The pub was full of dark wood just like the last one, but this one had more tables placed closer together so it was more like those back home. It seemed the owner of the place planned on making money from all the crowded tables. It was so crowded in fact that if Jake and Kaazim hadn’t already been there holding tables in the corner, we’d have never gotten seats together and maybe not at all.

   Normally I wouldn’t have liked the level of noise and crowd, but today it was a nice change from the strangely empty pub where Flannery had taken us. This one felt like a real business; the other one had felt like a front where you did things that didn’t really have to do with drinking or food.

   There is always that moment when you have police officers or combat vets when no one wants to sit with his back to the door, but there’s usually no way to avoid it for a large party. Jake and Kaazim had gotten there first, so they had seats with a good view of the room and a solid wall at their backs. I expected them to offer me a seat beside them—I was queen and all, or was going to be—but Jake stood up and did the air-kiss thing as a greeting, which he’d never, ever done, but he used it to whisper, “You need to sit where you can get up easily.”

   I was already tired of the whole clandestine thing, but I nodded, smiled and went along with it. I ended up sitting at the end of the table with my back to part of the room, but at least I could see the main door from the corner of my eye, and the bar with the door to the kitchen area was straight in front of me. Nathaniel sat by me, but at the corner of the table so his back was to the main door. He was used to sitting that way most of the time when we went out with enough of the guards. Damian was tucked under the table at our feet again. Dev didn’t fight that his back was to the door here any more than he had at the last pub, because he could hold Nathaniel’s hand. But he looked at the mirror above our table and I realized he could see the whole room in it, including the door. I tried to remember if there had been a mirror in the last place, but if there’d been one, it had been too small for me to notice. Ethan drew the short straw and had to sit beside Dev, but he was using the mirror, too. Really, there were no terrible seats here. Jake and Kaazim had done well. Edward sat beside Kaazim so he’d be closer to our conversation, with Nicky and Domino beside him. Nolan and Flannery were actually on the other end, opposite me. I thought at first their seats were bad because they had their backs to the bar and kitchen entrance, but there was another large mirror on the wall in front of them. Either through reflections or direct line of sight, we all had pretty good seats.

   The waitress got our drink orders. I asked for a Coke and a glass of water, because apparently hydration helped with jet lag, so part of my problem was I hadn’t had enough water, or so Edward told me. At Nolan’s suggestion, most of us ordered the Guinness beef stew. Most of the men ordered either Guinness to go with the stew or another local beer or ale. Nathaniel was the only one who got just water; even Edward indulged in a local stout that Flannery recommended.

   The waitress set a couple small, useless napkins down in front of me before she set my water on one, but she hesitated before putting the Coke on the other napkin, and I realized there was writing on the napkin. In neat block letters, the message read, “Ladies’ room, five minutes.”

   I fought not to look up at the waitress in any way that wasn’t perfectly normal. She had medium brown hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, dark brown eyes, and a pale face, so either she needed just a little makeup or she was pale for other reasons. Was she going to be meeting me in the bathroom? Was she the informant? Was she scared? Was that why she was pale?

   Nathaniel and Dev both noticed the napkin. Jake probably did, too, but he didn’t show it. I tried to act as normal as Jake and Kaazim, but I knew I failed. I wasn’t sure I was even as smooth as Nathaniel. Dev was strangely good at it, too.

   The waitress set the drink down on the napkin, and the moisture began to smear the writing almost immediately. She didn’t look at me again, just handed out the other drinks. I checked my watch for the time and started keeping track of it. Was I supposed to go alone, or were there other people getting messages with their drinks? I was bad at undercover work for more than one reason. It made me antsy and gave me a huge urge to poke at things.

   Edward got up first, though he had to make people move for him to get out. He didn’t announce he was going to the bathroom, but it seemed logical. If I’d had Magda or Fortune with me, we could have done the girl thing of never going to the bathroom alone and I’d have had bodyguards with me, but being the only girl made it sort of awkward. Flannery got up next.

   At four minutes, I made my apologies and got up from the table to meet our mystery woman. Dev started to rise, but Nicky beat him to it. He followed at my back like a shadow with no apologies that he was doing anything but guarding me. So much for clandestine.

   The bathrooms were in a narrow hallway of their own that had another exit at the end of it. Nicky and I started to have a discussion on him checking the room first, but the door opened enough that Edward was able to motion us both inside. Flannery was already leaning against the sinks, looking unhappy. Once the door closed behind us, he let me know why he was unhappy.

   “You cannot trust them, Forrester. It’s why they weren’t at the other meeting.”

   “If they are her animals to call, then they should know more about the local vampires than anyone we’ve interviewed so far,” Edward said.

   “Who are we talking about?” I asked.

   “The local Selkies.”

   “Roanes for Ireland,” Flannery said.

   “Roanes, Selkies, whatever—who are they?” Nicky asked.

   “Seal people,” I said.

   “You mean wereseals?” he asked.

   “No, they’re more like the clan tigers, born seals, not made by an attack,” I said.

   “They are also the animals tied to the vampire master of Ireland,” Flannery said. “They may give us information, or they may spy for her. Until we know for certain that she isn’t behind the vampires spreading through Dublin, we have to treat her as our major suspect for the mastermind behind all of it.”

   “Why are you suddenly so reluctant to talk to another supernatural being?” I asked.

   “Because Auntie Nim warned me that the Roane are so terrified of their mistress, they will do anything she commands. If they fail her, she tortures or kills them. If that was the price for disobeying her, then they cannot be trusted, Blake.”

   “Or maybe that gives them the best reason to be trustworthy,” I said.

   There was a soft knock at the door, and our brown-haired waitress stuck her head in, as if checking that we were all there. She looked even paler than she had before; she was scared. Was she a seal maiden like in the old stories? The next person through the door was a man. He was only a little taller than me, about Mort’s height, but he was more obviously muscled, as if he’d bulk up if he tried harder. His hair was black, straight, and long enough that he ran a hand through it to tuck it behind his ears. He had large, dark eyes so truly black that the color of his iris made it impossible to tell that he even had a pupil in the middle of that perfect liquid blackness. The eyes dominated his face the way that Nathaniel’s could, and he was almost as fair of face as my fiancé.