Of course the wizard would spend his free time in the kind of bar that only tended to exist in the human canon. There had to be a certain type of patron that attended it. It was the kind of man had all the tact of the average human consumer at the meadery that didn't have a sense of smell and the unfortunate woman that had married him.

  I wasn't in the marrying mood so for the sake of my current situation, I was going to have to be the man with no taste. It is an easy to do if you're one of the fae folk. We grew up playing pretend. You never knew when you were going to have to put on the show for a fae lord. If there was one thing that the faith Lords were known for, it was having the exact amount of tact as the men who patronized the Meadery.

  Every man either had a beer mug in his hand or was smoking like he judged that it would be out of style soon. There were windows they kept the place from being smoke filled, but enough of the smoke had adhered to the walls and seats that the smell would never leave. Martin and I paused at the entrance.

  "Is this because wizards are generally celibate or something? Or is it because they only like men? Is that a thing that happens?"

  "If you're talking about this," Martin gestured into the smoke filled room. "It's definitely an acquired taste."

  "I really doubt that he's going to be in here but if we're going to stick around can we get the table next to a window because I don't want this to affect my hair. I didn't bring my gas mask, either."

  Martin took the initiative and flagged down someone to get us a table and then we were sitting and observing everyone around. This was the kind of place that never played music, although it definitely had a place where that could have happened. There was a place where a small stage could be setup that was currently home to three raised chairs and tables.

  They really went the opposite of all out here. I don't think that they really consider this place to be a business when they made it. I don't know why all these men are here but I tell you what. If your guy is here we will find him."

  Martin scanned the crowd. I know what he was looking for. I waited for my own drink. We had rested all the night prior and most of the morning. The Meadery wasn't busy most of the day but it picked up late in the afternoon. That was what the custom was, humans like their dinner at a certain time so we went on a little dinner date. I would have picked any other place to eat it. Hell out of preferred one of the little food carts but we need to scope out this place. I wanted to see if we could find a man so we had to do it.

  Before long we had our drinks and a promise of the special. It turned out to be something that was surprisingly cooked well for what it was. I just worried that the man here had no taste because all of the cigar smoke and pipe smoke had to have dulled their senses.

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  "I don't think that any wiz is going to show up here today, but maybe we'll find a few. I'm not sensing anything in the air. If humans can just hide their magic then that's not a thing."

  "I guess you're back on this thing. Calling us all humans. I mean it's fine. It just makes you stand out. Not that the ears didn't make you stand out to begin with.."

  "There's nothing wrong with my ears."

  "You and I both know that it's just unusual and I think that it's so fetching on you. You are breathtaking."

  "I might be taking a lot of breaths here because the smoke is so heavy. Damn do wizards always find these places or are they custom made for them. It's like we can't have anything nice, can we?"

  "Well they can't have anything nice but that's more on them for being shut ins and miscreants. They're really the ones that are suffering in this equation."

  "I highly doubt that. Whoever chooses one of them for my partner is going to be the one suffering honestly. And I'm getting going to say that they probably need to just date within the wizarding community and probably find other wizards that are just like them."

  That wasn't exactly what should happen. But I had an idea of what they liked now and I was not going to let this one slide unnoticed. It was nice to be there with a good looking man but it was not just a date. We were there for work and our Target had not arrived. After 2 hours we had eaten. We drank and if I had another drink then we might not be able to make it back at the boat that night. But still it was just a bunch of wizards wearing their funky hats and smoking.

  "I'm just saying that if I need to have a funny hat like that, I'm going to wear a funny hat but I don't see a reason for it. And aside from my gas and I said I don't really see any reason for much. I might want to braid my hair once in awhile but that's different."

  Martin laughed. "I bet your hair looks good. If have it all tied up like that. I couldn't see it but I'm sure it looks lovely."

  "It does and I'm not just saying that because I want you to help me later on with it. When I learn how to do this traditional braid I was all about it. But now I don't really see the need for it. But if we're going to be running around here, I might want to get some of those special hair pins they have. It's easier when you're running around trying to escape from a shade. If your hair doesn't go into your eyes. I'd hate to think it would happen more often if I did that though."

  "You're not going to give us bad luck because you change your hairstyle to be more appropriate for the line of work that we do. And yeah, it doesn't make sense that you would switch it up from time to time to adapt to what we're doing, but now? This is low stress. Unless the man walks to that door right now. I'm going to call it soon. You can come back tomorrow but I think I'm going to start asking around to see if anyone knows our guy."

  "You do that. I'm considering a fourth glass of wine."