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I don't know how else to describe it. The bar is loud, a hundred conversations and the music and the shaker going behind me, and when he talks again all of that drops away, like somebody's turned the room down. His voice is right there, soft and close, and warm in a way that goes straight down my spine.

"You've had a long day," he says. "Haven't you?"

And I want to tell him. That's the thing. For one second I want to lean across the bar and tell this stranger all about the drawer and the tape and the letter. I want to give him my full attention. I want to give him my number. My hand is already moving toward the order pad.

My palm goes cold. Right in the center, where the silver lives. A sharp, prickling cold, like I just grabbed a bottle out of the ice well. I don't know what that is. I don't have time to figure it out.

But it makes me look at my hand, and I stop it.

I know this. Not the magic. The move. I've watched guys do the human version of this for years. The voice drops, they lean in, they say you look tired, they say let me take care of you, and they wait for you to be grateful. Doug used to do it with his hand on my wrist.

This is just Doug with a better haircut.

"Stop that," I say.

Calloway's smile gets wider. The room goes even quieter around his voice.

"Stop what, sweetheart?"

"The thing with your voice." I wipe the bar in front of him. "I can feel it. So can the girl next to you, and she's with her fiancé."

The woman on the next stool blinks, like she's waking up, and looks at her fiancé, and then at Calloway, and scoots her stool six inches away.

He doesn't drop it. He pushes. I feel it like warm water rising, and he props his chin on his hand and gives me the full smile, the one that's probably gotten him into a thousand beds.

"Do you know what I am?"

"Yeah," I say. "I do. And if you need magic to get a bartender's number, honey, you're doing it wrong."

There's a beat. Then the troll at the end of the bar laughs so hard the brass rail shakes. The harpy shrieks and claps her wings, once, and a napkin blows off the bar. Somebody behind Calloway says "Oh," the way people say it when somebody's just gotten dunked on in public.

Calloway's face goes very red.

The glamour drops off all at once. The noise of the room comes back in a rush, the music and the shaker and a hundred people talking, and my palm warms back up.

I pick up his old fashioned, pour it in the sink, and set the empty glass in the bus tub.

"You're done for the night," I say. "Water's free."

He opens his mouth.

Then he looks over my shoulder, and closes it.

That's when I notice how quiet it's gotten behind me. The conversations behind me have stopped. I turn to see what everyone’s staring at.

All four of them are standing there.

Lenart is closest, in a charcoal suit, his hands in his pockets, looking at Calloway the way you'd look at a stain on a good rug. Merek is beside him, horns nearly touching the hanging glass rack, his ember lines gone bright orange up both arms and his tail lashing slow behind him, back and forth, back and forth. Tav is behind them both, and he still has the toolbox in one hand and a chandelier crystal stuck to his sleeve. He isn't doing anything. He doesn't have to. His ears are flat.

William is at the end, where the bar meets the wall. His wings are folded. His hands are stone to the wrist. He's so still that the harpy, who must not have seen him come in, jumps.

Four enormous, furious monsters, crammed shoulder to shoulder, and Kit's trapped in the corner behind Tav with a bottle of tequila, trying very hard not to laugh.

"I had it handled," I tell them. "You're all late."

"We weren't rescuing you," “We were just enjoying the show, Trouble.” Merek says.

"For how long?"