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Viv opened her mouth—then hesitated. 

On the one hand, she did want to meet the band. They seemed cool, and she’d never met a sidhe before, and there had to be some kind of bragging rights in getting to meet what was obviously a popular local band. And it sounded as if someone was hurt back there—if so, maybe she could help. She didn’t have magical healing skills, but she was first aid certified.   

On the other hand, she wasn’t sure she should be intruding in other people’s business, and it might be nice to use her win to make herself popular in the neighbourhood. Earn some friends, soothe anyone’s hurt feelings at her win. Plus, it would distract the pub crowd from whatever was going on backstage. But when she’d been told the prize level, it was things like ‘a gift card’ or ‘A free night of food and drinks’. Would a round of drinks on a fairly busy night be too big an ask anyway?

“Well?” Susan glanced over her shoulder again, then beamed at Viv. “Hurry, hurry! What’s your boon?”

Maybe she could just explain her train of thought. She didn’t want the crowd to think she was sucking up, or get them hyped up only to be told they weren’t getting their drinks after all, but…

“Do I have to say it aloud?” Viv asked. “Can I whisper it to you?”

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No, Viv decided, she was being silly, thinking about chasing after Varsha. Varsha worked here, so she’d definitely be back later. There wasn’t anything urgent in Viv’s life right now anyway; no point in leaving now to get information about… what? Power outages? The neighbourhood? 

Nothing important.

In fact, every other place she could go tonight could wait too. The neighbourhood would be around later. She might as well have a second drink and enjoy her night.

Thus decided, she ordered another cider from the gargoyle bartender, and turned back to the stage, watching the dryad Susan working up the crowd.

“So,” Susan chirped, “here’s how it works! We pick a category, and the first person with their hand up gets to answer! We tally it as we go and by the end of trivia time, the person with the most right answers gets a reasonable boon from the Good Neighbours pub. Perhaps it’s free drinks or meals for a night! A gift card! Some of our merch! A chance to meet some of the performers backstage! Some fairy gold! Or something else of similar value—you get to pick the boon, and as long as it is a reasonable exchange for one night’s win, we will give it to you. However, the player with the highest number of wrong answers? Well, you’ll owe us a boon of equal value, and that boon will be our choice. So if you play once, you’d better keep playing—at least until someone gets more wrong answers than you. Keep in mind that one right answer cancels out one wrong answer, and vice versa—it’s all checks and balances. High risk, high reward, am I right?”

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Viv hesitated, torn between the privacy of the booth, the excitement of the performers, and the opportunities of the bar.

But the bar seemed like the best option. She could get a drink right away and learn more about town from the bartender—wasn’t that one of their specialties? And besides, since she was being brave tonight anyway, she had to admit she would never forgive herself if she avoided the opportunity to talk to a gorgeous nagi.

She’d always thought snakes were lovely. 

Determination fueling her, she headed over to the bar and took one of the seats there. There were plenty of free bar stools, since more people were gathered around the tables near the stage or filling the booths for dinner.

Just as she’d hoped, the nagi bartender slithered over, giving Viv a bright smile and leaning her arms on the bar so she could be heard more easily without shouting. Her dark hair showered down over her shoulder, snakelike in itself. She was wearing a halloween blouse, black with little jack-o-lanterns all over it. “Hey there. What can I get you?”

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Viv wrinkled her nose, stepping forward reluctantly. Something about the garbage room just seemed off—and she wasn’t entirely sure it was just in terms of the rot. Tentatively, she stepped forward, her garbage bag hanging loosely from her hand. 

On the one hand, it felt like this was deeply not her business; garbage rooms stank, it was something they did. She was just on edge. Sleeping three days and only waking up to stuff bread in one’s face and feed the cats would do that to a person, especially after then having a rich dinner of fried chicken and coke. The thing with the moth and Yasmin’s nervousness about this building had only added to it.

On the other, this was a heavily magical area, and her specialty was divination. Should she really be shrugging it off if she got a bad feeling about something?

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The delivery driver perked up immediately. “Right, I’ve got your order here,” she said. She seemed to sniff at Viv briefly, making her wonder if her shower had somehow failed at its purpose, but she’d done a sniff test on herself after and was sure she didn’t smell of anything more than rosewater shampoo.

The driver just smiled down at Viv, apparently not noticing her sudden anxiety. “I brought the machine?”

“Thanks,” Viv said awkwardly, pulling her card out of her pocket. “Hey, I’m new here, can I ask you something?”

“Sure.” The driver handed the card reader over. “How can I help you?”

Viv punched in a 20% tip. “I just moved here from out of town—you said that the buzzer was acting up again? Does it do that often?”

The driver relaxed minutely. Viv reminded herself that an OmegaEats driver probably got asked a lot more rude and intrusive questions than that—in the Valley or out of it. “Yeah,” the driver said. “I deliver in this neighbourhood a lot, and this building’s buzzer recently started acting up, I guess. Sometimes it’ll let me ring up but won’t let them buzz me in, and sometimes it’s just dead. Looks like it’s just dead today.”

“Wild.” Viv printed out the receipt and saw that the driver’s name was Yasmin, debated calling her it, and then felt weird at the very idea. “Does that happen to a lot of buildings in the area? Leyline spike?”