Right away, she flung her arm up, not to block a weapon but to block the view of all the bared flesh on display on vigorously moving bodies. How in either hell was that man pumping his waist like that while hanging from a candelabra? He had to be half-elven. With the grip strength of a coconut crab.
One of the moans coming from the back corner was familiar—and not sexual. Gniknik knelt on the floor, cradling one of his ambulatory contraptions. It looked like someone had stepped on it—or maybe kicked it across the diner in the throes of passion. That had happened to more than one empty bowl. Almost every booth was taken by couples—and there was an athletic trio standing up and making creative use of the walls and sconces in the hallways.
Rylana looked around for Zalani—hadn’t Jildarin leftherin charge?—but wasn’t surprised when she spotted Rolf behind the counter, dropping silver coins into his bulging purse instead of the cashbox.
“Your life has gotten exceedingly strange since you started working here,” Sylin observed.
Shaking her head, Rylana stomped up to Rolf and planted herself in front of him. “What happened?”
Rolf spread his arms, his white eyebrows rising in innocence. “It was an accident.”
“An accident,” Rylana said in a flat tone, eyeing the bag of coins. It looked heavy. Were some of thosegold?
“Yes, indeed. When I went to ladle up plates and bowls in the kitchen, some of the dragon spices fell into the soup pot.”
“Theyfellin?”
“Yes. I believe the breeze created by my passing caused the jars to tip and tumble over.”
“I do hate it when my movements result in an overly aggressive breeze.” Sylin joined them, dodging the groping hands of a couple that wanted to include her in their horizontal encounter.
“You’re a goblin, not a dragon flapping its wings. You intentionally did this.” Rylana snatched the bag of coins from Rolf’s hands.
“That’s mine!” he blurted and lunged for it, but Sylin caught his wrist in the air, squeezing enough to make him wince and halt the movement.
“If what you said is true,” Rylana said, “and this is from the copious number of diners who came in for meals tonight, then the coins belong in the cashbox.”
“Onlysomeis from the meals. The rest is from, uhm.” Rolf looked around for support.
Gniknik walked over with his maligned contraption gathered in his arms, a bent spring dangling sadly. “He’s charging people for space in the back to have sex.”
“There are people in the back? In Jildarin'slair?” Rylana gaped at Rolf. “Are you crazy?”
“Horny people with their brains diddled by dragon spices will pay exorbitant amounts for private nooks,” Rolf said.
A moan came from a couple thrashing in a booth. Rylana rolled her eyes and looked away.
“And public nooks,” Sylin said,hereyes crinkling.
Rolf tried to reach for his purse again, but Sylin tightened her grip on his arm. He crumpled dramatically—melodramatically—to his knees.
“Your heavy is maiming me,” he blurted.
“My heavy, please,” Rylana said. “Sylin is an elf. She would blow away in a stiff wind.”
“Or the breeze caused by a goblin’s passing.” Sylin looked far more amused than affronted by the situation in the diner. Becauseshedidn’t work there.
Jildarin would be furious if he walked in to find this. He might change into a dragon on the spot. If Rolf hadn’t looked so guilty, Rylana would have guessed this was another plot instigated by Yerin to get Jildarin in trouble with the authorities.
“I’m a goodly goblin increasing the revenues to the diner.” Rolf tried unsuccessfully to extract his wrist from Sylin’s grip. She might not be heavy, but shewasstrong. “I don’t deserve maiming.”
“Look,” Rylana said, “if you help me get all these people out of here before Jildarin comes back, I’ll have the diner’s cashboxsplitwhat’s in this bag with you.”
“But I earned it all.”
“You didn’tearnit. You exploited people by drugging them. Weshouldgive it back.” Rylana looked around, wondering if any of the couples had the wherewithal to even know how much they’d paid. She well remembered that the dragon spices affected one’s mind as well as one’s libido.
“Half is fair.” Rolf pushed himself to his feet.
