From behind the bar, you learn to read people the way you read pressure gauges. You can tell who is celebrating by the loosened collar, who is grieving by the way they cradle the glass like it might crack, and who is lying by the careful stillness of their hands.

These four were the third kind, and they were trying very hard to look like the first.

They sat shoulder to shoulder on cogwheel stools, the teeth of the metal rims biting the floor every time they shifted. Their outfits were a love letter to Victorian vanity and industrial practicality: leather harnesses with too many buckles, brass filigree on cuffs, goggles perched like punctuation marks above confident eyes. If you didn’t know elves, you’d miss the details. If you did know elves, you’d notice the most important one immediately.

Their ears were tiny. Tastefully small. Almost human, if the light hit them wrong.

That meant one of two things. Either they were hiding what they were, or they’d paid someone unpleasant to change what they were.

The taps behind you hissed softly, exhaling steam with every pour, the pipes gurgling like a contented kettle. You set four drinks down in a neat line, each one chosen on instinct the way sailors choose knots.

First: an amber ale with a cinnamon bite, for the one on the left. He had the kind of smile that lived in the corners of his mouth and nowhere else, like it was on a leash.

Second: a spiced mead with a glint of clove, for the woman with auburn hair pinned up with a gear-shaped comb. Her gloves were immaculate, which meant her hands weren’t.

Third: a dark stout, poured slow, for the one in the top hat. Not because he looked like he wanted it, but because he looked like he needed something to hold onto that didn’t talk back.

Fourth: a bright citrus gin fizz for the pale-blonde elf, braid over one shoulder, brass goggles catching the warm light. She watched everything like it was a mechanism she intended to dismantle later.

They didn’t reach for the drinks right away.

Instead, they stared at the bar itself.

It was a masterpiece of layered wood and burnished brass, a whole little city of texture: rivets, seams, tiny inspection plates with engraved serial numbers you’d never admit were decorative. Beneath the counter, a panel of dials tracked the line pressure like a heartbeat. The taps were shaped like elegant birds, their beaks releasing foam with a polite cough of steam.

Most customers loved it. These four studied it.

Like they were searching for where the world was stitched together.

The top-hatted one leaned forward, elbows on the bar, and finally looked you in the eye.

“Evening,” he said, voice smooth as machine oil. “We’re told you serve something… special.”

You smiled the way bartenders do when they’ve heard that line from saints, sinners, and people who can’t decide. “Define special.”

A pause. A flicker of glances between them, fast as gears catching.

Then the blonde elf slid something onto the counter with two fingers. Not a coin. Not a note.

A gear.

It was no larger than a silver dollar, but the craftsmanship made your teeth ache. The brass was old, not dirty, just… lived-in. There were micro-etchings along the rim that almost looked like floral scrollwork until you focused and realized it wasn’t decoration. It was math. A language of ratios and timing so precise your bar’s pressure dials felt like children’s toys.

She didn’t push it far. She didn’t have to. It sat between you like a dare.

“We’re looking for a drink,” she said, “that makes people forget what they shouldn’t remember.”

The auburn-haired elf added, sweetly, “Or remember what they were forced to forget.”

Two different requests, dressed up like one. The kind that gets people drowned in rivers, or married, or recruited.

You kept your face calm. Your hand went to the rag by habit, wiping an already-clean spot. Behind you, the boilers sighed.

“Plenty of drinks make people think they’ve forgotten,” you said. “Most of them are cheaper than whatever that is.”

The leftmost elf finally reached for his ale, took a sip, and winced in delight. “We don’t want cheap.”

The top-hatted one tapped the gear once with a fingernail. The sound was wrong. Too pure. Like a bell heard underwater.

“We want precise,” he said. “We were told you know someone who can pour the past into a glass.”

Now that was a name you hadn’t heard in months. Not spoken aloud, anyway. The person who taught you that every machine has a weak point, and every secret has a price.

You looked at their ears again. So small they almost vanished in the warm light.

And you made a decision.

You slid the four drinks a fraction closer. Not an invitation. A test.

“If you’re hunting the past,” you said, “you’re either desperate… or dangerous.”

The blonde elf smiled without warmth. “Can’t we be both?”

You reached under the counter and pressed a hidden latch. Somewhere in the bar’s guts, a gear shifted with a soft click. One of the antique taps, the one nobody ever used, released a slow breath of steam, like the building had just exhaled a secret.

“All right,” you said. “One round of something special. But hear me clearly.”

They leaned in, all four, eyes bright behind brass and glass.

“This isn’t a bar trick,” you whispered. “This is a doorway. And doorways swing both ways.”

The top-hatted elf raised his stout like a toast. “To doorways,” he said.

You poured.

The liquid came out the color of lamplight on old letters. It swirled as if it contained its own weather, tiny eddies of silver catching in the glass like thoughts that refused to stay buried.

For a heartbeat, the whole room held still. Even the chatter behind them softened, like the crowd was listening without knowing why.

The auburn-haired elf brought the glass to her lips and stopped, eyes suddenly raw.

“I can hear it,” she breathed.

“Hear what?” the leftmost one asked, too casual.

“My name,” she said. “The real one.”

The blonde elf’s fingers tightened on her own glass. The tiny ear you’d been watching twitched, almost imperceptibly. “Drink,” she told herself. “Just drink.”

And you, bartender of gears and steam and careful lies, watched four beautifully dressed strangers gamble with memory the way other people gamble with coins.

Because in a city built on brass and smoke, the most expensive thing you can buy is not a drink.

It’s permission to be yourself again.

Images and Story created by ChatGPT 5.2