Page 3 of Magic Forsaken

It wasn’t an answer, but it wasn’t dismissal either, so I rose from my own chair and followed him out of the small room and into the bar area of his fairly nondescript nightclub.

Located on one of the busiest streets in the Bricktown district of Oklahoma City, The Portal was apparently well known among local Idrians as a neutral—and generally safe—gathering spot for members of their community. Humans, however, barely even registered its existence, and to their mundane eyes, it appeared to be permanently closed for renovation.

To me, it looked like a fairly average bar scene. The bar itself reigned at one end, with a polished walnut counter and brass accents. There was a narrow stage on one side of the room, presumably for live music or karaoke, with tables and booths around the edges and a dance floor in the middle.

It was now midafternoon, and the bar was open, but barely, and only a few loners were scattered around the main room. They weren’t human, but I didn’t know quite enough about the various Idrian races to identify them at a glance.

Standing behind the bar was a man in his early thirties with lightly tanned skin, shaggy brown hair, and a watchful, amber-eyed gaze. That one, at least, I knew—the bartender was a shapeshifter.

“Seamus.” Faris greeted the shifter, then jerked his head in my direction by way of introduction. “This is Raine. She’s looking for a job. Thought she ought to meet you and Waffles before we discuss this any further.”

Waffles? What kind of name was that? Another employee?

Seamus’ amber eyes seemed to narrow appraisingly, but I met his gaze with a relaxed expression and a brief nod. I knew my own brown eyes wouldn’t tell him much. Nothing of importance anyway. It was possible he would be confused by my scent, but hopefully he wouldn’t understand what his nose was telling him.

“Okay, boss.” After setting down a towel and the glass he’d been drying, Seamus stepped out from behind the bar, followed by… possibly the largest dog I’d ever seen.

He was a beautiful golden brindle, with a mastiff’s bulk and a great dane’s height, and there was a single white spot on his chest. For a moment, I froze as the animal sauntered towards me, ears alert but not looking particularly nervous.

“This is Waffles,” Faris explained.

Had he only wanted to find out whether I disliked dogs? I didn’t, but most dogs didn’t care for the way I smelled—probably reacting to the weird scent of my magic—so I was poised for this one to raise his hackles and growl at me. But after a moment, his tail began to wag, and he came close enough to lean against my leg as if begging for pets. His eyes went all big and sad and his tongue lolled out, so I caved and looked over at Seamus.

“May I?”

He nodded his permission, so I reached out and scratched Waffles behind his ears. He glanced up at me, and then without warning reared up, put his paws on my shoulders, and took a swipe at my face with his tongue.

I laughed and tried to dodge, but immediately tripped over a chair and went down, with well over a hundred pounds of dogright on top of me, happily trying to lick anything he could reach. No one seemed inclined to intervene, so I gave up and submitted to the slobbery canine greeting, wondering if it was some weird sort of test. After the last few years of my life, it certainly wouldn’t be the weirdest.

“Seamus, why are you letting my dog lick that poor woman to death?”

A young woman practically bounced into my field of view, wearing a horrified expression and a hoodie that proclaimed, “Reading and Coffee: Because Murder is Wrong.” She couldn’t have been more than twenty or twenty-one, and looked like the last person in the universe I would have suspected of an inclination to homicide.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, tugging on Waffles’ collar until he gave up slobbering on me and commenced dancing around in a tail-wagging frenzy that knocked over two barstools. “Waffles, sit.”

Waffles did not, in fact, sit.

“Seamus, I swear, he’s getting worse.” Her accusatory glance lasted for about half a second before she turned bright amber eyes on me and held out a hand to help me up. “Hi! I’m Kira. I don’t think we’ve met yet. Are you one of Faris’s people?”

She said “people” with a crooked grin and the sort of emphasis I might have expected to apply to a mob boss or an oil baron, and for a moment I wondered whether Shane had seriously glossed over the details of Faris’s exact occupation. He’d muttered something about a shadow court, describing it as a refuge for Idrians who had found themselves at odds with their own courts. The perfect place for someone like me to hide.

I was starting to suspect that this nightclub might actually be a front for something far more sinister, but…

Nope, didn’t care. I needed this job too badly.

“Not yet?” I hedged, allowing Kira to pull me to my feet before swiping at my drool-covered face with the tail of my oversized flannel shirt.

“Well, you’re about to be,” she murmured conspiratorially. “If you want it. Faris will hire anyone Waffles approves of.”

So ithadbeen a test. Was the dog more than he appeared to be?

“Plus, we need more ladies around here now that Marilee is gone.”

“She’ll be back,” Faris muttered, his expression now stuck somewhere between pride, embarrassment, and stoic tolerance.

To my surprise, tiny, red-haired Kira rose on tiptoes, kissed his bearded cheek, and grinned. “I’m sure she will. Are you and Morghaine going to attend our little family reunion tonight?”

Morghaine… Was that a wife? Girlfriend? I shot a surreptitious glance at Faris’s left hand before remembering that older Idrians didn’t usually observe human marriage customs.

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