You really couldn’t beat the Cauldron when it came to class.

The bar was off the beaten path enough to get only modest play with tourists, making it the perfect local haunt. Past nine on a Sunday night, it was almost empty, save for a solitary bachelorette with a bride-of-Frankenstein headpiece hanging askew on her disheveled hair, grimly sucking down a bright green cocktail by herself.

At least someone was having a worse time tonight than I was.

As I reached for the drinks menu, the bartender set down the tumbler he’d been wiping and leaned forward, squinting at me, before breaking into a broad smile.

“Hey . . . Emmy Harlow? Shit, is that you?”

I gave him a blank look, momentarily at a loss—then his adult face meshed with the memory of a younger face I hazily recognized from years of classes together. Same dark tousle of hair, same eyeliner around bright blue eyes; even the suspenders-over-a-blousy-shirt look felt familiar, though it was now rolled up over tattoo-sleeved forearms. Morty and I had been only passing acquaintances, but I discovered with a little shock that it felt surprisingly good to see him again, and better still to hear that he even remembered my name.

“In the flesh,” I admitted, smiling back. “First night back, actually. How’ve you been, Morty?”

“Can’t complain. Pops retired a few years back and charged me with the keeping of this stellar joint.” He waved at the Cauldron with an all-encompassing flourish. “Happy to report that our buffalo enchiladas are now edible, and that the craft cocktail list has been, mercifully, revamped. Get you anything?”

I ran a finger down the new set of hideously schlocky-sounding Halloween drinks before reaching the classic cocktails. “Just an old-fashioned to start, please.”

“Coming right up.” He shot me another grin, wide and disarming, as he reached for a shaker. “It’d be great to catch up once you settle in. Would love to hear what you’ve been up to in the city all these years.”

It gave me an unexpected pang to hear that an old classmate not only cared to know what I’d been doing, but had even bothered to find out where I went after I left. When he slid the cocktail in front of me, I downed half of it in three smoky-sweet, delicious mouthfuls, thinking that, just maybe, being back for a month might not be quite as bad as my worst fears.

Then the Cauldron door swung open, letting in a chill blast of autumnal air—and I heard his voice, followed by the unmistakable whipcrack of his laugh.

Gareth Blackmoore himself came tripping into the bar, his little brother, Gawain, and a welter of interchangeable Blackmoore cousins trailing in his wake, all of them obviously only a half step shy of being fully stumbledrunk.

“Are you fucking serious, universe?” I moaned to myself through clenched teeth, barely refraining from sinking my head into my hands.

And because I’d clearly committed unspeakable crimes against both kittens and human babies in a former life, Gareth shambled over to the bar top and dropped onto the seat right next to mine. His entourage filed in after him, still man-cackling and jostling each other as they commandeered the remainder of the bar.