As confident as she sounded, I hoped she was right and the woman wouldn’t make a second attempt before Harlow left. Some fae took the whole eye-for-an-eye thing literally.

“You look like you’re getting ready to go somewhere.” She pulled a phone from her pocket and checked the time. “Did you book a red-eye or something?”

“No.” I hadn’t cracked open my laptop long enough to plan that far ahead. “I crashed pretty hard. I’m starving, and room service hours ended around ten.”

“There’s a coffee shop across the street.” Her shoulder bumped the door. “It’s crap, but it’s close. Join me for a cup?”

The way she said it made me think I didn’t have much choice. Good thing my stomach wasn’t about to argue.

Chapter 5

Much to my dismay, the shop across the street turned out to be cramped and gloomy, and the air inside smelled the way I imagined soup would if it were made of sweat socks left to boil on the stove overnight. The booths were upholstered in cracked vinyl with pocked yellow foam rupturing from the seams. The stink of ancient cigarette smoke puffed out when my weight hit the cushion, and the sharp edges raked at my pants like tiny claws.

After the waitress left us each with a steaming mug of blackish sludge and a pastry whose glaze resembled earwax, Thierry leaned forward. “I filed an incident report with my office and flagged your name on it. It’s standard when someone on the team—or a consultant—gets injured.”

I dumped in two sugars, and the spoon smoked as it stirred the caustic brew. “Is it supposed to do that?”

“Damn it.” She poked at her own mug. “Mervin must be working the kitchen tonight. He’s a cherufe.” At my blank expression, she made a rolling gesture with her hand. “It’s a kind of lava-lizard thing. Once he spat magma on the road, scooped up the molten asphalt and tried to pass it off as the soup du jour. Work crews were patching potholes for days.”

I pushed my mug toward the center of the table where it bumped into hers. “If he’s that much of a nuisance, then why hasn’t he been fired yet?”

She snorted. “Do you want to be the one to tell him to hang up his apron?”

“No.” I laughed. “I guess not.”

Our amusement waned, and Thierry began worrying the bowl of her spoon with her thumb. “Look, Camille, here’s the thing. I don’t know you, and I don’t know your security clearance level, but I know what I saw today. You risked a lot to save your friend, and that makes me think you’re one of the good ones.”

“Thanks?” My voice rose on the end, making it a question.