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Yrra was a shy, quiet sort whose full name was impossible for even most fae to pronounce.

A lanky young waterfolk male, he was seeking an uninhabited river or lake to call home, a process his kind all went through to come of age.

Once that was achieved, there was the other part of the process, which involved building a harem and spreading one’s seed.

Unfortunately, Yrra couldn’t look any female in the eye, much less one of his own race.

He’d been alone a long time, growing more and more despondent.

I saw him as a sibling, which meant affection but added responsibility.

Squaring my shoulders, I marched the three of us across the sprawling front lawn to the manor.

The building was all fieldstone walls organized at right angles for a boxy, old country home in a vineyard effect.

At my instruction, Vyrain announced our presence with a booming knock on the dark wood door.

My foot had begun to tap the step by the time it opened.

A person resembling a hairless mole rat on two legs peered around the edge of the door.

It took a few seconds of squinting in our general direction before recognition dawned.

“The master is not available at the moment,” he said with about as much enthusiasm as a suburban housewife who’d been told she’d won a lifetime supply of sand.

The offhand response wasn’t encouraging.

“Okay, well, if you can get us what we’re owed, we’ll be on our way,” I replied cheerfully.

“You didn’t bring back the thieves,” the mole-man muttered under his breath.

My eyes narrowed. “What was that?”

Missing the warning in my tone, he raised his voice. “The thieves,” he enunciated. “You were to bring back our livestock as well as the thieves for punishment.”

Confusion gave way to fury, and I barely kept an insult from slipping past my lips. Abusing a client wouldn’t do. “That wasn’t discussed,” I retorted through clenched teeth. “But they’re very sorry, and they’ll never do it again. I believe we agreed on a hundred vodt .”

The mole-man pressed himself into the doorway, perhaps intending to intimidate me into submission.

It wasn’t the first time someone had tried, and the movement sent me to high alert.

Power thundered through my veins, thickening the layer of muscle that wrapped around my torso and giving me extra height.

Behind me, Hohem and Vyrain shifted their weight in tandem as a reminder that I was not alone.

The steward hesitated before deflating, subdued.

A shame. I’d been looking forward to a fight.

“Wait here,” he muttered. He disappeared inside, leaving the door ajar. A moment later, he returned with a purse, which he held out with a look like he’d been sucking a lemon.

Reminding myself that customer service was still a thing in this world, I forced my expression into something resembling a friendly smile. “Pleasure doing business with you. We’ll be in the area, so don’t hesitate to reach out if you think of anything else we can help with.”

Behind me, one of the twins exhaled a sharp puff of air, which I pointedly ignored. The others had no concept of business and thought it was hilarious that I made an effort to do things properly. Honestly, the whole operation would fall apart without me.

Prize in hand, we returned to the wagon.

Yrra raised his head at our approach, a question on his face.

I raised the purse and gave it a shake, unable to suppress a grin at the resulting rattle of magic-resistant metal that had been worked into usable currency.

Sweet relief flooded through me. With this payout, we’d be sitting pretty for the next few days.

“Not bad for a day’s work,” one of the twins remarked, swinging himself into the wagon and settling on Ked’s other side. “For a moment there, I was worried he’d give us trouble.”

“Thanks for the backup. You never know if you’re going to need to knock some heads around.” I strode over to the driver’s seat and poured out the contents of the purse. Setting the square coins aside in neat stacks of ten, I counted out thirty, forty, fifty…

My brows drew together. That wasn’t right. I counted again, hoping I’d been mistaken, and my stomach dropped. “Puta que pariu! He shorted us twenty!”

Throwing my hands in the air, I whirled about. My fingers itched as nails became claws, ready to raise hell, and my next step fell with murderous intent.

To my surprise, one of the twins held out an arm to stop me. “Let it go, my scowling beauty,” Vyrain said, raising a hand to play with a strand of seal-brown hair that had escaped my braid. “It’s getting late. And you wanted to make a good impression.”

I batted his hand away, opening my mouth to protest.

“Anyway, that’s more than we made all of last week,” Hohem pointed out from the back of the wagon.

“And we should get going. It’s late. Some of us are getting hungry.

” He surreptitiously indicated Ked, who was gripping his stomach with a distraught look on his face.

Yrra didn’t look up from his work, but his neck was flushing indigo, a sign of emotional distress. He didn’t cope well with conflict.

The unfairness of the situation made me grind my teeth, but I was trying to be more easygoing.

A reputation for getting physical with customers didn’t go over well when one was desperate for work.

With some luck, we’d made a repeat client this time.

Semiregular work that underpaid was better than struggling to find anything at all, especially with how slow the season had been.

As much as it hurt, letting it go was the right move.

“Fine,” I grumbled, gathering the coins again to return them to the purse in handfuls. “But just so you know, I’m not going to be the one to tell Daethie.”

At my announcement, Yrra shyly met my gaze and touched one finger to his flat nose. The corner of my mouth quirked upward at the familiar human gesture.

“Yrra’s not doing it, either. That leaves one of you clowns,” I told Hohem and Vyrain as I pulled myself into the driver’s seat. They exchanged an uncertain look.

“What is ‘klonns?’” Vyrain asked, seating himself beside me.

Not in the mood to come up with a comprehensive explanation of what a clown was, I answered, “People who look funny,” which Vyrain appeared to consider quite seriously.

“So it’s my appearance that’s the problem? I admit I haven’t met one of your kind before, but I would have assumed we’re perfectly compatible. Unless this isn’t your original form.”

I didn’t miss the thoughtful once-over he gave me. Directing my gaze upward to the sky, I prayed for patience from any holy spirit that might be listening. “It’s not a question of ‘compatibility.’ I’m not interested. That’s all.”

Vyrain made an unhappy sound somewhere deep in his throat, but to my relief, was silent for the rest of the scenic ride to the encampment we called home.