“I’m here to have a drink,” I lie. For obvious reasons, I don’t tell him the true reason for journeying to this specific establishment. “You’re here because you eavesdropped on the conversation about rattling Serpent cocks I was having with the friendly bartender.” His cheeks—which are not his but some Lucin human’s I once met—pinken beneath the scraggly beard I coaxed out of his jaw. “It wasn’t the rattling cock bit that arrested me.”
