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"Or I'll carry you out . . . in pieces."

Calloway looks toward the exit.

Tav is standing between him and the aisle.

The minotaur lowers his head. His horns are wide enough to block the whole damn passage.

"Nine," William says.

Calloway scrambles off his stool.

Tav steps aside just enough to let him through.

"Eight."

Calloway doesn't wait for seven.

He shoves through the crowd, nearly trips over somebody's chair, and disappears through the front doors.

Nobody laughs.

Nobody says a word.

Then Merek turns to me.

"Trouble, next time a guy tells you to surprise him, just set him on fire."

"I'd lose my liquor license."

"We don't have one," Lenart says.

I look at him.

He straightens his cuffs.

"Different jurisdiction.”

The troll raises his mead.

"To the little bartender," he booms, and the whole end of the bar drinks.

I turn back around. Four of them, still there, still crammed into my well.

They're a lot to look at. I'm allowed to look. I do.

"Okay," I say. "You can all go back to work now. You're blocking my ice."

Merek leans down and kisses the top of my head on his way out. Tav picks the chandelier crystal off his sleeve and hands it to me, like a present, and goes. Lenart touches the small of my back, once, cool through my shirt, and goes back to his dinner.

William is the last. He stops beside me, close enough that his folded wing brushes my shoulder.

"If he comes back," he says, so only I can hear, "I'd like to be the one who walks him out."

"He's not coming back."

"No." His hands go back to skin. "But I'd still like to."

Then he's gone, and I've got a werewolf who still needs his card back.