“NOT MAGIC, JUST technology. The same trusty technology humanity has been using in place of magic since the dawn of man.” Jo did one final sweep of the desktop, making sure she’d erased all trace of her presence on the computer. Even if she could disappear into thin air with a tap of her watch, old habits involving covering her tracks were hard to break.

Wayne was unconvinced. “Firstly, technology has not replaced magic from the dawn of man. Secondly, while technology was involved, I know magic when I see it.”

“Not everything in the world is magic. The supernatural is what technology can’t explain yet,” she countered on instinct. Jo inwardly cringed the moment she espoused the same thing she’d heard for years as a kid.

“Really? You have that opinion now? Just when you seem to be settling in to being part of a magic society?”

Jo shook her head. “Ignore me. I’m sounding like my father and I hate that.”

Wayne watched her carefully for a long second, and gave a nod. “Can’t have that, can we, doll?”

“Definitely not.” Jo unlocked the door, swinging it open just enough before she tapped her watch. The hotel was oblivious to their presence as they stepped out of the private office. Wayne strode over to a grouping of couches, plopped himself down on one and motioned for her to follow. As she sat, he pushed the button on his watch and Jo did the same with hers.

One bellhop seemingly noticed their pop back into reality. He was so startled from his daydreams, staring off at nothing in their general direction, that he nearly fell over standing in place. He blinked at them twice, shook his head, and looked away.

“Shall we check in?” Wayne stood.

“Why did we sit?” Jo wondered aloud as she followed him back toward the front desk.

“I find it’s less jarring if you’re not in people’s line of sight when you activate your time.” He shrugged. “No matter how you appear, they just sort of play it off as if they haven’t been paying enough attention to their surroundings. But that process moves faster if it’s more of a ‘corner of the eye’ kind of thing. Being lower helps with that.”

Jo looked back at the bellhop who was still regarding them warily. “I get that, I guess.”

“Checking in for two, Espinosa.” Wayne leaned against the counter smugly. His eyes drifted over the set-up where a woman was presumably pulling up their reservations. If Jo didn’t know better, she’d have said he was the hotelier stopping in to make sure everything was running according to his expectations.

Jo watched him thoughtfully, putting aside his tiresome antics of clinging to the 1920s and incessant use of “doll” to see the man with new eyes. His suit, while dated, looked like it was freshly pressed. It was tailored with impeccable skill and had an air of “intentional retro” that almost seemed to fit with the two-hundred-fifty-year-old hotel. He looked well put-together.

In contrast. . . Jo looked down at her bargain-bin jeans and tired hoodie. She did not look like someone who would be checking into the penthouse of a five-star hotel.

Or maybe she did.

Jo leaned against the counter as well, pretending she owned the place, pretending she owned the whole damn city. She’d seen billionaires who never changed out of sweatpants and heiresses who couldn’t be bothered to think of anything more than their standard-issue black tank tops. It didn’t matter how she looked; it mattered how she acted.

Jo decided she was acting like she was nothing less than a woman who owned the world.

“I’d also like a bottle of champagne sent up to the room later tonight,” Jo demanded.

“Yes, of course. . . Do you have any preference on the vintage?”

“The nicest one you have.”

“Now you’re talking.” Wayne appraised her with a long rake of his eyes, as if seeing her for the first time.

“Charge it to the room,” Jo added. They were disappearing on the tab if it was one hundred or one thousand euro. So why not make it one thousand? This wasn’t some small mom-and-pop operation, like the café. A hotel this swanky and established would be fine footing the bill of their mysterious patrons.

“Certainly. Is there anything else we can do to make your stay more enjoyable?” the clerk asked.

“Nothing I can think of right now, but you’ll be the first to know.”

The woman behind the counter looked at both of their wrists. Jo knew what was coming next before it happened. “If I can just have your watch to Bluetooth the room key. . .”

“I’m afraid the thing’s busted.” Jo tapped it to life, very careful not to pull it off the stopwatch. “Stuck on this screen.”

“No trouble, we can give you temporary keys.” The woman fumbled behind the counter for several moments until she found a forgotten box of plastic room keys, the sort of thing you’d expect to see in a retro motel and not a five-star establishment. Two long minutes, and several apologies later for not quite knowing how the system for temporary keys worked, Jo and Wayne had room keys in hand.

Jo was already paranoid about losing hers.

“Okay, we have the room, what next?” Wayne asked as they waited for the elevators to take them all the way up to the lavish accommodations that would be their home and home base.

“Now, I do a bit of shopping.” Her insides squirmed with excitement at the word. She was going to make the dream set-up the mansion had given her a reality.