A glance over the rims of his glasses revealed not only the golden corpses of Shadow Snitches in the jaws of several centipedes but also a sea of ghostly pale flowers cascading over the wrecks and ruins.

“You take me to the weirdest places,” Jason commented.

“All part of the service.” Falk stopped in front of a white tower that looked to Jason like a cross between a lighthouse and a Hindu temple, replete with carved figures in various states of naked frolic decorating the walls and staircase that wound up some seven stories. Whelks and drooping strings of emerald kelp encrusted the lower levels of the stairs, making the images difficult to discern, but by the time Jason reached the heavy hatch-like door on the fifth floor, he’d realized that the carvings presented a far too detailed parade of mermaids, unicorns, satyrs, and griffins indulging in pornographic gymnastics with a variety of slender men and women.

If it was advertising, Jason was pretty certain he wasn’t up to making any transactions. Something pink blurred past the tiny fish-eye porthole set in the rust-red door.

“So what exactly is this place?” Jason asked just as Falk raised his scarred right hand to knock.

“Depends on what you’re looking for when you come. They have rooms to rent and don’t ask questions about the kind of company you might like to keep,” Falk replied. “But most come to the tower for the drinks. Red Ogre and her wife have been brewing their own beers from all the way back when this district served as a shipyard for the Atlantean Navy. You can still see their influence in the art.” Falk gave a nod to the lewd menagerie decorating the walls and staircase. “The most perverted culture I’ve ever encountered.” With that he gave quick rap against the door.

The scarlet handwheel spun, and then with a hiss, as if releasing some foreign atmosphere, the heavy hatch door swung open.

***

Few places remained just as Falk remembered first seeing them. But as he dropped down onto one of the wooden stools at the bar and took a deep breath of the smoky speakeasy atmosphere, he felt as if he’d stepped back to the first weeks after Frank’s death. It all seemed the same: the close proportions of the circular chamber, the shadowy patrons with their odd mix of races and lowered voices, the faint drone of an antique phonograph playing a scratched record of Selkie torch songs. Hell, even the dark stains defacing the oak counter looked like the ones Henry remembered drunkenly tracing with his one good hand.

Henry touched a deep gouge in the wood, noting against his will how it cut and curved to form a rickety F.

In an instant, ninety-four years seemed to roll back. He felt swallowed by recollection. An ache flashed through his chest and flared across his hand with the intensity of a raw wound. Reflexively, Henry curled his arm against his chest as if he could shield himself from injuries inflicted so long ago.

How could mere memory hurt so badly, Henry wondered. How could entire empires rise and fall and all the while part of him still remained lying there on that cold steel table with Frank’s knife buried in his heart? Why couldn’t it ever just be over?

“Lucky number seven?” Jason swung onto the stool beside him and flashed him a warm, charming smile. His cologne of cinnamon and coffee pushed back the dull, dead taste in Henry’s mouth.

“What?” Henry asked.

“Carved into the bar counter. It’s a seven, isn’t it?”

“It—” And suddenly Henry realized that Jason was right. He’d been looking at the carving upside down and misread it. “Yeah. Probably left by one of the famous dwarves.”

Jason gave him an uncertain look, then laughed.

“You nearly had me there,” he admitted easily.

Henry almost laughed himself, seeing such a friendly expression animate the guise of Agent August’s normally grim face. Watching Jason peer at the beer pulls and study the colorful array of liquor bottles behind the bar, Henry felt as though he could almost see Jason through the glamour disguising him. Jason caught him staring and flushed slightly.

“I’m gawking, aren’t I?”

“Not more than anyone new to the place would,” Henry assured him.

“I was just wondering if this is where Arrogant Bastard Ale really comes from?” Jason inclined his head toward the large crest of a scowling gargoyle that hung behind the bar. “Or is it an import?”

“It’s made here. Red Ogre must have finally gotten an export license for the United States…”

Henry wasn’t certain of why, but now with Jason sitting beside him he suddenly took notice of all the little ways in which Red Ogre’s tower had altered since he’d last cared enough to really look around him.

The gleaming amber light fixtures with their sleek chrome fittings could have come from an IKEA catalogue. Photos of faerie celebrities and kelpie queens hung on the walls where once there’d been only yellowed etchings. Even the melody that he’d initially recognized revealed itself to be no more than a catchy sample cut into a modern remix.

Jason tapped his fingers across the bar in time to the new, jazzy bass line.

Red Ogre herself was nowhere to be seen; most likely she was somewhere below, tending her hops and oak barrels. However, her pale wife, Sorcha, moved behind the length of the bar with all the assurance and musical grace of a full-blooded sidhe; even though she’d been cast out from Tuatha Dé Dannan society for her passionate love of Red Ogre, she still wore her golden hair in a courtier’s braided crown and held her head high as she glided silently up to them to take their orders.

“Half-Dead.” She inclined her head in easy acknowledgement but then paused as she caught sight of his companion. Jason offered her a winning smile, which looked utterly out of place on August’s sardonic face and brought the faintest crease to Sorcha’s brow.

“Here on business?” she inquired softly.

“Not officially, my beauty,” Henry replied. “But there is a fellow here we’d like a word with.”

“Red Ogre won’t be happy if you’ve come to drag one of her regulars out.”

“Nah. You know me, Lady Sorcha, I wouldn’t—”

“Yes, I know you, Half-Dead, but your companion has a rather different reputation, I think.” She settled a firmly disapproving glower on Jason.

“I’m just along for moral support and a good drink, ma’am,” Jason replied. Then he turned the pockets of his jacket inside out. “See, I’m not even carrying my badge. It’s my day off.”

Sorcha gave a little laugh at that but then seemed to catch herself. She raised a gleaming golden brow and peered at Jason a little too intensely for Henry’s liking.

“The man we’re looking for isn’t a regular.” Henry drew Sorcha’s attention back to himself. “He’ll only just have arrived. Goes by the name of Phipps.”

“Him.” Sorcha’s expression lifted immediately and she nodded. “Red suspected that he’d have a few visitors tracking him down…” Sorcha lowered her satin-soft voice. “Who in this day and age pays with gold dust, really? Hasn’t he heard of American Express?”

“Mind telling us which room he’s rented?” Henry inquired, though he knew what the answer would be.

“Mind ordering a drink to make it worth my while?” Sorcha returned.

“My pleasure, Lady Sorcha. I’ll have a Rotten Rye whisky and my associate—”

“A pint of the Spartacus Hard Cider,” Jason decided for himself. Henry shot him a warning glance, but Jason just appeared all the more pleased with himself.

When Sorcha moved away to procure their drinks, Henry hunched a little nearer to Jason.

“The cider you ordered is made from goblin fruits—”

“I know. I was reading about it up on the menu board. It says I’ll never taste better.” Then Jason lowered his voice and glanced meaningfully to Sorcha. “She looks human.”

Henry simply nodded.

“All the Tuatha Dé Dannan clan look human. Her, and you as well. Your ancestors were human once but also very ambitions as a people. They stole immense powers from other realms and used them without understanding the cost.” Henry wasn’t one to recount old legends, but he thought that this might be something Jason would need to know. Because one day he might very well find himself in the position of his ancestors, calling up murderous forces. “Claiming and wielding great power—the kind that sunders seas or drains the lives from entire armies—it changes you.”