“I’ll have Evis put it on my tab.” I pulled her closer, ignoring the curious stares of our fellow dancers, who still moved in their ever-changing hops, curtseys, and rounds.

The music played, slow and suggestive. Something stringed made mournful notes while a deep bass drum beat like a weary heart.

“I like this music,” I said. Darla leaned into me. “What the hell is it, and where is it coming from?”

“Gertriss and I heard it earlier. It’s a recording made from music that Evis and his people found playing on that long-talking device they have hidden away under Avalante. Evis thinks it comes from another world.”

“It might.” A woman began to sing with the music, her voice low and husky, her words foreign and incomprehensible, but her amorous intent crystal clear.

We swayed. I moved my feet around a bit. The couple closest to us gave up their precise choreography for a halting but enthusiastic embrace.

“Look, dear, we’re trendsetters,” I whispered.

She smiled and moved with me. Before the foreign song faded away, and another began, half the dance floor was standing close and swaying in the dark, while the traditionalists glared and pranced and gave us room.

I scanned the crowd for Evis or trouble and saw neither. I did catch a brief glimpse of Gertriss’s bright green gown and braided blonde hair, both of which were surrounded by smiling, eager young men hoping to outshine his fellows.

We did a half-turn.

“They’re wasting their charm,” said Darla. “Any sign of our toothy host?”

“Not since he left the stage. I’m sure he’s got orders to give, boats to steer, brooding, dark looks to cast dramatically across shadowed, empty halls.”

“Were we ever that confused?”

“You never wavered in your quest to win my heart, oh first wife of mine.”

She pinched me. “First wife? You have another?”

“Not yet, but the night is young.”

Gertriss slipped away from her bevy of suitors and I lost sight of her in the crowd.

“What’s this?” Darla’s hand paused casually over the wax-sealed tortoise shell in my right jacket pocket.

“A gift.” I recalled Stitches’s admonition that I tell no one of the false huldra, even Darla. I told Darla the whole story in whispers.

“You should throw it in the river,” she said when I was done. Her eyes were somber. “I like Stitches. But I don’t trust her.”

I dipped Darla and made her smile. “If I do, I might wish I hadn’t.”

“Let me then.”

“We’ll see.” The music faded away, and the spotlight flared to life, and a tall black woman in a long white gown took the stage as the musicians tapped out a rhythm and began to play.

The Queen lurched-just a bit, but enough to cause the remaining pair of formal dancers to stumble and lose their place. The lights even flickered.

And then it was over. The sounds of dice clattering and wheels spinning and gamblers shouting and cheering never faltered, not even for an instant.

“Did you see that?”

“I did.” I felt Darla’s heart beat faster. “Trouble?”

“Don’t know.” We kept dancing. The black lady introduced herself as Lady Rondalee of Bel Loit and dedicated her first song to ‘all the lovers out there.’

“Trouble,” she sang. “Trouble, bad trouble, been dogging me all my days…”

“Well, that’s comforting,” whispered Darla.

“Ain’t no comfort, ain’t no comfort, no comfort ever comin’ my ways…”

“I think she can hear you,” I said.

“I hear you, I hear you sayin’, sayin’ I needs to be changin’ my ways…”

Darla stopped swaying. “You don’t think-”

“I don’t. Coincidence. We’re on edge, that’s all. It’s just a song.”

A waiter pushed his way through the crowd. His starched white shirt was stretched to near bursting by his muscular physique. A scar ran all the way down the right side of his face. Something under his black dinner jacket bulged, and I didn’t think it was a salt shaker.

He bore down on us, mindful to keep his hands visible and open, palms toward me.

He stopped a few paces short of us, and waited until I gently disengaged from Darla and moved to stand in front of her.

He nodded, reached slowly in his jacket, and came out with a note. He held it up and I took it from him, and he vanished into the crowd-doubtlessly to employ those muscles in the precise pouring of any one of Rannit’s finer wines.

I unfolded the note, just halfway, to make sure it didn’t bear hex signs. Instead, I recognized Gertriss’s tall plain hand, and opened it all the way.

BOSS, it read. BY THE PORT STAIR. COME QUICK. IT’S BAD.

Darla gasped, reading over my shoulder.

“Don’t suppose I could convince you to wait here?”

“Waste of time trying, dear.”

And we were off, weaving through the dancers, plowing through the drunks and the gamblers and their noisy entourages.

I caught one more stanza of Lady Rondalee’s song, before the din drowned her out.

“One day soon, one day soon, trouble gonna be the death of me…”

“Not tonight, I hope,” I muttered. Darla didn’t hear.

I put my shoulder to the mob and charged toward the stairs.

I wasn’t sure what I was expecting when I found Gertriss.

Blood, maybe. Bodies, possibly. Mayhem, certainly.

But what we found appeared to be a shapely, young, blonde woman locked in the throes of rather public affection with a young man deep in his cups.

Gertriss and her companion had chosen a tiny table for two at the very back of the Queen’s casino deck. It was tucked into an alcove formed by the stairwell and the wall, and as such, it was deep in shadow and as well out of sight as any spot on the entire casino floor.

The table had been pushed away from the wall. Gertriss sat in the man’s lap, his arms over her shoulders, her face pressed to his.

Darla caught on fast. The man’s arms were too limp. His hands just flopped. The only reason his head wasn’t hanging down was because Gertriss was keeping it up with her simulated kisses.

There aren’t many young women willing to get so intimate with a corpse that everyone nearby was fooled into thinking they were a couple.

I eyed the crowd around us. Hell, nobody was doing more than glancing and grinning. Most eyes were on the wheel a half-dozen steps away, where a greying banker and a woman half his age were throwing away a fortune amid gales of laughter and demands for more drinks.

Darla took a position behind me. I leaned down and spoke into Gertriss’s ear.

“Is he dead?”

“Yes, boss. I didn’t see who did it. He was laughing one minute and dead the next. There’s a knife in his chest. Boss, his eyes are gone. I put his head down on the table and wrote out a note and gave it to a waiter to give to security. I was afraid someone notice he wasn’t moving, so I pretended we were a couple. What do we do?”

“We talk about giving you a raise.”

“Now, boss. What do we do now? We can’t panic the guests. Evis. He’ll be ruined.”

I laughed, long and loud, and pretended to pull Gertriss from her fellow. I let his face hang down before anyone nearby got a good look.

His eyes were gone. There wasn’t much blood. Just two empty sockets, eyelids sunk in and hanging limp.

“He’ll just have a headache in the morning,” I said for the benefit of anyone listening. “Here, let’s get him back to his room.”

Gertriss stood and helped me block the view. I checked for a pulse in his neck, found none, dropped my hand down until I felt the wet spot on his shirt.

“I pulled it out,” said Gertriss before I could ask. “Didn’t want anyone to see.”

He was wearing a jacket. I fumbled with the buttons until I got it closed.

“You don’t say,” I roared, laughing. “Well, no more brandy for you tonight!”

“Is he drunk again?” said Darla, hands on her hips.