Saina wasn’t sure how this had turned into such a production. The little conference room behind the kitchen was crammed with people and suggestions. Her pink suitcase was open on the table on a plastic trash bag. The goldshot sludge had dried to a brittle crust.

Travis had brought an array of plastering tools and a bucket of gypsum. Chef had bins of flour and sugar.

“I don’t want to kill him if he actually takes it,” Saina said firmly, looking with question at Travis’ bucket. “It just needs to fool him for a little while.”

Laura picked up a crust of goldshot with a gloved hand. Jenny, like a double-image beside her, poked a piece with her pen. “Are you sure it’s safe to touch?”

“It won’t have any effect on you unless you’re a dragon,” Saina promised.

Jenny’s face quirked into a smile. “Well, I don’t think so, but I didn’t know I was an otter for the longest time, so who knows!” She kept her bare hands well away.

Chef boldly plucked a rind of the substance off and held it up to the light. It had a slight iridescent sparkle to it. “How heavy did you say the cakes were?”

“Maybe 3 kilos apiece,” Saina guessed, showing the size with her hands. “Denser than you’d think.”

Half the staff looked at her blankly while the others nodded. “A little more than 6 pounds,” she added for the Americans and English.

“A quarter of a brick of gold,” Breck offered. Saina wasn’t even sure why the waiter was there, or how he knew the weight of a brick of gold.

“Fruitcake,” Graham suggested dryly. Even the dour landscaper had shown up for the meeting Saina hadn’t known she’d called.

Chef looked thoughtful. “I could do a dense cake and we probably have enough here to frost one over with the real stuff.” He crumbled the piece in his hand and tested how well it pressed back together. “I’ll have to make a binder. Sugar, probably. That will match the sparkle and set up nicely.”

“Will he smell the difference?” Tex asked. “I’ve known some drinkers who could tell the watered-down stuff from across the bar. And they were just human.”

“It will be wrapped in plastic, and the suitcase is so saturated with the stuff, I imagine it will mask the weakness of the rest,” Saina guessed. “Bastian should be able to give us an idea of how well it will work.”

“And if he does eat it?” Tex queried. “You don’t offer a shot to a recovering alcoholic.”

Saina had wrestled with the morality of every aspect of their plan. “I am bound not work magic on him, or I could try to sing it out of him. Fortunately, goldshot works itself entirely out of the system within a few weeks of being clean, so all we have to do is see that he doesn’t get a supply for a while.”

“I’m not sure there’s even a full dose here,” Chef said. “It’s enough to frost a brick, and maybe fool him, but I’m not convinced it would actually be a fix.”

“We’ll need to clean the outside of the suitcase,” Jenny suggested, lifting the open lid with her pen.

Travis scraped a shard of the goldshot off the suitcase with one of his tools. “I can color match this. We can pack the suitcase with fake bricks and one real one.”

“Almost real,” Chef corrected.

“What if he grabs the wrong brick to inspect?” Laura asked.

There was a moment of silence, then Wrench, standing in the back with his big arms crossed, suggested, “Take the right one out and put it on top of the suitcase when you open the negotiations.”

There was a chorus of approval for the idea.

Wrench gave a dry laugh. “It’s like you’ve never been in on a drug deal before.”

“This is a fascinating conversation to walk in on.”

Scarlet stood in the doorway; none of them had even heard her open the door.

The staff froze in a tableau of guilt.

“I’m sure this proposed drug deal has everything to do with the fact that only my lifeguard is on duty right now, in the middle of a busy afternoon,” she said mildly, looking straight at Saina.

Saina cleared her throat to formulate an explanation, but Chef beat her to the punch.

“We’re all helping Miss Saina get her grandmother out of a bit of a pinch,” he explained simply.

“And it’s not really a drug,” Travis added. “Most of it will be gypsum.”

“And technically, she isn’t even dealing for the false drug,” Jenny added. “It’s a really just a standard contract negotiation with a red herring. It might not hold up in a real court, but it doesn’t actually have to.”

“And it’s her grandmother,” Laura insisted.

Breck joked, “We’ve got to get her voice back from the sea witch before the sun sets on the third day!”

Tex elbowed Breck.

“Well, she got her true love’s kiss already and that didn’t work,” Breck protested.

Saina, still locking gazes with Scarlet, shut her mouth. She wasn’t even sure how the others had gleaned so much of the story from her, but she was touched by their quick protection, if not the Disney references.

“I have something that may help you,” Scarlet said mildly.

In her hand was a syringe.