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They close the box and I bite back a groan of dismay. Whatever’s going on, I’m getting to the bottom of it. I’m not the guy who just lets things happen to me anymore.

“I’m a shadow dryad,” Syril says with absolute, honest seriousness.

I choke on a hysterical laugh. “Okay? Really? You’re some kind of… supernatural creature? Like from a TV show?”

“Monster. It’s the term we prefer.”

Monster sounds like an insult. But hey, queer was an insult, and now some of us slap the term on gladly.

I take a deep breath. Pieces start to fall into place. “So you’re a monster. And — Orion must be one too.” For some reason that makes complete sense. “Shit, and Plato?”

“Ezra.” Syril puts a hand up. Their skin is papery like birch bark, with flecks of dark that I swear move before my eyes.

Their fingers are long and slender. They don’t look any less intimidating as a shadow dryad than they did as a human, I have to say.

“We’re all monsters. Everyone at The Sanctum, and more. That’s what I’m saying.”

I swallow hard.

O-fucking-kay.

All of them. Larch. Lilian the waitress. “The customers?”

“Yes.”

“The performances?” I yelp.

“ Yes .”

I’m running through the whole list in my head, until one name snags me. “Lysander?”

Syril smirks, which apparently dryads can do. Who knew? Not me. “Lysander is a fairy.”

I straighten. “Like a little guy with wings?”

“Little? Perhaps if you’re a dragon.”

A dragon. I have to shut my eyes. Looking at Syril’s face — their real face — is making me dizzy. With shaking hands, I lift the amulet over my head. When I open my eyes again, thank god, the truth is hidden.

But I’m not stupid enough to think it’s gone.

I hold the amulet out to Syril, but they reach out and close my fingers around it. “You have three days to choose.”

I don’t understand. Then I do. My heart sinks.

“You don’t want me to stay if I can’t wear the amulet.”

“I want to open our world, Ezra. But I need humans who can handle it. Who embrace the different, the in-between, the weird and beautiful truths.” They release my hand. I can feel their skin under the illusion, rough and warm.

I want to tell them not to let random humans put the amulet on. I want to say I know people who would rip open a beautiful truth and smear it into nothing. I wonder, very briefly, if they chose me because of my record. Because I’m alone.

My fist clenches around the gem so hard it digs into my palm. I’m not that kind of person. I don’t believe — can’t believe — that all this has been a lie to lure me in and somehow… use me. Besides, I’m just not that important.

I believe what Syril told me. They want to integrate, and I’ve somehow been judged trustworthy.

It’s a terrifying thought.

The look Plato gives me when I come out of the back room is sympathetic. What kind of monster is he ? God, I want to know. I also desperately want to pretend it’s not true. I put my apron on. The amulet is heavy in my pocket.

“Have you prepped the fridge?” I ask him brightly.

He takes it in stride. “Nah, left that for you. For a guy who can’t cook for shit, you sure like chopping.”

“It’s meditative.” I take the knife down. “Also, I hate the dishwasher.”

He chuckles. “Yeah, I gathered.”

The glasses rattle as Plato slides them into their home. He whistles to the Mariah Carey song drifting over the speakers. My thoughts bounce like ice in a shaker. Do I ask about it? I get the feeling that would be rude, like going into a gay bar and asking the nearest guy whether he enjoys rimjobs.

Does everyone agree with Syril? Obviously Syril is in charge at The Sanctum, but they said ‘ and more’ .

That implies there are monsters out there who have nothing to do with this place.

Plus, I know from experience that just because the boss’s word is law doesn’t mean the rest of the crew won’t find ways to express their own opinions.

I’ve run afoul of more than one job that way.

“You okay?” Plato’s voice cuts through the din of my inner monologue and I jump.

“Fine! Fine.” The half lime slowly oozes juice under my too-tight grip. I quickly slice it into wedges.

“Are you planning to stay?”

He sounds uncertain. I look up finally. Without the amulet, Plato just looks like a big, muscle-bound gym bunny.

His big brown eyes are sweet, even though his nose looks like it’s been broken several times.

For the first time, I notice the thread of chain around his neck that disappears into his t-shirt.

I shake my head and turn back to the limes. I’m not going to goggle like he’s in a zoo. “I don’t know,” I tell him honestly.

The amulet burns a hole in my pocket all night. Something tells me I can’t make a real decision until I put it on again. I have to know what I’m getting myself into. I have to see the truth. But that doesn’t mean I’m not scared.

It’s not the monsters I’m afraid of.

Truthfully, I’m afraid that I’ll disappoint them. That I’ll be the one who doesn’t measure up.

As the bar fills up, I can’t put it off any longer.

It’s not just that I need to see — I want to see.

So when there’s a lull at the bar I step into a shadowed corner and lift the braided cord over my head.

The amulet drops to my chest with a thud that feels like a second heartbeat.

I blink as my vision blurs. My hearing kicks up a notch.

Feathers rustle and breath snorts. Feet — and hooves?

— shuffle. I’ve heard those sounds before. Did I just pretend they weren’t real?

In the dim lighting I don’t see much at first; what were humans a second ago are now just unfamiliar shapes. Then my eyes adjust, and my heart kicks hard.

Glowing eyes. Inhuman faces. Feathered wings and sinewy ones, claws and talons, crests and horns sprouting from peoples’ heads, stone-like skin, even scales.

Someone next to the bar has tentacles for hair.

A long, thin tail whips past. A person made entirely of shadows detaches their arm to pick up their drink.

The oddest part is, they’re all wearing the same human clothes as before I put the amulet on.

It’s too much to take in at once. I grab the edge of the counter and try to breathe.

“Ezra?” Someone looms in my periphery. Tall, broad chest, huge brown eyes, and…horns?

I make a concerted effort not to clutch my chest like a virgin seeing cock for the first time. Plato’s a cow-person? What’s the word?

“Y-yeah?”

“It’s Lysander. You want to take him?”

Oh, shit. I check the other end of the bar, but I don’t see him through the crowd.

Or maybe I do, and I can’t tell who he is.

My pulse shudders. I can’t deny he’s featured in my dreams more than once, watching me with wide eyes as I lower myself between his creamy thighs — but that’s not what it would be like at all.

Because the man I’ve been seeing isn’t real.

I stuff the amulet down my shirt quickly. “I’ve got it.”

Plato’s knowing gaze follows my hand. Minotaur , I suddenly remember. I duck away from his eyes and hurry down the bar, guilty for reasons that aren’t exactly clear. What’s so wrong about wanting to see without him knowing?

I underestimated how absolutely stunning he’d be.

My breath catches. There’s no mistaking him.

He has the same arrogant tilt to his head, the same lean that accentuates his slender frame in that billowy shirt, but the rest is like something out of a fantasy book.

His skin is pale green, the color of a new leaf, and it glitters when he moves.

His eyes are the same cut-sapphire blue, but they’re subtly bigger, and his face is slim and long with a delicate nose and high cheekbones.

But what shocks me isn’t the green skin or the distinctly inhuman face. It’s his wings.

When he sees me, they flare out behind him — two on the left, like a dragonfly’s wings, but only one on the right. They’re a beautiful ombre from deep mauve to pale pink at the tips, with veins that shimmer like they’ve been dusted with gold.

I force myself not to gape.

“The usual?” I croak, stopping in front of him.

He narrows his eyes. On his new face the expression is even more aristocratic than usual. “Of course.”

He actually is a fairy. I load ice into the shaker with hands that are admirably steady. In his human form he stood out from the rest, but like this, it’s a wonder anyone in the club can look at anything else. Just standing here, he has an ethereal quality that makes it hard to look away.

I finish his drink and put a coaster down.

One graceful green hand with blue-dusted fingers extends to take hold of the glass.

I forget to remove mine, and his fingertips slide against my knuckles as I withdraw.

He looks as shocked as I feel. A haze of blue drifts up his cheeks and he straightens, drink in hand.

“Orion ought to take lessons,” he sniffs, and turns on his heel.

I’m so turned around that I don’t recognize the compliment until he’s gone.

That night, the obvious question marches back and forth through my thoughts. Am I crazy to entertain the idea of going back?

Am I crazy not to?

I spend most of the night twisting in the sheets, trying to picture each future. By the time dawn climbs through my grimy window to shake me out of my stupor, the answer is what I’ve known since the moment I saw Syril’s real form: the truth isn’t something to fear.

Fairies, minotaurs and dryads don’t scare me.

Scary is waking up alone with your face squashed into the tile floor, twenty grams in your pocket and a cop hammering on the bathroom door.

Scary is calling the one number you’ve memorized while an officer breathes down your neck and hearing the call get cut off as the person on the other end disconnects.

Scary is stripping down to put on a prison uniform with a dozen other guys and realizing you’re alone. Truly alone.

I vowed never to be in that place again. Nothing, not even facing a whole secret world full of monsters, is going to put me back there.