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“You can read?”

“Don’t argue with the bartender?”

Both Tom’s eyebrows lifted. “Correct. Put down the shotgun. You’re embarrassing yourself.”

Tom was back! I lowered the gun, cracked it open, and placed it safely on the bar. “Welcome back.”

He tutted. “I see you’ve made an absolute mess of my bar. What were you thinking? Who put the fine spirits in with the single malts, and why is there broken glass all over the floor?”

“That was Lord Fancy Pants,” Zee said, perching on the stool next to mine. “You should definitely yell at him. Line up my poison, Tom. I am in need of all the alcoholic therapy.”

“Very good, Zodiac. Actual poison or the tourist type⁠—”

“Depends, what specials have you got back there? You know what? I don’t fucking care. I trust you. Just so long as I can see straight tomorrow, we’re good. Tom Collins, do your fucking worst.”

“My worst?” Tom Collins said with a gleam in his eye.

Oh dear.

I’d forgotten to check for Tom’s stash of drugs with everything else going on. “I’ll have a whiskey, Tom. No extra ingredients.”

“Coming right up.”

We watched Tom shuffle some bottles around, putting everything back in its proper place. He hummed, and the opening bars of “Hotel California” came on the jukebox, completing his tune. That couldn’t be a coincidence. I arched a questioning eyebrow at Zee, who grinned.

“Our Tom Collins is the best Tom Collins,” Zee said.

Tom placed a multicolored steaming cocktail in front of Zee.

“What’s this one called?” Zee asked.

“Fuck Around and Find Out.”

“I fucking will.”

Tom slid my whiskey to me on a SOS Hotel coaster. “Your whiskey, sir.”

“Thank you, Tom.” I caught and held Tom Collins’s gaze, where a glint of something other shimmered.

“You’re welcome, Adam. That one is on the house, as you were kind enough to save me from a sticky situation. Order more, and you’ll have to pay like everyone else. No freeloaders.”

“Of course.” I bracketed my hands around the glass, and paused to absorb the moment. Zee was safe beside me, Tom was back behind the bar, and the jukebox played. This was what winning felt like, and it feal really good. “Do you remember anything?’

He tilted his head, clearly thinking. “I was serving drinks here and in a blink, I was in a cosmetics lab with you and the glamorous but vicious fae. Nothing in between.”

“You don’t recall ever meeting Gideon Cain prior to our opening party?”

“No. And I’d fucking remember that, if I had.”

“Do you remember anything from before I switched you on here, at the hotel?”

“There is only cold, dark emptiness. A void, if you will.” He visibly shivered. “A place I have no wish to revisit.”

Would an AI remember anything of before? Would a djinn, if Gideon had torn it from its home? There was still a lot we didn’t understand, and unfortunately it was Gideon Cain who had the answers.

“I, for one, am fucking happy to have you back, Tom.” Zee chinked his fancy drink with my plain ol’ whiskey. “To the SOS Hotel, the best fucking management, and the best barman ever.”

“Indeed,” Tom agreed, smiling with pride. “I suppose you are worthy managers, after all.”