“Suddenly I felt vastly underdressed. Hell, even the woman dressed down as a hobo had diamonds on.”

“I knew it was a trap, itchy witch," the demon said, but then a flash of white exploded against the inside of the circle. I felt the bubble go down, leaving a white disk of ash where the carpet had burned away. "But I didn't know it was a lethal one," he continued,”

“Tears could not be equal, if I wept diamonds from the skies.Jenks (Black Magic Sanction)”

“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.”

“I felt my shoulders ease at her admission. She was going to do what she had to do, and I was going to do what I had to do. And Ivy? Ivy was going to go insane.”

“But the same things that had once attracted menow left me with a mild sense of unease. Ivy would say I was getting smarter, but I just felt…empty.”

“Though no one had been buried here for almost thirty years, the grass was mown by yours truly. I felt a tidy graveyard made a happy graveyard.”