Page 1 of The Fake Divination Offense
Chapter One
“Five.”
“One.”
I think for a minute. Or, more accurately, the buzzing under my skin thinks for a minute. The whipping epidermal hurricane of emotions I’ve been carrying around most of the day.
And it decides: “Five.”
To which Seb responds, “One.”
Thio, from his barstool on Seb’s other side, snorts into his wineglass. “I don’t think you two understand how negotiating works.”
Seb leans back against him. “Yeah, I do. First rule of negotiating: never back down.”
“Second rule of negotiating,” I add, “never apologize.”
And I scroll through the bar’s karaoke sign-up sheet on my phone to quickly claim five slots. Maybe six. Oops, seven?
But we’re celebrating tonight.
We’refree.
Seb’s slow smile is all the further argument I get. “Eh, go crazy, big guy.” His eyes dip past my shoulder and his grin sharpens. “I won’t be the one using my body as a human shield to stop you, anyway.”
He raises his cocktail glass for a sip, the new ring on his finger flashing in the low light. We’re celebrating more than one thing tonight, and I go to add an eighth slot—
When someone bats my hand away from my phone. “No.”
Ah. That’s who Seb was looking at.
Darian Callabrass—human, with thin black locs pulled into a topknot, and a very deliberate rock-star vibe from his leather pants, ripped white T-shirt set off against his dark skin, and the guitar strapped to his back—has been a bard on the Hellhounds for the past three years. While I’ve only been part of the team for two months, he’s good people.
Mostly.
“I swear, Monroe, if you bastardize another Queen song like you did at practice…”
I give Darian my most innocent, wide-eyed sulk. “Excuse you, I was singing along to mypersonalworkout playlist, so fuck off. Your patron god loves me appreciating his music.”
“My patron god has made it my new mission on this plane to get you to stop inflicting emotional damage on the unknowing public by screeching his songs.”
I cut a smile I know won’t faze him. “Just one Queen song tonight?”
A sudden lurking presence at Darian’s shoulder has both of us glancing over. I’m rather used to these antics, getting teamed up with Marlow in practices, but Darian jumps in surprise.
“Fucking hell, you’re as bad as Phei,” he gasps. “I’m going to put a bell on you.”
Marlow, one of the Hellhounds’ rogues, slowly flips Darian off and holds out her other palm, where a cluster of clip-on earrings sits. The motion wafts the smell of saltwater that always permeates the air around her, an overpowering wave of, well, waves.
Darian snatches an earring, attaches it, and repeats, “You’re as bad as Phei. I’m going to put a bell on you.”
Only now, thanks to the enchanted earring, his words are subtitled below his face in slightly neon-blue script.
I take an earring, as do Seb and Thio, but they’ve turned to watch something on one of the TVs behind the bar.
Marlow’s tan skin reddens. “Abell? Do you have any idea how offensive that is?” she signs. It, too, is converted into subtitles, though hers are due to a ring she wears.
Darian blanches. “Oh gods. Is that some mermaid thing?”
