“It wasn’t the bent, nasty, yellow laminated four-by-six card everyone else got but a real heavyweight plastic tag embossed with my name. Jenks had one, too, and he was obnoxiously proud of it even though I was the one wearing it, right under mine. It would get me into the morgue when nothing else would. Well, besides being dead.”

“The tight sound of Jenks’s wings prompted a flurry of motion, and I watched Bis jam the wad of paper into his mouth and Belle yank a hand of homemade cards from under her leg. Bis suddenly had a hand of cards, too—looking tiny in his craggy fist—and I rolled my eyes when he threw a card down on the pile as Jenks flew in.”

“Did I ever tell you about the time I was working for the I.S. to help feed my family? Matalina had just had another set of quads and things were looking ugly. I had to take a job for hazard pay to babysit this witch no one else would touch." - Jenks”

“Jenks enthusiastically leaned against the counter and opened the box. Bypassing the plastic knife, he broke off about a third of it and took a huge bite. Ivy watched, appalled, and I shrugged. His mouth moving as he hummed, Jenks finished unpacking the sacks. I was half dead, Ivy was whoring herself to keep me safe, but Jenks was okay as long as he had chocolate.”

“I snorted, pulling myself in and already knowing what Jenks thought pixies did first best. And it wasn’t saving my ass like he told everyone.”

“If Jenks and she were to be believed, I structured my life to be as horrific as possible to have fun in bed, but having Ivy mad at me might be too much for even me right now.”

“Head lowered, Al looked at his bare hands, folded in his lap. “I knew you could, otherwise I wouldn’t have let you get into that position. But now everyone else knows it, too. I wasn’t expecting how vulnerable you would be, and word gets around. It is too easy for…” He hesitated. “You’re so damn helpless…,” he tried again, his words cutting off once more. “How am I supposed to keep them off you now that they know?”