He took a breath, then another. It came ragged, full of his emotion. "I miss her so much," he said, and suddenly he was holding me tight as he cried angry sobs into my hair. "I miss her so damn much."

So I held him, my own tears falling anew as we gave comfort to each other. It had been worth it. All the blackness on my soul was worth this. And no one would convince me that this was damning. It couldn't be.

There was a hollow place in my middle that wasn't from not having eaten all day. The sun was nearing the horizon, and the leaves that hadn't been burned were stark against the blue and pink of sunset. Almost like an oil, the scent of ash coated me. The heat from Jenks's stump burning was a gentle warmth this close to the ground instead of the expected inferno.

To one side of me, Pierce stood, his hands clasped before him with a white-knuckled strength, his expression pained from a memory he wouldn't share. Sunset would be here soon, and he'd ignored all my suggestions to leave. He claimed Al would leave him alone as long as he was "protecting" me. I didn't need protecting. Okay, maybe I did.

One of Jenks's returning children had given Pierce a heavier coat, garden stained and looking like it hadn't been washed since last fall. It went all the way to the ground, and Pierce looked odd with his dirty bare feet peeping out from under it.

Jenks was a tortured presence at my other side as his home burned with Matalina inside it. Tears glittered into dust as they fell from him, a pure silver that gave him an unreal glow, almost as if he were a ghost. Each breath was pained, rising from deep within him, hurting.

His children were in the garden, silent. All but Jax had returned, their grief tempered with the unknown. Never had a pixy tried to live past his or her spouse, and though happy they were together, there was no understanding of what came next—joyful that their father was alive, yet mourning their mother. They were confused, not understanding how they could be both.

The flames took on rims of blue and green as the rooms laden with pixy dust caught, a funnel of heat making the flame swirl into a spire, as if reaching for the heavens. Jenks's fingers brushed mine and took them. Fire cleansed, but nothing could stop the heartache.

"Tears could not be equal, if I wept diamonds from the skies," Jenks whispered, empty and bereft. "My word silent, though I should howl. Muffled by death, my wings can't lift me high enough to find you. I feel you within. Unaware of my pain. Not knowing why I mourn."

He lifted his eyes to mine, a glimmer of tears showing. "And why I breathe alone."

I shifted my bare feet, cold on the earth. I wasn't a poet. I had no words. Tears blurred my sight as we stood and watched his life burn.

Today had been harder than anything I'd ever endured, watching Jenks's children come home, one by one, each not knowing why they were drawn back or how to react. I could imagine what usually happened to the lonely souls that were cast into the world, hurting and alone. Watching them realize that they had one another to share their grief with was both painful and a joy. Jenks was the binding force, the gravity that had brought them back. Even the fairies, now released from their prison to find food, were subdued.

"I'm sorry, Jenks," I whispered when the flames grew higher, warming my face but for the tear tracks. "I want you to stay in the desk."

Taking a deep breath, his wings shifted, then stilled, lying like gossamer on his back. Saying nothing, he pulled his hand from mine and looked up at the faint noise the fairies were making as they hunted for spiders in the chill evening. Apparently their wings were why they destroyed a garden in their efforts to reach food, and they were amazed by their new dexterity, relishing being able to duck into small places. Better yet, they weren't damaging the garden.

"No thank you," Jenks said, his voice low as he watched the trees. "I couldn't live in the stump anyway." His faint smile was because of parental pride. "The kids will be fine. They have huts all over the garden. I'll just sleep in my office."

I couldn't bear thinking of him setting up residence in the flowerpot he'd turned into an office at the edge of the property. I was itching to push him into taking the potion that Ceri had made to turn small things big, but I daren't mention it yet. I shivered, and Jenks turned from the fire, his shoulders slumping. "You should get big again. It's too cold out here for you."

"I'm fine," I said, clearly not.

At Jenks's pointed look, Pierce took his coat off and draped it over me. I would have protested, but it was warm and smelled like him and the garden both. A puff of redwood rose as I tugged it close, and Jenks eyed the witch, the first glint of anything other than grief in his eyes.

"You're smaller than I thought you'd be my size," he said dryly, attention going to his home as a weird keening rose. The flames had eaten through the ceiling, and the wind was being sucked in through the tunnels, feeding the fire. It sounded like the wood itself was moaning, and it gave me the creeps. "Maybe I should hit you now for when you make Rachel cry."

"I'm not going to make her cry," Pierce said indignantly.

Jenks's wings lifted slightly, turning red from the increased circulation and heat. "Sure you will. All her boyfriends do. Why would you be any different?"

"Because I am," he offered.

"Pierce is not my boyfriend." Frowning, I shifted from foot to foot and glanced at Ivy, a good six feet back from the stump as it burned. Her jaw was set and her feet were spread wide, hands on her hips and just about daring the coven to bother us. To anyone else, it'd look like she and Ceri were doing some garden burning, oblivious to the funeral and the fairies scattered in the garden like, well, fairies.

"Maybe you should go, Pierce," I said to the sky. "It's almost sundown. You think getting away from Al is hard now, I imagine it's impossible when you're only four inches tall."

Pierce glowered at me. "In all my born days, I've not seen a witch as skeerylike as you about being demon snagged. Al won't bother me. I'm watching you. He can't touch me, or Newt will have his—uh. Never mind," he stammered, face reddening.

Grimacing, I turned back to the flames. I thought it odd that fire looked the same no matter what size I was. A hiss of fabric whispered behind me, and I spun to the silken thread coiling on the ground. It was Sidereal, and as he snaked down it, Jenks spit on the ground.

Slightly more subtle, Pierce sidled closer to me. "I don't like them," the witch said, eying the much larger fairy. Pierce and I were pixy size, which put the fairies two inches taller than us. Or like two feet, in pixy terms.

"Yeah, me neither," I said, remembering that poison dart Pierce had burned from me. But when Jenks loosened his sword, I felt a moment of worry. "Easy, Jenks," I murmured, not wanting a repeat of this morning. "Let's hear what he has to say."

Sidereal found his feet, his expression pained as he shifted his shoulders and adjusted his raggedy, spiderweblike attire. He looked like he was smelling something rank, his lips curled back to show his vampirelike teeth. Honestly, with their pale complexions, long faces, and those teeth designed to eat insects, they were some of the scariest Inderlanders I'd ever met.

"I'd thank you for letting us out of your prison, but it would show weakness," the fairy said, lisping around his long teeth.

"I'd apologize for burning your wings, but it would do the same," I said, wishing Jenks would back off a little, but I could understand. They'd killed his wife.

"You... I should have slit your throat!" Jenks shouted, his wings a blur as he rose a breath from the ground. "You killed my Matalina!"