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“You’re saying water but I’m hearing vodka.”

“Tom.” I held his gaze. “You know very well what I’m ordering.”

“Does this look like a café? You’ll be asking me for a fucking latte next.”

“You see that journalist over my shoulder? She’s going to write a story about us and this hotel in the paper tomorrow, and I really, really need it to be good. I need you to help me. If you don’t help me—if she writes a terrible article, and nobody comes to the hotel—you, me, and every Lost One under my roof will have nowhere else to go. So please, pick up a glass, put some water in it, and give it to me. Or do I have to come back there and do it myself?”

I stared at Tom without blinking, waiting for the sass. I wasn’t even sure why I was reasoning with him. An AI didn’t care about anything beyond its programming.

Tom finally broke our stare-down, picked up a glass and grabbed a bottle of water, twisted off the top and poured it in. He didn’t even swear while doing it.

“Thank you.”

He grinned, keeping his lips pinned shut.

“See, this is good, this is progress. We are making progress.”

He grumbled something rude while sweeping a cloth across the bar, making it gleam.

“Problems?” Noreen asked.

“Oh no, just some . . . calibration issues.” I handed over her water and sat at the table. “We’ll get there.”

“I’m sure.” She placed her phone on the table and hit record, but the phone blipped an unhappy noise. “Oh, wait a moment.”

“You uh . . . There’s some technical interference here, I doubt you’ll be able to use that. Just pen and paper.” I smiled and shifted on the chair, trying to get comfortable.

“Interference?”

“Yes, it’s . . .” Circling a hand, I searched for the right word that didn’t sound like Lost Ones voodoo. “Thick walls.”

“I see.” She dropped her phone back into her bag and produced a notepad and pen. “So, Mr. Vex⁠—”

“Just Adam.”

“Adam . . . What made you, a human, invest in a hotel that offers sanctuary to the dangerous Lost Ones?”

“That’s a common misconception, actually. The Lost Ones are no more dangerous than you are.”

“Is that so?” She scribbled on her pad. “Then why have wards?”

That was a good question. I plucked at my sleeve. “Well, because some can be . . . difficult sometimes.”

“Difficult?” Her left eyebrow shot up. “But not dangerous?”

“I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you all about Lost Ones, when there are far more qualified people than I who have written many books on the subject. Your readers want to know about the hotel, don’t they?”

“Yes, of course. The hotel.” She leaned back, relaxing some. “You were in a bidding war to purchase the hotel from a retiree, Mrs. Lee. Tell me about that?”

I could definitely do that. “Yes, that’s right. There was another party who wanted the hotel, you see⁠—”

She checked her notepad. “Gideon Cain, of Cain Developments?”

She was well informed. “Yes. That’s him, and well, what can I say? It was an auction, and Mr. Cain was outbid⁠—”

“That’s not what my source tells me. Apparently Mr. Cain offered a vast sum of money for the run-down hotel. Far over what the land was worth, and forgive me, more than you and Zodiac—your porn-star business partner—appear to be able to afford. Yet Mrs. Lee chose to sell to you? Why is that?”

“I suppose she liked me?” She had been a very sweet old lady. We’d bonded over our love of cats. She had ten, and I collected cat figurines.