I had a pen, a list, and three whole items on it, which felt like progress right up until Gwen shoved an apron at my chest.
Gwen: You want to be useful? Take the tea tray out before Rufus starts eating furniture.
The Hush at eleven in the morning is like a pub after a funeral. Chairs up, lights low, someone breathing heavy in the corner.
That someone was Rufus, and he was roughly the size of a bus with a beard.
Rufus: That her? Rennick's little bitch? The one that got him killed, and now she's down here eating our bread?
The word landed like a dropped tray. Everyone heard it. Everyone turned to look at the small human in the apron.
I put the cup down in front of him. My hand only shook a bit, which I counted as a win.
Mabel: I'm not the one who brought the teeth. But I'm the one bringing you tea, so be nice to me.
Rufus: Nice. She says be nice.
A voice from the back said something about my fingers and a jar, and the whole room laughed. All except Rufus.
Rufus: Shut it, all of you. She's got a tray. Let her do her job.
Tibby was next, and Tibby was a problem in a cardigan.
Tibby: No no no. There's a human. She's going to see something, and then we're all dead. Oh shit, we're all going to be dead.
Mabel: I've already seen something. Twice. I'm still standing. Drink your tea and stop shouting.
He drank it. All of it. Then he held the cup out for more like a kid asking for a second biscuit.
Tibby: It's good.
Mabel: It's a tea bag.
Then the shouting started, because of course it did. There's no peace in this place, just quieter bits.
Rufus: Say that again about my door, you little leech, and I'll pull your fucking arms off and use them as spoons!
Tibby: Your door is rubbish! A wet paper bag could get through it! You're the bouncer, so bounce!
Two grown monsters, screaming about a door, while the rest of the bar took bets.
And some old, tired part of me, the part that did lost property at rush hour, thought: I have handled worse than this.
Mabel: Hey. HEY.
Mabel: I made toast. It's going cold. Keep shouting and I'm giving it to the witch in the corner.
Rufus: That's my toast.
Tibby: That's my toast.
Mabel: Sit down and eat it. Whoever shouts again loses their crust.
Rufus sat. Tibby sat. Tibby actually put his hands in his lap like a kid at a school assembly.
Tibby: She's terrifying.
Rufus: She's a clerk.
Then I looked up, and the whole bar was staring at me. Werewolves, vampires, a witch, and one thing I have decided not to think about.
Gwen: Well. That's new.
Ambrose stood in the door to the back hall, arms folded, and he wasn't looking at them. He was looking at me.
Ambrose: You gave them toast.
Mabel: They were shouting. Toast is a very good thing to shout at.
Ambrose: That's the first quiet we've had in here all week. Rufus, sit down.
Rufus: I am sitting down.
Ambrose: Then sit down properly.
Ambrose: You didn't have to handle them. That was my job.
Mabel: If I'm stuck down here, I'm not going to be stuck down here being useless. I'd rather be hated than useless.
He looked at me for a long moment. I looked at the floor, because the other option was looking back.
I went back to my list and wrote number three: keep the monsters from killing each other before lunch.
Number four was harder. Number four was: get them to trust me without handing over my whole neck.
Because trusting them back was starting to feel less like a plan and more like a habit.