When Lux pushed open the door to the bar, a hunchback with one arm tried to trip him. Lux knocked him down without a second thought and looked for Gula. He always had the same booth, near the back under a broken lantern that flickered just above his head. Most of the patrons were horrible, sniveling looking men, if they were even human, and Gula stood out like a sore thumb.

Gula was a massive man, easily weighing a quarter of a ton, and well over six-feet-tall. Lux had never seen Gula come or go, so he could never understand exactly how he fit into the booth. His dark hair hung just past his shoulders, and his green eyes were always smiling. Lux had always suspected that Gula would be an attractive man underneath the rolls of fat, but he’d never had the chance to see him that way.

Thick red barbecue sauce covered his mouth, hands, and face. Even when he wiped it clean, his skin had a perpetual stain from being covered in it so frequently. A platter on the table overflowed with the greasy, fat goblin wings, and their brittle bones littered the floor where Gula discarded them. An amber pitcher of mead sat at the table, its edges marked with barbecue lipstick from where he drank from it. Gula had no need for tableware of any kind.

“How are the wings tonight?” Lux smiled and slid into the booth across from him. He leaned as far back in the booth as he could, afraid of getting splatter on his shirt.

“Lux, my good man!” Gula’s face spread into a happy grin. “I didn’t see you come in!” He hadn’t seen him because he never bothered to look up from his food, not unless it was gone.

“I’m quiet as a mouse.” Lux looked away from his friend and motioned for the bartender to bring him a pitcher.

“Well, that’s probably very good about now.” Gula wiped off his chin with the back of his arm.

“What do you mean?” Lux slipped off one of his rings and bobbed it back and forth over his knuckles. He did it mostly to busy himself, since he hated watching Gula eat. Few things in life were less appetizing than watching him slam down wing after wing.

“You know.” Gula looked around and lowered his voice, then leaned across the table as much as his gut would let him. “Our boss.”

“What are you talking about?” Lux stopped fiddling with his ring and looked at him sharply.

“You don’t know what you didn’t do?” Gula’s face scrunched with confusion.

“No. I don’t even know what that means.” Lux shook his head. The bartender dropped a pitcher and a glass on the table, making them clank loudly. Lux barely glanced at him, preferring to study Gula’s reactions.

“What did you do last night?” Gula asked, still keeping his voice quiet.

“This is about the job?” Lux knew it was about the job, but he wanted to know how much Gula, and Valefor, knew about all of this, so he played dumb. He also had no intention of telling anyone about Lily, or what he’d done with her.

“Did you do the job last night?” Gula asked.

“I picked up a package,” Lux replied evasively and poured himself a glass of mead. The glass was still dirty, so he wiped at the rim with his sleeve before taking a drink. “Why? What did you hear? How do you even know about it?”

“How do you think?” Gula gave him a hard look and bit into another wing.

“I don’t know what you do or how you find out what’s going on.” Lux stared down at the glass on the table, turning it absently. “I mean this as inoffensively as possible, but I’ve never understood the point of you. As far as I can tell, you only sit here, eating and drinking.”

“I do more than that,” Gula said jovially. “I do whatever the boss asks of me, but this is the point of me. We’re all supposed to spread our part, and luckily for me, my part is eating and drinking as much as I can.” He took another huge bite, and with a mouth full of food, he continued. “Your part has always been women, which is why they suspect you have a hand in this.”

“What are you talking about?” Lux looked up at him and wiped at spittle that had landed on his forehead. “And please don’t talk with your mouth full, Gula. This is a very expensive suit.”

“You have more suits than I have goblin wings.” Gula rolled his eyes and gulped down the rest of his food. “Last night, were you sent to pick up a girl?”

“I was.” Lux took another drink of his mead.

“That girl never arrived at her appointed destination,” Gula looked at him seriously. “And I don’t want to know where she is or what happened. The boss wants me to find out and report back to him, but he won’t come out here to speak to me, so …” He shrugged.

“Can’t he just get another girl?” Lux asked. “There’s nothing special about this one.”

As soon as he said it, he knew it was a lie. He couldn’t place it, but there had to be something about her. He couldn’t stop thinking of her, and he’d disobeyed Valefor for the first time in his long tenure of service.

“I don’t know,” Gula shook his head. “He wants this one, but he isn’t saying why. She’s very valuable to him.” He lowered his voice even more, afraid of who might be overhearing. That’s why he never used Valefor’s name in public, lest someone be listening. “You need to bring him that girl.”

“What if I can’t?” Lux asked.

“Did you kill her?” Gula’s eyes widened with shock.

“No, you know I’ve never been fond of murder. It’s far too messy.” He took off his ring so he could roll it over his knuckles again and stared off at an empty point on the wall. “I just… I can’t give her to him.” He sighed heavily, unsure of how to explain it. “For one thing, I don’t have her. But even if I did … she’s put some kind of spell on me. I can’t stop thinking about her or worrying, and I can’t let him destroy her.”

“You know what your problem is?” Gula asked. “You’re too pretty. You’ve always been too pretty, and you get everything you want. You can’t always get it, Lux. You can have nearly everything, but you can’t have the things that belong to our boss.”

“I’ve been afforded all the same opportunities in this life as you,” Lux shook his head. “And that’s not what this is about. It has nothing to do with our boss.”