The Silvan Diner had a counter with eight stools along the left wall. The countertop held a glass case with three pies, four groupings of ketchup and napkins and salt and pepper, and the elbows of a teenage girl in a pink-striped shirt who didn’t look up from her magazine as they came in. Jack’s nose pinged her as Court descended, but without enough blood to need a glamour. A rectangular opening at the end of the counter led to the kitchen. Pitted blue-and-gray tiles covered the diner’s floor, and four big lights dimmed by grease and dust hung from the ceiling. The two full-blood members of the Court overwhelmed a six-person booth by the window, the third full-blood sitting with them made a nonevent by their presence. Nine humans, five females and four males, filled two of the other booths along the right wall.

The diner smelled equally of food and Fey. Humans were Not Food; it was one of the first lessons Jack had learned after arriving in the MidRealm. Fey, on the other hand . . . His stomach growled, and he wished he’d eaten a second pie before leaving the house.

The full-blood at the Court’s table looked up as the door closed, started, then slouched down in the seat as though that had been the intent all along—gaze skimming dismissively over Joe and locking on Jack. The Court appeared unaware that a dragon and a Leprechaun had walked into their territory although they weren’t fooling anyone. One by one, even the humans fell silent and turned to stare, their expressions a mix of suspicion, aggression, and challenge—a two-legged hunting pack, Jack realized, to make up for the four-legged pack left back in the UnderRealm.

Head up, hands shoved in his jacket pockets, eyes half lidded in a way he hoped made him look dangerous and not sleepy, Jack walked toward the Court, Joe back of his left shoulder. When he stopped, about a meter and a half out, he swept a bored gaze around the booth. It was the expression Allie used when Auntie Carmen got enthusiastic about plot development on Coronation Street—but they didn’t need to know that.

Under the University of Calgary jackets, the Court wore glamours, a shimmer of power wrapped head to toe. Their true forms had angles too sharp, eyes too large, hair too sleek. The common belief was that they had the same opinion of casual cruelty as cats. The Dragon Lords believed cats were kinder.

The third person in the booth was a Glashtin in two-legged form; under the glamour, not even as Human as the Court. Given the more common four-legged form, the leather jacket, jeans, and cowboy hat were a little weird. Jack assumed there were cowboy boots under the table, had a sudden vision of the Glashtin riding, and barely stopped a snicker.

“It ain’t polite to stare, Wyrm.” The Glashtin’s teeth were flat and large.