Chapter One
Two Years Later
It was treat time at Sweethelm Books and Mosey was nowhere to be found.
Vi Harper shook the treat bag yet again. The lunch rush was officially over for the day, which meant it was time for the second of Mosey’s three daily snack breaks.
“Mosey,” Vi called. She stretched over the counter, scanning the bookshop.
The winged cat wasn’t napping on his favorite spot on top of the philosophy section, nor was he crouched under the history shelves, waiting to attack innocent passersby.
He wasn’t sunning his wings in the window display, even though it was a surprisingly sunny day in autumnal Claw Haven.
Which left very few spots he could be hiding.
Mosey was an indoor cat who had spent his whole life in the dusty walls of Sweethelm Books—and it wasn’t a very large shop. Where was that cat?
Vi smoothed down her long skirt and edged out from behind the counter. “Chester! Have you seen Mosey?”
The old dragon didn’t answer. Vi walked around the fiction wall to find him stretching toward the art overstocks, ladder creaking underneath him.
“What kind of idiot wants a Haber edition instead of a Lesnicky?” Chester mumbled, claws scrabbling at the book he was reaching for. “If I get one more idiot online order . . .”
Vi sighed fondly and gave the ladder a push. It rolled jerkily to the side.
“Oof,” said Chester. He stretched up again, the new position letting him grab the book easily. He twisted to send Vi a grateful smile. “Thank you, Vi! Always there when I need you.”
Vi smiled sweetly. “Just helping my favorite flightless old dragon not break his neck.”
Chester chuckled, stretching his single wing behind him. “I’ve been swinging around on this old thing since before you were born. I’ll be fine.”
Vi gave the ladder another push, just to hear it creak. “Sure sounds like it’s been around longer than me. I’ll oil it tonight.”
“Atta girl, Violet,” Chester said.
“Don’t call me that,” she reminded him. “You know I hate it.”
“Never again,” he said absently. He’d already gone back to pulling art books from the overstocks.
Chester was the only person who was allowed to call Vi “Violet” without her getting deeply annoyed.
Only one other person had dared to call Vi by her full name, though that orc didn’t know her well enough to earn anything past her polite customer service voice.
Coincidentally, that was the voice she used for almost everyone in Claw Haven.
Vi Harper: the polite, helpful, soft-spoken human with a ribbon in her hair, doing a good job of keeping on top of the suddenly busy bookstore after Claw Haven became a tourist trap two years ago.
For the most part, Vi was okay with this. She just wished she could tweak it. Change one of those adjectives to something that had nothing to do with being helpful, or quiet, or polite. Something that had nothing to do with other people. Something for her.
Chester pulled another book down. “Any fun plans for the weekend?”
“You know it,” Vi called as she slid back behind the counter. “The food bank, of course. Helping my sister put together a table. Taking some old clothes to the donation box downtown. Oh, and my neighbor’s out of town, so I have to water her plants.”
“Sounds thrilling,” Chester said dryly, slippers flexing against the ladder rung. “I was hoping you were going to tell me you had a hot date, but alas.”
“Sure,” Vi said. “With all the eligible bachelors of Claw Haven.”
“There are some,” Chester protested. “What about that dishy werewolf who bought the inn?”
“Oliver’s been off the market for ages,” Vi reminded him. “Luna invited us to the wedding, remember?”
Chester groaned, his single wing sagging in defeat. “All the good ones are off the market! Ugh, I hope they all break up.”
Vi smothered her smile as the bookshop door burst open, the bell jingling fitfully.
Gabriella Harper strode in, big hair bouncing. She leaned over the counter and grabbed her big sister by the shoulders.
“It’s a disaster,” she announced.
Vi put on her sympathetic face. “Oh no, what happened?”
Gabriella sucked in a breath. “So, it all started last night. I mean, it actually started two weeks ago—”
“Gabs,” Vi prompted, plucking Gabriella’s hands off her shoulders. “Disaster?”
“We lost the booking!”
Vi didn’t groan. She sorely wanted to, but Gabriella was already upset.
Vi was always the rock of the Harper family: While her mom and her sister freaked out, Vi was calm.
Collected. She got stuff done, then cleaned up the mess afterward.
When their dad left, fourteen-year-old Vi was the one who cooked dinners and made sure the house was tidy while her mom went out with her girlfriends and twelve-year-old Gabriella played loud music in her bedroom.
She was the leader of every group project in high school.
She’d been on track to be the manager at a café back in Massachusetts.
Then she moved to Claw Haven and got a job at Sweethelm Books just in time for orders to quadruple thanks to Luna Musgrove’s social media campaigns finally putting Claw Haven on the map.
It wasn’t that Vi wanted to take everybody’s workload on her shoulders—they just kept asking.
And Vi kept saying yes. What else could she do?
“I thought it was a done deal,” Vi tried. “You put a deposit down!”
“They refunded it!” Gabriella sagged over the counter, letting her head thunk to the desk. Then she lifted it up; she’d just gotten her hair done, and she couldn’t let her bangs go flat.
“Then what was the nonrefundable bit about?” Vi shook her head, tugging the ribbon in her hair tighter. “Doesn’t matter. We can fix this. We have two months. That’s ages.”
“To find a space? Sure. To find a good space that will do justice to my artistic visions? I doubt it!” Gabriella fluttered her hands, sucking in yet another deep breath. “Phew. Okay. I’m sorry. I’m just upset. I was so excited about that space!”
“It’s fine, Gab. Everything’s gonna be fine.” Vi reached over the counter to squeeze Gabriella’s cheeks, a mirror of what she used to do when Gabriella was younger and liable to slap her hands off. Gabriella just chuckled, her honey-brown eyes gleaming with tears.
Gabriella was always the dramatic sister, the loudmouth to Vi’s quiet steadiness.
Every little thing made her shriek or scream or laugh her head off, and she even had the charisma to make it charming—most of the time.
Vi was almost relieved when something big finally happened, because at least Gabriella’s huge response would be warranted.
Then Gabriella’s husband—a sweet, soft-spoken vampire who taught grade school—died in a car accident not long after they moved to Claw Haven.
Vi had walked into that ER and found her little sister hunched over a waiting room chair, remarkably unscathed except for a cut above her eyebrow from the windshield breaking.
They already knew by this point; Vi had received confirmation right after she landed in Alaska.
Gabriella didn’t get up from that chair.
She didn’t talk, either. Didn’t scream or cry or any one of the hundred things Vi had been expecting.
There was no dramatic breakdown. Just a long line of intense, quiet grief.
For the first week, she didn’t say more than a few words at a time.
She’d barely reacted when Vi announced she was moving to Claw Haven to make sure she was okay.
Two months after Vi moved, Gabriella threw out her husband’s dead houseplant, then grabbed her trash off the garbage truck and clawed through it for every cracked brown leaf.
A year in, she called in sick to work because she found her husband’s old sock wedged behind the dryer.
All of it was quiet, rushed, with minimal eye contact.
Like the hurt was too big for words. If Gabriella wanted to get worked up over her art exhibition, then Vi would help her up to the rooftops to scream about it.
Anything to get that empty look out of her eyes.
“Everything’s gonna be great,” Vi assured her. She craned her head toward the fiction wall. “Chester!”
Chester’s scaly head appeared from behind the wall as he leaned dangerously off the rolling ladder once again. “My favorite employee?”
“How do you feel about hosting Gabriella’s art exhibition in the shop?”
Chester’s grin flickered with annoyance. He hitched it back up just in time for Gabriella to whirl around, clasping her hands together pleadingly.
“Pretty please, Ches? You beautiful old dragon. I’ll buy you brand-new slippers. I’ll embroider you some slippers just like that girl did for her old dragon in Little Women.”
Chester sighed. His scaly head vanished back behind the bookcase.
Gabriella turned back to Vi with a wince. “Wow. He really is getting mean in his old age.”
“No,” Vi said. “He didn’t even argue. That means—”
“I suppose we have room,” Chester called from behind the bookcase. Wood creaked as the ladder shifted. “And we desperately need to do something artsy. We haven’t hosted anything since Jade Brekker’s pocket book about wing care. Alright, I’m in.”
Gabriella squealed. “Yes, yes, yes! I’d kiss you if you weren’t up on that ladder, Chester!”
“I’ll stay up here,” Chester deadpanned.
Gabriella giggled. “You’re the best! I knew I could count on you to fix everything, Vi. The only thing that could make today better is if the Baked Goods Bandit struck again!”
Vi laughed. Every once in a while, a table would appear on Main Street, laden with baked goods. Chocolate cupcakes, blood muffins, lemon squares, seaweed slices. One time, it was macaroons.