Chapter 35
Thirty-Five
Dani hummed softly to herself as she wiped down the counter, glancing up every so often to admire the coconut-shavings of snow gathering on the sidewalk.
It was the first snow of the season, and it was shaping up to be quite a blizzard, a thought that gave her a fuzzy feeling inside, like her soul was wearing a sweater.
Today was the last day before Quarter Cast shut down temporarily for holiday break, and Dani planned to spend the next week alternating between taking long walks across the frozen city and drinking peppermint hot chocolate in bed.
It would be her first real rest since—well, ever, and even though it meant losing work hours, she could hardly say she was mad about it.
In fact, she might even say she deserved it.
Dani put down the rag she was holding, adjusted her name tag, and propped her hands on her hips, surveying the empty café, a queen overseeing her kingdom at peace.
Burren had done a lovely job decorating for the holiday, with fresh boughs of pine and cedar above the windows, red ribbons on the chairs, and an impressive tree in the corner, laden with baubles and ribbons.
She had even hired an enchantress to add some finishing touches in the way of sonic charms, which meant that every so often a rush of jingle bells and carolers would fill the space out of nowhere.
Dani had helped with the tree, a simple task that had given her a kind of pleasure that was the cherry on top of the rest of her accomplishments over the last week.
She had made it through exams more successfully than she could have ever hoped for, even under normal circumstances, and had squeaked by with at least a B in every class, and even an A- in tarot.
She had also met with her advisor to discuss and draw up the academic plan for her major, a process that had been strangely enjoyable.
They had crafted a three-year blueprint for her curriculum, creating an interdisciplinary major made up of different classes from oracular studies, psychology, enchantment, and even a few Kass had suggested from spellcraft.
It was an ambitious plan, which included an intensive research component that would culminate in a thesis in her senior year, specifically studying her own ability.
They still needed the green light from the panel, of course, but Dani had to admit she was kind of excited about it.
For now, though, she was content to enjoy her holiday.
Their mandated community service wouldn’t start until school was back in session, and McKenna was heading home to see her mom for the three-day visit permitted to each of the miscreants.
Dani didn’t have anywhere to go, and that was fine with her.
She needed the chance to take a deep breath before the semester and her busier-than-ever schedule started up again.
But she wasn’t officially on break for a few more hours, so she needed to find something to occupy her time before the café closed.
The counters were pristine, the last remaining baked goods wrapped up in preparation to be donated later, the blenders and pitchers washed until spotless. She had pre-closed like a boss.
Finally, Dani grabbed a box of candy canes from the back, threw them all in a plastic bag, and began to crush them with a tamper. Even if nobody ordered a peppermint mocha before the end of the day, she’d take them home and top her hot chocolates with them.
She had only succeeded in breaking them into slightly smaller pieces when the door-ghost eked out a tired moan—even he was ready for a break.
Dani looked up and felt a smile spread across her face at the sight of Oliver in a winter coat and a beanie with a pouf on top.
After a fortnight of taking the specialists’ antidote, they were sleeping normally again, and it showed in their face, which shone with life.
“Hey,” Dani said, meeting them at the register. “I didn’t expect to see you again. Weren’t you supposed to fly home today?”
“Change of plans,” Oliver said. “Asa decided the family should come to me instead.” They turned back toward the door, and as if on cue, a troop of four people of cascading height filed into the café, bringing with them an explosion of chatter and laughter.
It took Dani a moment to process what she was seeing: At the front of the group, Oliver’s brother Asa, whom she’d met when he’d flown out after the gala, and three younger people whom she could only assume were their other siblings, all in various stages of teenagedom and with the same dark hair.
“Hi again,” Dani said to Asa as he joined Oliver at the register.
“Hi,” Asa said, smiling. “Sorry we fell behind; they got distracted by a comics shop back there. Don’t touch that,” he called back to one of the girls, who had taken an ornament off the tree in the corner. “Come over here and be polite.”
They shuffled over obediently so that Oliver could introduce them to Dani: “This is Charlotte, Milo, and the little one’s Emi.”
“Hey,” Emi said, “I’m not that little anymore.”
“Shh,” Oliver said, laughing. “Let me think of you as little for a while longer.”
“Nice to meet you all,” Dani said. She found the loving chaos they’d brought into the café delightful. “So you guys are spending the holiday here?”
“Yeah,” Asa said. “When I found out that Oliver’s only allowed three days away, it felt silly to have them waste half of that on travel.
So I used my end-of-year bonus to bring everyone out here instead.
We have a lot to celebrate, not just the holiday.
” He bumped his shoulder into Oliver’s meaningfully.
“I haven’t told her yet,” Oliver said, blushing.
“Told me what?” Dani asked.
“Go on,” Asa urged his sibling.
“Well, I had a long talk with my advisor,” Oliver said, “and she’s going to arrange an internship at the local research hospital for me next summer.
She was really impressed with how much I was able to accomplish on my own with all the—well, you know—and thinks I could explore a career in medical arcanobotany.
She said my telepathic skills could have a lot of applications for understanding what plants should go into different medicines, and that sounds pretty cool. ”
“Oh, Oliver, that’s amazing,” Dani said, and she could feel herself beaming. “I love that for you.”
“Thanks,” Oliver said, smiling back. “I can’t lie, I’m excited for it.”
“That is cause for celebration,” Dani said. “Can I get you all something to drink? Your new favorite, Oliver?”
“Yes, please,” they said. “Plus a plain cappuccino for Asa and hot chocolates for the three goobers.”
“Coming right up.”
Oliver followed her over to the handoff plane while their family looked around the café. “Wow, it really is dead here, isn’t it?”
“As a doornail,” Dani said cheerfully, pumping some peppermint syrup into a cup, adding an Earl Grey tea bag, and filling it halfway with boiling water from the tap.
She’d invented this latest drink for Oliver after they’d gotten out of the hospital, and it had since become a Quarter Cast holiday special called the Snowcap. “What kind of milk did you want today?”
“Soy’s fine, thanks. So, what are your plans for the break?”
“Absolutely nothing.” Dani poured soy milk into a pitcher and began to steam it, a shrill scream that forced a pause into their conversation. When it was done, she added, “I’m going to sleep in, eat too much dessert, read, make snow angels—might even have a stab at dyeing my own hair. Dunno yet.”
“You did that yourself?” Oliver said in surprise, indicating the tail of her braid, which had faded considerably from its original glory. Her stylist had thrown in a longevity charm free of charge, but the enchantment had worn off since the gala, so she was hiding her earthy roots under a beanie.
“Ha, I wish,” she said, starting on the cappuccino. “But how hard can it be?”
“Really hard,” Oliver said, making her laugh. “Hey, so Asa rented a house not far off campus. If you and Kass want to come by for holiday dinner, I’m sure we’ll have plenty.”
“That’s really sweet of you to offer,” Dani said. “I’ll check with him, but I think we’d both love to come.”
They both turned at the wheeze of the door-ghost.
“Speak of the devil,” Oliver said.
Kass stepped into the festive coziness of Quarter Cast, bundled up in his usual peacoat and mittens.
Snow was melting in his hair, and the cold tinged his cheeks with cheery pink.
Dani’s gaze landed on him like a beam from a lighthouse, his arrival a ship pulling into the harbor of her heart. Hecate’s bones, he was perfect.
She and Oliver watched him as he made his way over to the counter, shedding snow in his wake.
“Hey,” Kass said. “I thought you’d be on a plane by now.”
“I’m actually staying here for the holiday,” Oliver said.
“My family surprised me with a visit.” They gestured to where their siblings were gathered around the tree.
“And I had to bring them here for a drink from my favorite barista.” Oliver took a sip of the Snowcap Dani had just given them and a blissful expression smoothed their brow. “You are an artiste.”
The three of them chatted as she finished up the drinks, then Oliver called their siblings over. “Well, I’m off to give them a quick tour of campus,” they said. “I’ll message you where and when to come for dinner—see you two later!”
“Take care,” Asa said with a kind smile for Dani.
Then the five of them were gone in a flurry of merriment and winter hats, leaving Dani and Kass alone in the café, staring at each other over the handoff plane.
“Hi,” Dani said.
“Hi,” Kass said. “Oliver knows that you can’t be their favorite barista when you’re already mine, right?”
They met for a kiss over the plane. He tasted like an alpine forest, like a hearth in a cabin somewhere in the mountains, almost too beautiful to be believed.
“I don’t think that’s how that works,” Dani said when they broke apart, a contented warmth pooling in her chest cavity. “Why are you here so early? I wasn’t expecting you until close.”
“I had to pick up my keys from the landlord,” Kass said.
His father hadn’t disowned him for what he’d done to the company, but he’d come damn near close.
Kass had been kicked out of the house and his dad probably would have stopped paying for Fox’s Leap, except for the fact that Kass’s tuition came from a trust his mother had set aside for him before she died, a fact Kass hadn’t been privy to before now.
As it turned out, Lukas Sr.’s constant threats to pull him out of school if Kass didn’t do what he wanted had been empty this whole time.
Dr. Rodriguez had reached out a few times to Kass with apologies, and he’d accepted them, though he wasn’t ready to meet with her yet.
She’d offered to talk to their father about letting him back in the house, but Kass wasn’t interested—he felt freer without the looming presence of Lukas Sr. in his life, and was planning to declare his concentration for wood magic in the spring.
“The apartment’s pretty small, but I think it’ll be fun to live right around the corner from where you work.
I’ll be able to hang out with you every night you have a shift. ”
“Yes, please. Notice anything new in here, by the way?”
He followed her gaze across from the register to a bookshelf against the wall. “Hey,” he said, going over to it. “It looks great.”
Kass was renting a studio apartment a block away from Quarter Cast, since his mom’s trust only covered tuition.
To pay for it, he’d decided to try selling some of the furniture he made.
Dani had sweet-talked Burren into commissioning him for a piece, and she’d ended up buying a bookshelf for customers to use as a little free library.
There were already a few used textbooks and the latter half of a historical fiction series on it.
“I guess that generosity charm is working,” he said happily.
“You’re going to have to bring in more cards,” Dani said. It had been her idea for Kass to leave his business card on the top shelf, and the stack was almost gone.
“I will after the holiday,” he said, returning to the register. “I’ve already got enough commissions to work on over break. In between spending time with you, obviously.”
Dani could hardly wait for their vacation to start.
Those long walks and peppermint hot chocolates, all shared with Kass.
Sometimes she still felt like she was living in a dream, that maybe she’d taken a dose of OneiroLabs’s product and gotten stuck in a happy corner of her imagination—but no, Kass was real and he was here, and he was hers. “Did you want something to drink?”
“Sure. Do you have any dark roast brewed?”
She deflated a bit at the request; it would take a long time before she stopped being paranoid about disappointing him. “I didn’t make another batch because I didn’t know you were coming in. I could do a pour-over or a French press, though?”
“No, no, that’s okay.” He smiled, and everything was right in the world again, just like that. “I’ll just have an au lait with whatever you do have made.”
It was like a new gravity had come to govern Dani’s own personal laws of physics: She was grounded here, in this reality she’d built for herself.
She’d successfully defended her scholarship, found clarity and curiosity about her own gifts, and carved out a place where she belonged.
She had friends with whom she’d literally committed crimes, and a boyfriend whose unequivocal acceptance of her ran deeper than the river Styx.
She couldn’t have painted a more perfect picture if she’d been Van Gogh himself.
Dani smiled back at Kass. “For here or to go?” she asked.
“For here, of course,” he said. “For as long as you’ll have me.”