taken from the busted-up foundation got me to the damp earth.

My expression eased as I picked my way through the remaining foundation to the cement pad that once held our back steps. There were tiny leaves opening up on the oak tree that shaded the picnic table, and a smile flickered over me. It had survived. I hadn’t been sure. It might be worth breaking my silence with Al to ask him if there was a curse to mend it.

A blessed contentment rose through me as I set the coffee and sandwiches on the burned table and eased my backside onto the slightly damp bench. “Coffee and BLT,” I whispered as I unwrapped the crackling paper, happy with this one moment in time. My eyes closed as I took my first bite, the tart tomato going perfectly with the extra bacon the guy had put on for me.

Until my phone rang, ruining it.

Sighing, I wrangled my phone from my pocket. If it was Edden, I was going to let it go to voice mail. But it was Sharron, and, quickly swallowing, I hit the accept icon and put her on speaker. “Sharron!” I exclaimed, and from across the garden, Jenks turned from his on-the-wing parley. “I’m glad you called.” I shifted down the bench until I found the drier boards in the sun. “What are the chances that we can rent out our new space until the closing date?”

I heard Sharron take a breath, then nothing.

“Sharron?” I said hesitantly.

“I’m here,” she finally said, but her tone made me more worried, not less. “I’m a little embarrassed. And a lot mad, actually. We had a verbal agreement, and when I took it over for signature, they backed out. You just don’t do that.”

My lips parted, and my eyes went across the garden to Jenks. “They backed out?” I said loudly, and the pixy darted to me. I could not believe this. We’d lost another place.

Or had we? I thought, my anger sharpening as I remembered Pike’s words. This wasn’t happenchance. This was Constance.

“I’m so mad I could chew nails and spit rust,” Sharron was saying, and I mouthed to Jenks, “We lost the storefront.”

“That’s a fairy-farting troll’s turd bucket,” Jenks swore, his dust shifting to an angry red.

“Sharron,” I interrupted, but she was on a roll.

“. . . so unprofessional,” she was saying. “I can’t believe Bob did this to me. To you.”

“Sharron,” I tried again. “It’s not his fault. It’s Constance, the incoming city master vampire.” The woman’s tirade cut off comically fast, and I added, “She doesn’t want me in the Hollows or Cincinnati, and I think she’s buying up or threatening everyone to not sell or rent to me.” Or come out and fix the church, I thought sourly.

“Oh, no,” she moaned in sudden understanding. “Maybe I shouldn’t have reamed Bob out. We’ll find something before you get evicted. Even if it’s someone’s basement.”

Which, as I sat in the sun and felt the earth come awake around me, sounded as appealing as, well, living in a basement. “Actually, it’s kind of a moot point at the moment,” I said, gaze flicking to Jenks. “Jenks and I were forcibly evicted from Piscary’s. We’re camped out at the church. It’s okay, actually,” I said when she made an unhappy noise, surprised to find “okay” wasn’t a wish, but true. “As long as the city doesn’t come down on us for the lack of a dwelling permit. Do you know of any contractors who aren’t in the area that might come out here? I think I’ve been blackballed there, too. I’m hoping that the city can’t force me out if I’m showing that I’m trying to get a kitchen put in. We’ve got zero chance of selling it without one, too.”

“I’ll give Finley a call,” Sharron said. “She’s pricey, but worth it. She’s been on the West Coast the last few years doing renovations on TV, but she’s back and is looking for something real to sink her teeth into. I’ll shoot you her number if she’s interested.”

Something real? With our itty-bitty budget? I thought, wincing at the missing back end of the church. All I wanted was to make it easier to sell. “Ah, Sharron?”

“This is wrong,” she was saying, not listening. “We have laws against this.”

“That depends who you ask,” I said bitterly. Then I brightened in a wicked thought. “Hey, could you do something for me?”

“If I can.”

I glanced at Jenks, torn between me and those pixies, his hands on his hips. “You know the old biolabs on the west side of Cincinnati?”

“By the abandoned hospital? Sure,” she said. “But you don’t want anything over there. The cleanup cost to remove the contamination from the Turn puts it way out of your reach. The buyer is responsible for paying for it.”

Hence no one doing anything with it for forty-plus years. “That’s them. Could you check into it anyway? Lot sizes, available utilities. Don’t make a lot of noise about it.”

“I can,” she said, sounding unsure. “But why? What she’s doing isn’t legal. If you can prove it, it will stop.”

“Just looking into all my options,” I said, then stuck a pinky into my coffee and warmed it with a stray thought.

“Okay, but even a small lot at the edge is cost prohibitive.”

“I might ask Trent to help with the finances,” I lied. “Isn’t there a creek that runs through there? That would be nice.” And really, really expensive to clean up . . .

“I’ll see what I can do,” she said distantly, and then the screen blanked.

I wasn’t going to live or work at the outskirts of a plague-created dead zone, but if Constance was going to buy up the property I was interested in, I may as well make her do a few city improvements. Costly improvements. “You mess with the witch, you get the broomstick,” I said, my gaze rising to Jenks and the eight raggedy pixies facing him.

Seeing him still there, I wondered if he was considering letting them stay in return for upkeep. It would be both amazing and unheard-of in pixy culture, but Jenks was used to breaking tradition, having survived past Matalina’s death. Not to mention the garden really needed it.