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The phone on the front desk trilled. Larimer picked it up, frowned into it, and hung up. The lights flickered again.

“You think Tom Collins has finally arrived?” I asked Zee.

“Oh great, I haven’t been verbally abused in a while.”

“Where’s your phone?” Tom Collins used Zee’s phone as his anchor point, like a modern version of a genie and their lamp. It didn’t have a signal before, but if Tom Collins’s incorporeal djinn self was in the hotel wires, he’d probably be able to jump to it.

“In our room. Let’s go.”

After taking the stairs to our floor, I swiped the key and opened the door to find our unique djinn bartender standing by the table. He didn’t have a real body while away from the hotel’s bar, but he somehow looked exactly the same, just slightly blurry, wearing perfectly pressed black pants, a burgundy vest over a black shirt, and a black bow tie. His dark hair had been swept back—although, he didn’t really have hair, I guess? Anyway, he was the quintessential bartender, and now he was here with us, his arms crossed, scowling at our late arrival.

“Hey.” I headed over.

“This had better be good. I have a hotel to run while you three losers run away from your problems instead of dealing with them like adults.”

I grinned. “It’s nice to see you too, Tom.”

“I cannot say the same.”

“How’s Little Jimmy?” Zee asked.

“A smaller, irritating version of you.”

“Uh, that’s not what I meant, but whatevs.” Zee dropped onto the end of the bed. “Hotel all good?”

“Hm, is the hotel all good?” Tom Collins echoed and tapped his chin. “Shall we all do our nails and hair while we discuss how the hotel is barely functioning, or shall we get on with whatever you called me here for so I can leave and make sure you have something to return to whenever you eventually decide running is a terrible idea and come home.”

Wow. He appeared to still be a bit sensitive about the us leaving him thing. “Okay, so uhm. We found this.” I showed him the key.

“You found it?” he asked, after reading the clue.

“It showed up where a dead body had been,” Zee explained. Sort of.

“So what did you find under the chandelier?” Tom asked us both.

“Huh?”

“You followed the clue, right? Or have you been standing here holding your dicks this whole time?”

“Actually, I don’t think there’s been enough dick holding,” Zee added.

“Uhm . . . The chandelier?” It was important to keep the conversation on-topic and off dicks.

“Verity hides beneath light’s prison,” Tom repeated. “Truth is under the chandelier.” His eyebrow arched higher. “Where’s the smart one from your inept trio . . . the vampire? Because you are as dumb as two rocks in a box.”

“Fancy Fangs didn’t get the riddle either,” Zee defended.

“You really think it’s a chandelier?” I asked, reading the clue again. Light’s prison. We’d wondered if it had been lamps, so we hadn’t been far off.

“There are almost two thousand lights in this hotel. The only one of significance is the chandelier in the lobby. Light’s prison. It’s fucking obvious. How have you survived this long without me?”

He had figured it out in seconds. “Can you stay and help us figure this all out?”

“Not if you don’t want the SOS Hotel to burn down.”

“That’s not going to happen,” I laughed.

“It’s happening right now. A troll lit an incense stick because his room smelled like dead vampire.”