Elle, Zhang, and Tran pulled back from the table. Zhang grabbed his target cape and pulled it back on, standing straight and tall and with purpose. They were going to go back to the safe room and attempt to communicate with Na and tell her the new plan.

“Good luck,” I whispered to Elle.

“Yeah, you, too,” she said, looking over her shoulder at Donut, who was currently forcing the fleshmancer to brush her. We’d just transferred mercenary ownership over to our guild. The strange human appeared to be enjoying himself while Linus watched. The soother alien was gently patting Donut’s chain mail crupper, which caused it to jingle. Even though the tourist was half-corporeal, he was really here. He started running his long fingers over her tail.

“I’m touching her, I’m touching her,” he said.

Elle raised her voice. “You, Linus. Stay here. If I catch word you do or say anything perverted, I’ll have someone in the outside world break your creepy little fingers. You understand?”

“Such a fuzzy little pussy,” he said, stroking Donut’s tail. “You smell so good. Elle doesn’t let me sniff her.” He leaned down and whispered something to Donut. Then he took his triple-segmented index finger and stuck it in his mouth and started sucking on it.

Donut turned. “Excuse me? What did you just say?”

“All right, never mind,” Elle said. “Linus, you’re coming with us.”

“Oh goody,” the alien said, jumping up.

“Carl, you need to get ready!” Donut cried. The sunglasses appeared on her face. “What do you think, Grigori? With or without sunglasses?”

“With,” the fleshmancer said, speaking for the first time.

“I agree,” Donut replied. She let out a long sigh. “This isn’t the cleanest establishment for a concert, but I suppose it’ll have to do. I know I’ll be able to hit the right key, but Mordecai made a few special potions, compounded together, for us to make sure Carl and I are in proper sync. A shame, really, that it won’t be a pure performance. It’s not as bad as lip-synching, of course, but what’re you going to do?”

I felt strangely nervous. I knew the potion would work, and that I’d be able to sing, but I still felt . . . weird about it. The compounding was something new that he’d been working on, and it was a way to get around potion cooldowns when we needed to take several at once.

I’d never sung in my life, except when I was hammered at a bar with a bunch of other coasties. And that was years ago.

As it turned out, if we did a duet with one of the guild-entrance songs, we both had performance bars, and it was possible for only one of us to succeed.

This particular song wasn’t technically a duet in the traditional sense, but it was listed as having two singers in the book, and that’s what really mattered.

I would be taking the lead. We did it this way because Donut only had a few lines, meaning the chances that she would be successful were much higher, even though we’d picked a song that was pretty hard to sing. Hopefully, I’d be able to get in, too, but if not, I was confident in Donut’s ability to charm Porky out of the guild.

In addition to the potion, Donut would be using her headset with the Auto-Tune turned to the max. The double microphones were unnecessary, but there was no way around it. And I had to use a scroll to make certain I was physically able to hit the proper notes. The scroll was called Gelded Choirboy. Even if I could sing, this song wasn’t in a register my deeper voice could normally hit. We weren’t taking any chances.

Mordecai insisted the name of the spell wasn’t literal.

The scroll would make my voice a little squeaky, so I was going to wait until the last possible second to read it. The singing potion would last a long while, so I took it now. I felt the warmth spread through me.

You’ve been Honeyed! You are able to control your singing much better now.

You’ve been Yo-Yo Ma’d! You have perfect pitch! You will be able to determine a note just by hearing it!

You’ve been Dio’d! You can hold your voice for much longer!

Donut zapped Mongo out into the room. The large dinosaur screeched in surprise and started waving his wings. Several patrons cried out and jumped back.

“What the hell, Donut?” I asked. “Why isn’t he in the garage guarding Hedy?”

“Jamal is in there with some of the slugs. She’ll be fine. I don’t want Mongo to miss Uncle Carl’s stage debut! He would never forgive me! Isn’t that right, Mongo? Aren’t you excited?”

Mongo let out an excited screech and waved his wings some more.

I met eyes with Imani, and she smiled, genuinely smiled, at me.

“I don’t know why you’re so set on completing this quest, but I ain’t gonna lie, Carl. I’ve been looking forward to this moment for a long time.”

I grinned back at her. I wished I could tell her how important this truly was. Instead, I just said, “I hope you like Norwegian music.”

“Wait, what are you going to sing?”

The DJ, who’d been on the floor yelling at Dwight—who still hadn’t moved—returned to his booth and tapped his microphone.

“Singing ‘Take on Me’ by A-ha, it’s Princess Donut and Carl! Get on up here you two.”

Donut hopped up and down. “It’s time! It’s time!” She raised the volume on her headset. “Okay, everyone! I want you to put your hands together. This will be Carl’s first time singing ever! So let’s give him some encouragement!”

The small crowd started to roar.

“A-ha?” Imani asked, raising an eyebrow.

“There were only a few two-singer songs on the list,” I said. “If it doesn’t work, we have a few backup songs planned. The good thing is, we can keep trying until we get in.”

“Elle is gonna be pissed she missed this.” She turned and raised her hand, motioning at Chris, Florin, Bautista, Britney, and Jurgen, who’d all just entered. They started moving toward the back.

The bar, which had been half-full until this moment, was suddenly more packed than I’d ever seen it.

I saw Dong Quixote in the entrance looking at me. He gave me a sheepish smile. He started walking toward us, his giant sock over his shoulder like Santa’s bag. Bucket Boy rushed in and grabbed him by the shoulder.

“Hurry up, Carl!” Donut said, bounding toward the stage. “No, Mongo. You stay back here. You can stand on the table and watch. Mommy will be right back.”

I sighed and approached the platform. Dekoki the kappa and Yuto the Oni from team Yokai both patted me on the back. So did one of the skeletons from the Bleak Congregation. The gremlin DJ had a small microphone onstage already attached to a stand and placed at Donut height. He slapped a second microphone into my palm as I turned to face the crowd. A pair of screens sat at an angle, facing the stage, showing the lyrics.

A pair of happy faces danced back and forth on the screen with the words “Get Ready to Sing!”

I activated the Gelded Choirboy scroll.

You’ve been Choired! What a beautiful voice you have!

Donut looked up at me. I could see my reflection in her sunglasses. My cheeks were burning red, and I wasn’t sure if that was nerves or if it was a side effect of the Choirboy scroll.

“Remember, Carl. Just sing naturally. It’s okay if you mess this up. I already put us down for a second go just in case. Follow my lead, and we’ll be fine.”

“I’m ready,” I said. I startled at my own voice. I sounded as if I’d just sucked on a balloon full of helium.

“Here we go,” the DJ called. The music started to play, filling the club with the happy synth pop that could’ve only originated in the 1980s. The crowd cheered and started blissfully jumping up and down to the beat. The little performance gauges appeared over each of our heads. Across the bar, Mongo screeched with encouragement.

Okay. You can do this.

And that’s when Dwight the unicorn stabbed the DJ in the face with his horn.