Uncomfortable, I sat, amazed when Al expertly scooted my chair in without a scuff on the carpet. “They’ve seen me. Can we go home now? I’ve had a hard day.”

Home. His home, not mine. A pang hit me, making it hard to breathe. Ivy. Jenks. My mother. Trent better not have screwed this up. I was going to freaking kill him.

Al sat beside me, both our backs to the wall, and the host sniffed before he walked away. “A bite of supper is just the way to end a trying day,” Al said as he snapped out my napkin and draped the black cloth over my lap. “Don’t you think?”

Not saying anything, I settled back, trying to figure out what was going on. I mean, I knew I was at a restaurant and was on display, but Al wasn’t being lewd, lascivious, lustful, or any other nasty l word. I didn’t know where I stood, and that made me uncomfortable.

“Al,” I said suddenly as I looked over the table. “He didn’t leave us menus. How am I supposed to order if he didn’t leave menus?”

Al was fiddling with the lit candle, playing in the curl of heat like a five-year-old. “You eat what you’re given. It doesn’t get better than that.”

I frowned, not liking not knowing what I was eating. “No wine. No eggs. Nothing with a sulfur-based preservative. It gives me headaches.”

Sighing, Al looked at me over his new bifocals. “Rachel, Dali himself doesn’t get real eggs or wine. Chill and enjoy yourself, will you?”

Chill? Had he told me to chill? Al looked funny, still himself, but older as he played the part of the successful businessman taking his main squeeze—that’d be me—out to eat.

One of the waitstaff set twin glasses of water before us, her aggressive “Welcome to Dalliance. Can I get you something to start with?” bringing my head up.

“Brooke!” I exclaimed, and the older woman snarled at me, her eyes tired and her hair slicked back in an unflattering cut close to her skull. “You sold her as a waitress?” I stammered at Al. She was coven quality, and they had her slinging orders and clearing tables?

Brooke’s grimace curved up into a weird semblance of a smile. She was wearing a tight gray uniform that went with the décor but didn’t look good on her, the starched white collar and the cut making it second-class subservient. Her Möbius-strip pin still decorated her lapel, but it looked like a joke now, spotted with something. Spit?

“What would you like, Madam Demon?” she said, looking extremely pissed.

“See, even Brooke knows what you are,” Al said as he moved his empty glass. “Tell the piece of witch crap what you want to drink. Hurry before there’s a shift change.”

I stared, my heartbeat fast. “She’s a coven member, and they made her a waitress?”

Brooke waited, her face becoming red.

“What do you want me to do?” Al said, not looking at all embarrassed. “If I sold her as a skilled familiar, I’d get her back in a week. To tell you the truth, I’m a little disappointed.”