I stepped past the curtain and into the booth with enough swagger to fool strangers and—briefly—myself. Not because I was bold. Because I wasn’t. But magic has an advantage: nobody knows what you’ve got loaded.

They don’t know if your pockets are full of charms. They don’t know if your coat is hiding a focus. They don’t know if you’ve got a circle pre-drawn somewhere in the world and all you need is a word to close it. They don’t know if you’re a professional… or a lunatic with a death curse and no patience left.

And if you act like you’re the second one, people hesitate.

Confidence is camouflage. It sells the illusion that you’re more dangerous than you are—which is useful, because right then I was basically a tired guy with a beard, a lightning rod, and a heroic shortage of self-preservation.

So I walked in like a rooster.

Sometimes that’s all bravery is: posture and spite.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I entered Booth Seven, but four men—each taller or broader than me in a way that suggested they were professionally good at hurting people—was high on the list. Suits. Hats. Faces that were uncanny at best. They stood and sat like predators trying very hard to remember they were supposed to be human.

The fifth man, however?

He wasn’t on my list at all.

He was sparely built and impeccably composed, seated like he owned the air in the booth. Clean white suit. Neatly trimmed dark hair and beard. Calm eyes. He looked human—very human—in that specific way that set off alarms in my brain. Not the “uncanny valley” kind of wrong. The “this man understands leverage” kind.

 He didn’t flinch when I entered. He didn’t rise. He simply turned his head toward me and spoke as though we’d been introduced at a gallery opening.

“May I ask,” he said, “why you have decided to barge into a private booth and interrupt a private discussion, Mister…?”

His accent was hard to place—smooth and refined, somewhere between India and Turkey, maybe drifting toward North Africa—but the real thing that got under my skin wasn’t the accent.

It was the precision.

Like every syllable had been measured before it was allowed to exist.

Behind him, the four not-quite-human bruisers shifted. Not much. Just enough to remind me that sudden, explosive violence was absolutely on the table.

And at that exact moment, I regretted a number of my life choices.

“Blackwell,” I said. “Chance Blackwell.”

I tried to channel my inner double-oh-seven cool.

Or at least the Canadian version—polite dread, steady eye contact, and the sinking realization that I’d stepped into a bear trap that would snap shut if I moved wrong by even a hair.

And, because I am Canadian and it is apparently woven into my very essence, I added—

“Sorry.”

The word slipped out reflexively, like a nervous tic or a social apology to the concept of inconvenience itself.

One of the suited men blinked.

The man in white did not.

He studied me for a long moment.

“…For what, precisely?” he asked mildly. 

Any attempt to play cool or nonchalant melted instantly, washed away in a tide of pure awkwardness.

Not the first time in my life.

Which, honestly, was good. I had experience operating at this level of cringe-induced social misstep.

I pivoted.

As gracefully as a figure skater on gravel.

“Sorry for interrupting your little meeting,” I said, leaning into the skid. “But I’m a gumshoe following up a lead that brought me straight to you and your boys.”

There it was.

In the span of six seconds I had gone from international superspy to hard-boiled noir protagonist with a caffeine dependency.

Bold strategy, Blackwell.

And for reasons I can’t fully defend, I’d decided sincerity was the angle.

Now that said, I wasn’t entirely stupid—just mostly.

Whoever he was, he wasn’t going to start too much trouble inside the House of Libations or the Goblin Market. Not openly. That was my gamble, and when you’re named Chance you learn to respect a good one.

The man in the white suit smiled slightly. The smile didn’t reach his eyes. It never did with men like him.

Then he laughed—quiet as his voice, refined as everything else about him.

“A private detective,” he repeated, amused. “Here. In the Goblin Market?”

He leaned back a fraction, taking my intrusion in stride, like I was a minor inconvenience instead of a potential problem.

“Blackwell… .” He said the name slowly, as if tasting them. Testing them. Turning them over like coins to see if they rang true.

“Ah,” he said at last, with polite recognition. “Yes. The local wizard who banishes spirits and puts ghosts to rest for little old ladies and people who can’t afford a proper magi.”

The insult was dressed in velvet.

And it still landed like a slap.

I could have interrupted. Snapped back. Thrown something sharp and clever at him.

Instead, I let him continue.

It gave me time to read him. Read the room.

A wizard, my father had taught me, must always be perceptive. Letting a man enjoy his little power display—one that didn’t phase me nearly as much as he thought—was as good an opportunity as any.

“So, Mister Blackwell,” the man in white continued smoothly, flexing his fingers. “You are on a case, and it has led you to me and my business partners?”

I didn’t answer immediately.

I was looking at his hands.

The rings were the first clue.

Mostly gold. Heavy, but not ostentatious. The design leaned Arabic—perhaps older than modern Arabic. Proto-Arabic stylization. Calligraphic lines shaped with intention.

Not enough to convict.

But enough to catalog.

A ghost of a smirk crossed his face as he leaned forward.

And that movement revealed the amulet resting against his chest.

“Well,” he said lightly, “I can assure you there are no pesky little goblins or ghosts here.”

The amulet caught the low gold light.

Triangular.

Inscribed.

I’d seen that progression before—across manuscripts, grimoires, marginalia in half a dozen languages.

Abracadabra.

Abracabar.

Abracada.

Each line shrinking, letter by letter, forming a descending triangle until only the A remained at the tip.

One of the oldest documented protection charms known to mortal magi.

Used to ward against illness.

Spirits.

Curses.

Influence.

The kind of charm you wore when you expected metaphysical interference.

I’d suspected he wasn’t mundane the moment I saw him.

Now the needle was sliding toward something clearer.

Wizard.

Or at least a very competent occult practitioner who understood layered protection.

And men who layered protection didn’t expect polite conversations.

They expected conflict.

I had to answer at this point if I wanted the conversation to keep moving, so I reached into my repertoire of what passed for small talk and said, “Maybe not. But I’ve got an eyewitness who says four men in suits decided to ransack her bakery and walk off with enough enchanted baked goods to feed a small army.”

He looked… amused.

I’d expected that.

He answered exactly the way I expected—a lie that wasn’t technically a lie.

“Four men in suits is rather vague, wouldn’t you say, Mister Blackwell?”

I took a slow breath. Not because I needed it—because I was buying time to assess his four friends.

They matched Bailey’s description too well to be coincidence. Big. Suits. Hats. Human enough to pass at a distance, but wrong up close in a way that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention.

At first I couldn’t put my finger on what was off. They’d stayed silent the entire time, which was odd, but not incriminating. Plenty of muscle-types were quiet.

Then I caught the first tell.

The one nearest the curtain inhaled—deeply, theatrically—like he was proving he had lungs.

But he didn’t exhale.

Not that I could see.

The second was warm. Not “crowded nightclub” warm. Warm like a furnace banked behind skin, radiating heat in faint waves that carried off him and brushed my senses.

The third shifted, and I noticed the dirt.

A small spill of fine soil had gathered at his feet—fresh, as if it had been pouring from his pant leg, grain by grain, without him noticing.

And the last—

His suit glistened faintly, slick as if he’d just come in from the rain.

Except there hadn’t been rain outside.

Not for days.

And it looked less like fabric dampness and more like… water refusing to let go of him. Clinging. Choosing him.

Four men in suits.

Four elemental problems wearing human clothes.

My stomach tightened.

They weren’t pretending to be human.

They were wearing “human” the way you wore a uniform.

I decided to catch him off guard.

Honesty had been working so far, so I leaned into it.

“It occurs to me,” I said evenly, “that you haven’t introduced yourself.”

A beat.

“Or your elementals.”

There it was.

The word hung in the air between us.

Not thugs. Not business partners. Not “men in suits.”

Elementals.

The four behind him did not move.

But the room did.

The one who inhaled too deeply shifted his jaw.

The warm one’s heat spiked, just a fraction.

The dirt at the third’s feet stopped spilling.

And the damp one—

The damp one’s glisten sharpened, like condensation forming on cold glass.

The man in white did not look back at them.

That was telling.

Instead, he looked at me.

And this time, his smile changed.

Not wider.

Sharper.

“Ah,” he said softly. “So you are not entirely decorative.”

I rolled my neck once, slow, letting a little tension bleed out.

“You know,” I said, giving him his due, “binding one elemental takes skill.”

My eyes flicked deliberately to each of the four.

“But four?”

A faint tilt of my head.

“One of each of the classical set, no less.”

I let that hang.

“Air, fire, earth, water. Balanced. Stable.”

I looked back at him.

“I’ll hand it to you. That’s not amateur conjuring. Keeping that much power bound to your will without visible strain?”

A small nod.

“That’s craftsmanship.”

I watched him take the praise.

Not outwardly. Not with a grin.

He absorbed it.

His posture straightened a fraction. His shoulders settled. His eyes sharpened—not in suspicion, but in appetite.

Hungry ego.

He mistook professional respect for concession. Probably assumed I was admitting he was the more potent mage.

Better at conjuring and binding elementals?

Maybe.

But specialization wasn’t supremacy.

A cardiologist isn’t automatically better than a neurosurgeon.

Just better at hearts.

“Mister Blackwell,” he began, and there it was—the faint savoring in his tone. “If that is the case… then surely it is even more proof.”

He steepled his fingers lightly.

“Why would a magus of talent such as mine concern himself with stealing some kitchen witch’s… mediocre offerings?”

A faint smile.

“Rosemary croissants and catmint squares.”

I caught it.

“Kitchen witch.”

That wasn’t a generic insult. That was a classification.

In the magical community, that term had weight.

There were alchemists who could cook. Potion-makers who folded brews into pastries. Hedge mages who flavored charms into teas.

But a true kitchen witch?

That was a discipline. A tradition. A lineage of domestic magic rooted in nourishment, warding, and subtle influence.

I hadn’t said that.

Not once.

He was either guessing.

Or he knew.

Then there was the menu.

Rosemary croissants.

Catmint squares.

Neither had been among the stolen goods.

But Bailey did make them. Regularly.

Specific items.

Specific knowledge.

He wasn’t speculating.

He was informed.

The evidence stacked up fast.

Heavier than his four elemental pets.

Well—two and a half. Fire and air were likely freakishly light for their size.

I kept my expression neutral.

If he knew more than he should, I wasn’t going to call it out directly.

I was going to let him hang himself with precision.

Time to test the edges of his knowledge.

I rolled my neck once, slow, buying a second to think. What I needed was to bait his arrogance—let him trip over his own cleverness and hand me something concrete. Get him talking until he said the wrong thing in the right way.

Problem was, my brain was currently offering up terrible band names for his elemental goon squad instead of actual strategy.

Quartet of Quarrel.

Foursome of Fear.

Quintessence Quartet.

Thesaurus, where are you when I need you?

I gave up on poetry and went with the K.I.S.S. method.

“You still haven’t given me the honor of your name,” I said, keeping my tone light, almost polite. Like we were two strangers sharing a table at a too-quiet café instead of staring each other down in a velvet-draped booth while four elementals pretended to be furniture.

He tilted his head—just a fraction, the way people do when they’re deciding whether revealing something costs more than it gains. Understandable. Names carry weight among our kind. A true name can bind, curse, summon, compel. Old magical families still slap their kids with three or four middle names and train them from the cradle to keep at least one secret forever. Paranoia isn’t a bug in wizard culture; it’s a feature.

After a measured beat he answered.

“Mister Nadali will suffice.”

The words came out clipped, precise, every consonant placed with surgical care. I filed that away. Wizards—especially the formally trained ones—tend to speak like that. Years of learning that language itself is a vector for power leaves permanent grooves in how you talk. Same way hand-casters move like they’re afraid of accidentally signing a spell with their fingers, or eye-focus practitioners develop that unnerving thousand-yard stare. You carry your weapon in everything you do, and after long enough you stop noticing how obvious it is to anyone who knows what to look for.

“Well, Mister Nadali,” I said, folding my arms loosely. “it’s strange that you employ four men who match the description of the thieves. Even if ‘large men in hats and suits’ is… admittedly vague.”

I let the sentence hang, casual, almost conversational. Small talk is a bridge. It buys time. And if he was half as self-satisfied as I suspected, he’d want to keep crossing it—especially when he thought he was the cleverest person in the room.

Magical power and superiority complexes go together like wizards and hubris. Or wizards and questionable life choices. Or wizards and hangovers. The list is long.

He didn’t rise to the bait immediately. Just studied me with those calm, unreadable eyes, fingers still steepled like he was grading my opening statement.

Then the corner of his mouth curved—small, controlled, the smile of a man who’s already decided he’s three moves ahead.

“Vague indeed,” he said. “And yet here you are, following that vague description straight to me. Impressive detective work, Mister Blackwell. Or reckless intuition. The line between the two is thinner than most people realize.”

He leaned forward slightly. The amulet at his throat caught the light again—Abracadabra triangle, old-school apotropaic, still radiating faint protective intent. Not showy. Not desperate. Just thorough.

“Tell me,” he continued, voice smooth as poured mercury, “what exactly do you intend to do if I admit—purely hypothetically—that those four gentlemen work for me? Demand the return of some pastries? File a formal complaint with the Market constabulary? Or perhaps you plan something more… dramatic?”

He paused, letting the question settle like dust after a thrown punch.

I met his gaze and gave him the smallest, politest shrug I could manage.

“I’m flexible,” I said. “But I do like it when people return what they stole. Call it a personal quirk.”

His smile sharpened another fraction.

“Charming,” he murmured. “And terribly old-fashioned.”

Behind him, the air elemental inhaled again—long, theatrical, no exhale. The fire one’s heat pulsed once, like a heartbeat behind skin. The earth one shifted, and another thin trickle of soil whispered onto the booth floor. The water one glistened, suit fabric clinging in ways physics didn’t entirely approve of.

They were listening.

They were waiting.

And Nadali—whatever else he was—was still smiling like a man who believed the next word out of his mouth would end the conversation on his terms.

My turn to decide how much rope I gave him before I started tying knots.

I immediately decided rope was the wrong analogy. Because if I wasn’t tangling him in it, I might very well be handing him enough to hang me with.

Stay focused, Blackwell.

If he’d wanted me dead, the elementals could’ve turned me into abstract art thirty seconds after I stepped through the curtain. People forget how horrifying those things really are. Golems, lesser animated constructs, elementals—they’re all in the same nightmare category: bodies that move like they’re alive but aren’t. No organs. No bones. No nervous system worth the name. Just an alien spiritual intellect puppeteering unfeeling, amorphous matter. You can blast off limbs, shatter chunks, decapitate the damn things (and good luck with that; they hit like freight trains and don’t flinch). The damage is cosmetic. They don’t bleed. They don’t scream. They just keep coming until the binding snaps or the caster runs out of juice.

Heavyweight magical bruisers. Top-tier muscle.

Which meant Nadali was playing nice because the House rules—and Market law—said he had to. Neutral ground only stays neutral when everyone pretends the knives are sheathed.

That gave me an idea. Dangerous. Stupid. Very on-brand. I tucked it away for later, like a match you don’t light until the room’s already on fire.

“Well,” I said, keeping my voice even, almost friendly, “as it stands, you’re a lead in my case. So I’m just asking a few friendly questions.”

I adjusted my coat—slow, deliberate, letting the subtle weight of the iron-and-copper rod inside shift just enough to register. Not a threat. Just physics reminding the room I wasn’t defenseless.

He watched the motion. Didn’t react. Didn’t need to.

I pressed on before he could steer us back to his script.

“Real shame about the damage they did to her shop. Nice place Bailey’s got.”

I let the name drop casually, like small talk. Like I wasn’t fishing.

He smirked—just a flicker, the kind of satisfied little curve that says you think you’ve already won.

Then he gave me exactly what I wanted.

“A broken window is easy enough to repair.”

Eight words.

Eight very stupid words.

The police report hadn’t even been filed yet. No news crawl. No social-media gossip. Bailey hadn’t posted about it, and the responding officer had taken her statement as a standard smash-and-grab—no supernatural angle mentioned, no follow-up requested. The broken window was still glittering on the sidewalk outside her shop when I left her in the Wizard-Mobile.

Nadali shouldn’t have known the damage was limited to a single broken window. Not unless he’d had eyes on the scene after the fact. Or—more likely—before. During.

He caught himself half a heartbeat too late. The smirk faltered, just a microsecond, but I saw it. The eyes narrowed a fraction. The fingers steepled tighter.

He knew he’d slipped.

I didn’t smile. Didn’t gloat. Just let the silence sit between us like wet concrete.

Then, very quietly, I said, “Funny thing about windows. They don’t break themselves. And they don’t usually get punched out after the job’s already done.”

His expression smoothed back into calm. Too smooth. The kind of calm you paste on when you realize the other guy isn’t bluffing anymore.

Nadali leaned forward, elbows on the table now, voice dropping to something softer, almost collegial.

“You’re sharper than the stories suggest, Mister Blackwell.”

“Stories are usually exaggerated,” I replied. “Or understated. Depends who’s telling them.”

He studied me for another long beat.

Then he laughed—quiet, refined, the sound of a man deciding the game had just become interesting.

He leaned back, fingers still steepled, and said flatly, “Please leave my booth before I have security escort you out, Mister Blackwell.”

The words were calm. Polite, even. But the edge underneath was steel wrapped in silk.

A part of me—probably the same part that thought drinking with faeries was a character-building exercise—wanted to snap back. To press the accusation harder, to throw the broken-window slip in his face like evidence in a courtroom drama. To make him flinch, or at least stop smirking like he’d already won.

But starting something here would be suicide dressed up as bravado.

If I gave him an excuse, I’d be the aggressor on neutral ground. The Market’s rules were clear: no violence without cause, no disruption of commerce, no blood on the dance floor unless both parties consented to the mess. And even if I somehow got the drop on him, the House staff would handle the cleanup. Maenads, satyrs, nymphs—they didn’t do “restraint” when their temple-nightclub was threatened. They’d turn me into a cautionary tale in shades of bruise that hadn’t been properly catalogued yet. There’s probably a Greek word for that exact palette of regret. I just didn’t have time to look it up.

So I swallowed the hot retort and let cool reason win. For once.

“Fine,” I said, keeping my tone even, almost bored. I turned toward the curtain, coat shifting with the familiar weight of my lightning rod at my side.

But right at the threshold—because apparently I can’t help myself—my need to get the last word in caught in my throat like a fishhook. Drama is a bad habit, and mine runs deep.

I paused, half in shadow, half in the booth’s low gold light, and added quietly, “This isn’t over, Nadali. Not by a long shot.”

His retort came back like quicksilver—smooth, sharp, already anticipating the line.

“The game is afoot, is it, detective?” A faint, amused curl to his voice. “Well then… best of luck.”

He didn’t raise his volume. Didn’t need to. The words carried just enough mockery to sting without giving me anything solid to grab onto.

I didn’t answer. Just stepped through the curtain and let it fall closed behind me.

The bass from the dance floor hit like a second heartbeat. Lights strobed violet and gold. Bodies moved in ecstatic arcs below, oblivious. Up here on the mezzanine, Kori was still leaning against the railing, arms folded, amber eyes tracking me like she’d been waiting for the exact moment I emerged.

She didn’t speak right away. Just raised one perfect brow.

I gave her the smallest shrug I could manage without looking defeated.

“Productive chat?” she asked, voice low enough to stay between us.

“Very,” I said dryly. “He’s charming. Polite. And he knows more than he should.”

Kori’s lips curved—just a fraction.

“And now he knows you know he knows.”

“Something like that.”

She studied me for another beat, then tilted her head toward the stairs.

“Walk with me,” she said. Not a request. Not quite an order. Somewhere in between.

I fell into step beside her. The music pulsed around us like a living thing, but up here the air felt cooler, sharper. Charged.

“You got under his skin,” she observed as we descended. “Not many manage that.”

“He got under mine first,” I admitted. “Slipped on a detail he shouldn’t have known. Then tried to play it off like it was nothing.”

Kori’s bracelets chimed softly with each step.

“He’ll be watching you now,” she said. “Carefully.”

“Good,” I replied. “Means I’m on the right track.”

She laughed—soft, approving, the sound of someone who enjoyed watching fires catch.

We reached the main floor. The crowd parted around us without seeming to notice they were doing it. Maenad privilege, I supposed.

Kori stopped near the edge of the dance floor, close enough that the heat and rhythm brushed against us, but far enough that conversation stayed private.

“So,” she said, turning to face me fully. “What now, wizard? You going to charge back in with a warrant? Call the Market constables? Or are you planning something… less official?”

I met her gaze. Didn’t smile. Didn’t lie.

“I’m planning to follow the trail,” I said. “Wherever it leads. And if it leads back to him…”

I let the sentence trail off. No need to finish it. She understood.

Kori’s eyes gleamed.

“Then may your chaos be exquisite,” she murmured.

She reached out, brushed a speck of imaginary lint from my coat lapel—deliberate, intimate, gone in a heartbeat.

“Try not to die before the good part,” she added.

Then she turned and melted back into the crowd, leaving me standing there with the bass in my chest and the taste of unfinished business on my tongue.

I adjusted my hat—still the lucky trilby, still doing heroic work—and headed for the exit.

Nadali thought the game was afoot.

He had no idea how right he was.

Or how mean I play when I’m cornered or someone wrongs my friends.