“Likewise, Avramov.” Her heavy waves were pinned up again, and the silky halter top she wore, looped around her neck by a dainty black chain rather than fabric, was the color of pomegranates. For all that I’d been convincing myself that she wasn’t about to seduce me into the nether realms, in the flickering spill of candlelight she was porcelain pale and raven haired as any of the underworld’s sultrier denizens.

“Our table’s not ready yet.” She ran a black-tipped finger up the stem of her martini glass before nudging it toward me. “Sake and prickly pear martini, if you want to try. Not Morty caliber, but still pretty good. And not even a hint of liquefied gummy worm, so no worries there.”

“Wow, solid callback,” I said, sputtering with laughter over my sip. “I’m duly impressed.”

“I do always try my very best,” she deadpanned. I could feel her eyes tracing my profile as I ordered the same cocktail, the heat of her gaze almost tangible. “So, don’t keep me hanging. Does this place pass muster, or shall we drink and ditch?”

“Obviously I can’t be definitive before the food. But I’ll concede that so far, it beats most of my Chicago haunts—you know, the places I can actually afford to go,” I admitted. “My real favorites are in the fifteen-dollar-cocktail range. Not the path toward quashing student debt.”

“Fifteen, for a cocktail?” Talia shook her head in disbelief, reminding me that she’d never ventured far enough from Thistle Grove to encounter shockingly overpriced beverages. “Could that possibly be worth it?”

“Unfortunately, sometimes, yes.”

I told her about some of my favorites: Violet Hour in Wicker Park, with its gauzily curtained rooms and cocktails bordering on alchemy; the historic Pub at the U of Chicago, with its impossibly ornate wooden paneling, which you could enter only with a card-carrying member and which looked like somewhere elitist wizards went to fetch themselves hot toddies; the narrow Parisian-themed bar on Division, with the velvet wallpaper, where they sometimes did magic burlesque shows.

“But my very favorite is Beatnik on the River,” I finished. “It’s this Moroccan-inspired place on the Riverwalk. You sit right out on the water, with all these plants and pretty carpets and art deco chandeliers dripping crystals right above your head. You get to sip cocktails out of coconuts and watch the death-wish kayakers and pontoons go by on the river. Maybe place bets on how likely they are to get capsized by one of the architecture cruises that absolutely do not give a fuck.”

She raised a considering eyebrow. “Now that you put it that way, the sick thrill of it all just might be worth the money.”

“Maybe you’ll come out sometime, for a few days,” I suggested, trying to keep the question casual, though the thought of Talia in Chicago stirred up a fresh swarm of butterflies in my belly. “I could show you around.”

“Maybe,” she said, looking doubtful. “I’m not sure I could handle it—even a long stint in Carbondale is a stretch for me. And all the way out to Chicago, that far north? You know how fast the magic fades once you get beyond town lines.”