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“No, cherub,” he says, his expression flinty, “I’m not.”

I eye him up and down. This entire repayment has been a farce. A kiss, some furniture, and a couple confessions. That’s all he’s asked for so far.

I’ve seen this man single-handedly force a politician to change supernatural law as repayment. I’ve seen him drag secrets out of men who would rather die than confess.

I lean my elbows against the granite countertop. “Why have you come back into my life—and don’t tell me it’s just because you randomly decided I needed to pay my debts.”

He leans forward as well, our faces no more than a foot apart. “I didn’t randomly decide that, Callie. That was very, very deliberate.” He says this like the words themselves are weighty.

I search his face. “Why, Des?”

He hesitates, and I see the first crack in his façade, something that’s not angry or bitter or aloof. Something … vulnerable.

“I need your help,” he finally admits.

Des has made an empire on secrets and favors. Surely I can’t offer anything he can’t already get elsewhere?

“The infamous Bargainer needs my help?” I say this sarcastically, but I’m intrigued.

“There’s something happening in the Otherworld,” he explains, “something even my secrets can’t uncover.”

Otherworld. Just the mention of it raises my gooseflesh. It’s the realm of fairies and other creatures too cruel for Earth. All supernaturals know of it, and those with a lick of sense fear it.

“How can I possibly help?” I ask, as his fridge opens behind him. Already I’m dreading what he might say.

A bottle of sparkling cider floats out from the fridge. Just as the door closes behind it, a bottle of wine slides off the far countertop. A moment later, a cupboard opens and two wine glasses levitate out of it. All four items land in front of the Bargainer, who then begins to pour us drinks.

“I need you to get some information out of a few of my subjects.”

He slides a glass of sparkling cider across to me. I frown at it but take a tentative sip of it anyway.

“And you can’t?” I ask, my eyebrows rising.

He shakes his head, his eyes far away. “I can, to a point. Beyond that point … they die.”

“Theydie?”

Jesus. What is this man talking about?

“Like you, I can compel people. But there is one key difference between our two abilities.”

There was a whole lot more than one key difference between our abilities. Des didn’t happen to glow every time he used them, nor did he try to dry hump the object of his glamour like the siren in me did, that horny bitch.

“Your glamour doesn’t give your target the ability to refuse orders,” he continues. “You want them to talk—they talk. You want them to dance naked in the streets, they dance naked in the streets. There is no other option.”

He slides his wine glass back and forth between his hands. “Withmypower,” he says, “a person can choose not to be compelled—but it will kill them. So, if they wish, they can choose to die fully clothed rather than dance naked in the streets. Or they can choose to die silent rather than spill a secret.”

I’d never realized …

“But you get everyone to talk,” I say.

The Bargainer takes a long drink of his wine before he answers. “Most people want to live.”

I let that revelation sink in. “So your subjects are choosing death rather than sharing information?”

He nods, staring at his glass.

Yikes. I can’t imagine what secret would be worth dying for.