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The problem in the Arches is a harpy named Mrs. Varga and a satyr named Tobias Reed, and they’re both talking at once.

I know Mrs. Varga. She’s the bride’s mother from the wedding, the one with the very large talons. She’s in the middle of the long brick room with about thirty guests behind her and her wings half open. Tobias is by the iron doors with his arms crossed. The bar we set up for the wedding is still back here, and the bartender, a kid named Dom, is standing behind it trying very hard not to exist.

“He promised me this room,” Mrs. Varga says.

“I gave her the room,” Tobias says. “I did not give her my tab.”

The wardens have followed me back. So has half the main floor, standing in the doorway to watch. I can feel Lenart behind me, and I don’t turn around. I already know nobody’s going to help me with this, and I don’t want them to.

“Okay,” I say. “One at a time. Mr. Reed, you booked the Arches for tonight?”

“In April,” he says. “For my Lammas party. Then my party fell through, and Mrs. Varga asked if she could have it. I said it’s yours tonight. Which it is.”

“And the bar?”

“Comes with the room,” Corinne says quietly, from behind me, reading off her clipboard. “Room, one bartender, standard setup. Drinks go on whoever opens the tab.”

“Mrs. Varga,” I say. “What did he say to you? Word for word.”

She lifts her chin. “He said, it’s yours tonight, enjoy it, it’s on me.”

“Did I say it’s on me?” Tobias says.

“You said it’s on me.”

“I said the room’s on me.”

I look at the both of them. I’ve spent years behind a bar listening to people decide what I’ll get this one meant after the check came. I know this fight. It’s not about the room. Mrs. Varga heard it’s on me and thought it meant everything. Tobias said it and meant the part he’d already paid for. Both of them believe they’re right.

“Did either of you swear an oath over this?” I ask.

They both shake their heads. Tobias looks offended by the idea.

“Then it’s a booking,” I say. “So it goes by the house rules.” I turn to Mrs. Varga. “The room is yours. Mr. Reed gave it to you, and it’s his to give. Dom comes with the room, because that’s how we book it, so he stays.” I turn to Tobias. “But a room isn’t a tab. You never promised to buy thirty people drinks, and nobody gets to decide that for you after. The tab’s Mrs. Varga’s.”

“Thank you,” Tobias says.

Mrs. Varga’s wings come up another inch. Thirty guests behind her, and her party just got a lot more expensive.

Tobias looks at her, and at the guests, and rubs the back of his neck.

“I did say it’s on me,” he says. “I’ll get the first round. One round. House.”

“Top shelf,” Mrs. Varga says.

“That’s between the two of you,” I say.

Tobias sighs. “Top shelf. One round.”

Mrs. Varga folds her wings. The harpies behind her laugh, and Tobias throws up his hands, but he’s laughing too. Dom starts pulling glasses.

When I turn around, the tall warden in the gray coat is writing in a small black notebook.

“A booking, not an oath,” she says. “You didn’t invoke the stone where house rules would do. That’s a correct ruling, Ms. Iverson, and a harder one than it looks.” She closes the notebook. “It’s eleven-forty-five.”

At five minutes to midnight, Corinne turns down the music.

The council’s senior warden stands at the end of the main bar. Her name is Ashby; she’s the one with the notebook. I stand next to her. The four of them are right there in the front of the crowd, and behind them it’s everybody. Members, staff, Kit with a bar towel over her shoulder, Odette in a cardigan. Harold Pike, in a brown suit, holding a cup of decaf.