Jenks drifted down until his feet hit the polished stainless steel, harmless through his boots. The squeak of the cat door brought him back to reality, and he pretended to be estimating the depth of the bowl when Bis and Jumoke flew in with the reek of petroleum.
“Because their horns don’t work,” Bis said. “Get it? Because their horns don’t work?”
The thunk of the tin can hitting the counter was loud, and Jenks’s hair shifted in the gust from Bis’s wings. “Jumoke, what do you think. A cup?” Jenks asked, measuring the bowl off at his shoulder and pacing around the perimeter.
“I don’t get it,” Jumoke said, and after landing inside one of the bowls, he added, “A cup and a third to the brim?”
“You know, their horns?” The gargoyle reached up and touched the tiny nubs where his would be when he grew up.
“Bis, I don’t get it!” Jumoke said, clearly embarrassed. “Dad, what’s next?”
Jenks smiled, pleased. A cup and a third. Jumoke had it right. Jenks looked up to find Bis and Jumoke watching him eagerly. Teaching an adolescent pixy and teenage gargoyle how to make explosives might not be such a good idea. But hell, he’d learned when he was five.
“Mmmm, Ivory soap,” he said. “Ivy has a stash of it—”
“In Rachel’s bathroom under the sink,” Jumoke finished, already in the air. “Got it.”
Bis was a moment behind, his wind-noisy takeoff making the bowls rock.
“Just one bottle ought to do it!” Jenks shouted after them. “We’re blowing up a statue, not a bridge.” The Turn take it, they were far too eager to learn this.
When the sound of their rummaging became muffled, he braced himself against the copper bowl and pushed it to the can of lighter fluid. Taking to the air, he tapped the can with his sword point, moving down until he heard a sound he liked. Marking the spot with his eyes, he darted back, aimed his sword, and flew at it.
With a stifled yell for strength, he jammed his sword into the canister. The hard pixy steel went right through. His elder children had fairy steel, taken from invaders testing their strength. Jenks’s blade was stronger, and the thin sheet of metal was nothing. Grinning as he imagined it was an invading fairy he had just pierced, Jenks put his foot on can for support and pulled the sword out, darting back to avoid the sudden stream flowing out and arching into the bowl…just as he had planned.
Wiping his sword on the rag over the sink, Jenks listened to the changing sound to estimate how full the bowl was getting. Little splashes spotted the counter, and he dropped to the floor, slipping into the cupboards by way of the open space at the footboard.
It was a weird world of wooden supports and domesticity behind the cupboards, and using his arms as much as his wings, he maneuvered himself to the kitchen’s catch-all drawer. Vaulting into the shallow space, Jenks hunched over, vibrating his wings to create some light as he moved to the front, dodging dead batteries and mangled twist ties until he found the spool of plumber’s putty. The trip out was faster, and eyeing Bis and Jumoke standing on the counter and panicking about the rising level of lighter fluid, he expertly plugged the hole.
“More than one way to empty a can,” he said, vertigo taking him when the flow stopped and the fumes hit him hard. “Don’t get too close, Jumoke. I swear, this is the worst part.”
“It stinks like a fairy’s funeral pyre,” the boy said, plugging his nose and backing up.
Standing on the counter beside his son, Bis looked huge. There was a bottle of soap in his grip, and the gargoyle easily wedged the top open. Jenks could have done it, but it would have been a lot harder. “How much?” Bis asked, poised to squirt it out.
Still reeling, Jenks covered his eyes, now streaming a silver dust as his tears hit the air and tuned dry. “Put it in the empty bowl. I’ll say when.”
“Rachel’s spell bowl?” Bis said, hesitating.
“It’s soap!” Jenks barked, rubbing his eyes and staggering until Jumoke grabbed his shoulder. Holy crap, it was nasty stuff until it all got mixed together.
The squirt bottle made a rude sound as it emptied, and feeling better, Jenks peeked over the edge to see how much they had. “That’s good,” he said, and Bis capped the bottle by smacking the tip on the counter. “Jumoke, see the proportion to the lighter fluid? Now all we need is the nitrogen and the pixy dust. Lots of nitrogen to make the boom intense.”
“Fertilizer,” Jumoke said. “In the shed?” he asked, and when Jenks nodded, Jumoke rose up. “I’ll check.”
In an instant, he was gone. Glancing out the night-darkened window, Jenks watched Jumoke’s arrow-straight path, the sifting dust falling to make a gold shadow of where he’d been. His siblings called out for him to join them, but Jumoke never even looked.
Pleased, Jenks turned to find Bis trying to get the fridge open by wedging a long claw between the seals. It felt good to be teaching someone his skills. Tink knew that Jax had been a disappointment, but Jumoke was genuinely interested. He already knew how to read.
Leaning against the bowl of soap, Jenks scratched the base of his wings, watching Bis hang from a fridge shelf with one hand and pull out a tinfoil-covered leftover with the other. His claws scrabbled on the linoleum when he dropped, and Jenks wasn’t surprised when Bis shook the leftover lasagna into the trash under the sink and ate the tinfoil instead.
The rasping sound of teeth on metal made him shudder. Black dust sifted from him, and seeing it, Bis shrugged, crawling back up onto his elevated seat before Ivy’s computer. “A gargoyle doesn’t live on pigeon alone,” he said, and Jenks winced.
Pushing off into the air, Jenks rose into the hanging utensils for his own snack. There was a pouch of sweets for the kids in the smallest ladle. Rachel never used it. Opening it, he popped one of the nectar and pollen balls into his mouth, then grabbed another for Jumoke. The kid had a lot to learn about maintaining his sugar level. Unless he was snacking in the garden. How long did it take to look through the shed, anyway?
Angling his wings, Jenks dropped to the dark windowsill and pocketed the second sweet. Hands on his hips, he stared out into the dark garden and watched the bands of colored light sift from the oak tree. Jumoke wasn’t among them. The individual trails of dust slipping down were as pixy-specific as voices, and he knew them all. There’d been no new patterns to learn in years.
No more newlings, he thought, more melancholy than he thought he’d be. He’d done it to save Mattie’s life, and it had seemed to have worked. A healthy pixy woman gave birth to more sons than daughters by almost two to one. The size of the brood, too, was telling, which was why only two children were born that first season, none the next, then eight, eleven, ten, twelve…then seven—four of them girls. That was the year he panicked, going to work for Inderland Security. Matalina had borne only three children the year he’d met Rachel, two of them girls. None had survived to naming. His wish for sterility had saved her life. Another birth of newlings might have killed her.
What he hadn’t anticipated was with the absence of newlings, both he and Matalina had time to spare on other things. He’d gone from side jobs to a full-time career outside the garden, gaining enough money to buy the church and the security that went with it. Matalina had been able to help their eldest daughter take land before taking a spouse, something that only pixy bucks traditionally managed. Not to mention Matalina pursuing her desire to learn how to read, and then teaching the rest of the children—all impossible if caring for a set of newlings. Children were precious, each one a hope for the future. How could they be detrimental?
Frowning, Jenks tried to figure it out, failing. Perhaps he wasn’t old enough yet, because it didn’t make sense to him. Maybe Mattie could help him. She was the smart one. As soon he got her to take the Tink-damned curse, he’d rest easier. They’d live in the garden for another twenty years, then, watching their children grow, take their places…