“Sure.” I had a pretty good idea how that conversation was going to go. Why didn’t you tell me you are my nearly immortal boss’s daughter? It didn’t come up. Where do we go from here? Ugh.

But she was bound to me by the oath she had sworn to the witches. I turned to Julie. “Go ahead of me and start the car, please.”

Julie gave Rowena a sideways glance filled with enough teenage scorn to instantly incinerate a small army and sped up ahead of us.

“That child is just like you,” Rowena said, her voice making it obvious it wasn’t a compliment.

“Thank you.”

We were almost to the door when a journeywoman with short dark hair nearly sprinted to us across the floor.

“Trouble,” I told Rowena.

She turned. The journeywoman ran up to her.

“Not now,” Rowena said.

The journeywoman gulped some air and whispered, “Frederick exposed himself to two young women in front of the ladies’ bathroom.”

Rowena’s eyes went wide. She turned on her heel toward me. “One minute.”

“Take your time. I’ll wait for you by the fountain.”

I walked out of the Casino’s doors. After the stench of the undead, the night air tasted refreshing, like a gulp of cold water in the heat of a summer day. I’d had enough of the People’s hospitality for one night. Maybe if I splashed some water from those pretty fountains on my face, it would wash the stench off.

A man stepped in my way. “Kate!”

How did I know him . . . I had seen him before. He stepped forward and the light shone on his face. Lago Vista. Except this Lago seemed to have lost at least two decades. The Lago I recalled had seen forty-five. In my head, his hair was thinning, his muscle drooped a bit off his frame, and lines had begun to crop up on his face. This Lago was in his prime. He stood straight, his shoulders were broad, his chest filled out his leather, and as he sauntered toward me, his gait betrayed no trace of a limp. His hair was thick, his eyes bright, and his smirk had gone from self-deprecating to smug.

All my warning sirens went off at the same time.

“Hey.” Lago winked at me. “Didn’t know you gambled.”

“I don’t. Strictly business.” There was something important I needed to remember about Lago. Something vital. It was making my head hurt, but when I reached for those memories, there was nothing there.

“I just wanted to tell you that you and I are cool. I don’t hold grudges.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Lago grinned. “That’s the right kind of attitude. Water under the bridge.” He waved his arm as if tossing an invisible baseball. “Whoosh, gone and forgotten.”

Okay. An important chunk of my memory was definitely missing.

“So where is your guy?”

“At home.”