Sel flashes around me, blocking my path. “This is the exact type of place we’re supposed to keep you away from. These are the people who would kidnap you, spread the word, and hand you over for the highest bounty.”

I thumb the note in my pocket, remember the only other word on it aside from “Talbot and Longfellow”—a name. “I need to find Lucille.”

“No, you need to remain alive. We are outnumbered and underpowered here.” Sel steps forward and gestures between himself and William. “One of us will go inside to find the contact. You need to go back to the car.”

I step around him. “No way!”

“ID?”

We all jump, even Sel. The tin roof–covered entrance had been empty. Now it’s not. Instead, it’s completely filled with a massive, red-brown-skinned Black man clad in dark red-and-black leather. The beard trailing down to his chest has shiny clasps nestled in its braids. The scent of deep forest rolls off him in thick waves. Pine. Loam. Damp bark.

Sel curses and pivots Merlin-fast, hands instinctively clawing the air at his sides. He seems to realize exactly when we do that there’s no aether flowing into them. He straightens, his face flushed. “Who are you?” he snaps.

“Welcome to the Crossroads Lounge. I’m Louis, security. ID, please?” The man repeats.

Sel is eighteen and William is nineteen, and they could both pass for twenty-one if the bar requires it, but we can’t. Alice and I exchange worried glances. Even though the fake IDs Gillian sent us to print say we’re eighteen, it’s a stretch. For her, especially.

Fortunately—or unfortunately?—that’s not the type of ID the man is looking for. He calls over to us. “If you don’t have a member ID, you’ll need to be marked a guest. Wrists, please?”

William, Alice, and I exchange glances and take the final few steps to the front door. Before Sel can stop me, I hold out my arm. But instead of wrapping a paper band around my wrist, Louis swipes a palm over it. A symbol I don’t recognize glows bright yellow and warm for a moment, pulses, then disappears. A circle made of four arrows, all following each other to make a closed loop. Beside me, even Sel’s eyes grow wide. Next, Louis does the same to William, then to Alice.

The rest of us hold our breaths when he turns to Sel. “Wrist?”

“I think the fuck not,” says Sel.

“Sel!” I hiss.

William drops his head into his palm. Alice goes stiff beside me. The man merely tilts his head.

“If that’s your answer, all four of you need to be off the premises in the next ten seconds. Ten, nine, eight…”

“Sel!” I repeat. “Just do it.”