Welcome to FrankiVerse Cafe and Casino — the multiversal mayhem arena where the house always wins, the slot machines dispense pirate treasure to whoever needs it most, and the FrankiVerse Cafe location off the cardamom corridor doesn't appear on any floor plan but is always exactly where you need it to be.

FrankiVerse Cafe: Infinite Patrons — Casino Edition is the second volume in the Infinite Patrons character compendium series and the official prequel to the FrankiVerse Cafe After Hours broadcast. Meet the full roster of the Foxander Casino and Resort Complex — the gorilla head of security who knits in natural fibers only and takes bets on throwing distance. The rhino accountant who has been inside Fort Knox and can confirm it contains vanilla cake with buttercream frosting. The leopard CMO who has painted every train on Earth in watercolor and oil pastel and has never once ridden one, saving it for retirement. The panther events coordinator who is ostensibly dismantling old Earth matrices in his sleep and is actually orchestrating the most elaborate meet-cute in multiversal history. The meerkat dealer who connects to the molecular structure of the cards. The tiger talent manager with a firm policy about backup dancers and a flexible policy about consequences. The lion concierge who does not own a single pair of socks that wasn't handmade. The gold personal shopper who ate twenty pounds of BBQ ribs in under twenty minutes to prove a point and would absolutely do it again.

And more — the salon at the end of the multiverse, the After Hours broadcast hosts, the stand-up comedian who wants to sell out the auditorium, the DJs who set the frequency of any room they walk into, the roller derby queen on a scouting mission, the night manager whose leather journal contains everything he officially remembers nothing about, and two travelers who came through a heart-shaped portal in the south of France and found exactly what they were looking for.

At the center of it all is Morrish the selkie barista, who smells of saltwater, keeps a small starfish behind one ear, observes everything, and notes it quietly in the log.

This book began with real paintings on the walls of a house in the south of France, a pool, a view of vineyards and sunflower fields, and a notes app open during a spiritual retreat where two people met in person for the first time after falling in love across opposite ends of the planet. The mysterious artist whose paintings inspired every character in this book was never found. In the FrankiVerse Cafe universe, this is because she is the oracle — the creator goddess whose paintings do not represent beings but bring them into existence.

Her work is on these pages. She left no name. She left everything else.

Deadpan absurdist warm punchy fiction for neurodivergent minds, cosmic thinkers, and anyone who has ever followed a smell of cardamom down a corridor and found something on the other side that wasn't on any floor plan but was exactly right.

The FrankiVerse Cafe After Hours broadcast is now running. You are already tuned in.