Still uneasy, I looked up to find the musician making a beeline for me, his eyes alight with a fevered itch. Stupid pixy. He had gotten himself caught.

“Come to hear me play, beautiful?” the kid said as he stopped at my table, clearly struggling to make his voice low.

“My name is Sue, not Beautiful,” I lied, staring past him toward Ivy. She was laughing at me. Swell. This was going to look just fantastic in our office newsletter.

“You sent your fairy friend to check—me—out,” he said, half singing the words.

“He’s a pixy not a fairy,” I said. The guy was either a stupid norm or a smart Inderlander pretending to be a stupid norm. I was betting on the former.

He opened his fist and Jenks flew a wobbly trail to my earring. One of his wings was bent, and pixy dust sifted from him to make brief sunbeams on the table and my shoulder. My eyes closed in a strength-gathering blink. I was going to get blamed for this. I knew it.

Jenks’s irate snarling filled my ear, and I frowned in thought. I didn’t think any of his suggestions were anatomically possible—but at least I knew the kid was a norm.

“Come and see my big pipe in the van,” the kid said. “Bet you could make it sing-g-g-g.”

I looked up at him, the dead vamp’s proposition making me jittery. “Go away.”

“I’m gonna make it big, Suzy-Q,” he boasted, taking my hostile stare as an invitation to sit. “I’m going to the coast, soon as I get enough money. Got a friend in the music biz. He knows this guy who knows this guy who cleans Janice Joplin’s pool.”

“Go away,” I repeated, but he only leaned back and screwed his face up, singing “Sue-sue-sussudio” in a high falsetto, pounding on the table in a broken rhythm.

This was embarrassing. Surely I would be forgiven for nacking him? But no, I was a good little soldier in the fight for crimes against norms, even if no one but I thought so. Smiling, I leaned forward until my cleavage showed. That always gets their attention, even if there isn’t much of it. Reaching across the table, I grabbed the short hairs on his chest and twisted. That gets their attention, too, and it’s far more satisfying.

The yelp as his singing cut off was like icing, it was so sweet. “Leave,” I whispered. I pushed the old-fashioned into his hand and curled his slack fingers around it. “And get rid of this for me.” His eyes grew wider as I gave a little tug. My fingers reluctantly loosened, and he beat a tactful retreat, sloshing half the drink as he went.

There was a cheer from the bar. I looked to see the old bartender grinning. He touched the side of his nose, and I inclined my head. “Dumb kid,” I muttered. He had no business being in the Hollows. Someone ought to sling his butt back across the river before he got hurt.