Chapter 3
Priceless
Iris
“I’m going to commit arson, and you are going to provide my alibi.”
Camille blows through the door of The Daily Grind a little before ten. She slams three oversized tote bags onto the nearest stool. Her tablet clatters onto the counter beside them.
“Tell me you have something to eat that isn’t full of refined sugar,” she pleads. “I haven’t had anything since last night. I could eat a centaur.”
I’ve known Camille since we were both seven years old. We’ve been friends for as long as I can remember. There’s always something that isn’t full of refined sugar in The Daily Grind, just for her.
I lift a savory muffin out of the pastry case with the tongs and slide it onto a napkin. “Spinach and feta. Came in this morning. Eat it before it gets cold.”
“You’re the only saint left in this city, Iris.” She takes the stool at the counter and unwraps the muffin without removing her sunglasses.
She’s bone-tired underneath the theatrics. I’ve seen Camille planning a society wedding across two time zones on three hours of sleep. Whatever’s gone wrong this time is, by her standards, considerable. By mine, apocalyptic.
“It’s the least I can do, until you tell me who you’re murdering.”
Camille takes the sunglasses off and sets them on top of her tablet. “Every florist in this city is booked solid for the Stavros wedding. It’s completely ridiculous.”
The Stavros wedding. It sounds familiar. The minotaur mogul and his human bride have been all over the tabloids for weeks. Just this morning, two teenagers were chatting about it on the subway. I, of course, tried not to listen. But it’s impossible to escape.
I think of a certain djinn who brought me a bouquet of priceless flowers just the other day. “Surely, one monster can’t hijack every supplier in the city.”
“You’d think,” Camille groans, and it’s definitely not for theatrics. “But even the studios out in the suburbs are telling me they can’t take a single arrangement for the next three weeks. The Stavros construction empire doesn’t do things in half measures.”
“Most monster billionaires don’t,” I mutter.
“Tell me about it,” Camille mumbles around a mouthful of muffin. “The Lawson Foundation is hosting its annual Spring Showcase in eleven days. My contract specifies fresh floral arrangements at every venue station. No exceptions. Not even for minotaur-induced disasters.”
I can’t help her with something like this. I don’t have her strength or her exuberance. The only thing I can do is pass her another muffin and hope it’ll be enough.
It is. Camille finishes her first treat and smoothly moves on to the second. She takes two bites before squinting at me through the morning light. “But enough about me. What have you been up to? Did you finish your paper?”
I let out a deep sigh. After all the time I spent reading battered paperbacks on old salt laws, the result feels a little… anticlimactic. “Handed in. Got it back the day before yesterday. An A minus.”
Camille tilts her head at me, and a stray lock of dark hair falls out of its knot. “That’s good, right? Isn’t this for the teacher who fails students for using Comic Sans?”
In fairness, Comic Sans is a pretty egregious crime against all fonts. But that’s not the point here. I fidget and try not to show my discontent.
Camille narrows her eyes at me. “Iris… I’m about to say something, and you won’t like it.”
“I often don’t,” I reply. I love her to death, but the truths she delivers are often painful.
She sets the remaining piece of muffin down. “You received an A minus on a paper about Phoenician customs duties. By everyone else’s standards, it’d be a great result. But you hate it with a passion. I can tell. You need to leave this shop occasionally.”
I’ve heard this lecture before. I could deliver Camille’s lines myself if she ever decided not to. And today, I’m not in the mood to hear her out.
“I leave this shop. I leave it at four every afternoon.”
Camille scoffs. “You leave it at four to go to a library. You go home. You come back here.” Camille gives me a look that somehow manages not to be pitying. “That’s not leaving. That’s migrating.”
“My migration patterns are stable. I find that comforting.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Now we both sound like griffins.
” Camille pulls the tablet across the counter and taps something into it without breaking eye contact.
“I’m picking you up on Friday at eight. We’re going somewhere with people in it.
I’m not negotiating. Wear something that is actually… a color.”
The last time I bought clothing for an evening out was approximately two years ago. Camille knows this. But now that she’s made a decision, there’s no way to make her change her mind. “I have colorful clothes, Camille. But they’re not… outing-appropriate.”
“I suppose that’s true. No worries. I’ll get you something by Friday. We have time.”
Normally, I’d try to reason with her, to do some damage control. But I can barely hear her anymore.
The air in the shop has started to shift. It does this every morning at this hour. The ambient light has sharpened by a fraction. The refrigeration unit has dropped its pitch by half a note. My glasses have started to fog up.
Three weeks ago, I’d have thought I was imagining it. But I know better now. I know exactly what time it is and who’s about to walk through the door.
After all, the billionaire djinn has become a regular in The Daily Grind, and I still don’t know how to deal with him.
The door of The Daily Grind opens. Camille is still mid-sentence about the social consequences of my wardrobe when Rakan steps through.
“Good morning, Iris.” He doesn’t raise his voice. He never does, because he doesn’t need to. Even now, he effortlessly draws attention to himself through his sheer presence.
“Morning, Rakan.” I reach for a clean cup without looking at the airpot.
I’ve been pouring his coffee at the same temperature for three weeks now, and I can do it without turning my head.
I pull the marker from my apron pocket and write his name on the side.
Rakan. The novelty of it should have worn off by now, but somehow it hasn’t.
Camille goes entirely still, which is something I haven’t seen her do in roughly twenty years.
“Oh,” she says. The single syllable carries an unreasonable amount of meaning.
She lowers her tablet onto the counter without taking her eyes off the door.
“Oh, Iris. You and I are going to have a long and detailed conversation about this later.”
Rakan finally acknowledges her. His gold eyes move from me to Camille and back, and he gives her a small nod. “Forgive me. I didn’t realize I was interrupting.”
Camille has recovered enough to stand up from her stool.
She extends her hand across the counter, her smile widening into an almost predatory grin.
“Camille Thorn. I’ve been Iris’s best friend for twenty years.
As of approximately forty-five seconds ago, I discovered she’s been keeping rather significant secrets from me.
We’ll address the friendship implications later. ”
“Rakan al-Rashid.” He takes her hand and squeezes it, the same way he might greet a monster mogul. “I hope I’m not the reason for the omission.”
“That remains to be seen,” Camille replies. “I read the business pages, Mr. al-Rashid. I confess I hadn’t expected to find you in a coffee shop in this particular stretch of the borough on a Tuesday morning.”
Rakan remains perfectly pleasant, a tiny, meaningless smile resting on his lips. “The coffee is excellent, and Iris has been kind enough to tolerate my presence for the better part of a month. How could I resist?”
I finish his coffee and snap the lid on with a little more force than necessary.
He’s already produced the twenty by the time I slide the cup across.
The change ends up in the tip jar without me even having to deposit it there.
Rakan just… randomly drops it there himself, using his djinn powers.
Because that’s apparently something he can do at will.
Camille is still watching us, though knowing her, I’m sure she’s drawn the correct conclusions by now. “I can’t say I disagree,” she offers, “but I am rather surprised a billionaire of your caliber would have discovered this little gem of a place.”
Rakan lets out a small laugh. A wisp of smoke leaves his lips. “You know, Ms. Thorn, I’ve recently heard that people can be terrible at telling real gems from fake ones. But djinn? We’re very good at finding things that are priceless.”
My face flames, and I can practically see Camille vibrating from here.
But she purses her lips and says nothing more.
“The wisdom of the ancients, I suppose.” She pulls her sunglasses off her tablet and slides them onto her face.
“And on that note, my dear Iris, as much as I appreciate your passion for history, I will not take no for an answer. Remember. Friday at eight, no negotiation. I’ll drop off something you can wear. ”
She slings her bags over her shoulder with impressive ease and turns toward the door. Her eyes catch Rakan’s one last time. “Mr. al-Rashid. A pleasure. I’m sure I’ll see you again.”
“I’m sure you will. I’m not going anywhere—”
Camille rushes out of The Daily Grind before Rakan can even finish the phrase. The door swings shut behind her.
Rakan moves to the small table by the window, which I’ve mentally assigned to him. He sets the coffee down but doesn’t sit yet. He looks at me with a mix of amusement and fondness.
“Ms. Thorn is interesting,” he says. “She reminds me of a friend’s sister. Though, granted, that friend is a minotaur.”
I start to clean up the counter, even though it’s virtually spotless. Camille has a way of eating that leaves zero crumbs. Maybe Rakan is right, and my friend has some kind of monster blood in her veins. “If I know Camille, she’d take your words as a challenge,” I tell him.
“I expect she would,” he answers. “She might even win, if the afternoon were long enough. Ariadne Stavros is a wonderful woman, but she has no patience.”
He sits down at his table and picks up his cup. He seems completely unaware that he just compared my best friend to the family she’s been complaining about for half an hour.
It’s strange, but until this moment, I haven’t really made the connection between Rakan the billionaire and Rakan the man who orders dark roasts.
It’s not like I didn’t realize he’s filthy rich and powerful.
Of course I did. But he—and the strange little thing we shared—seemed to exist in a bubble that had nothing to do with the outside world.
It was foolish of me. Rakan is three thousand years old. He runs a global business that owns a not insignificant fraction of the world. I’m twenty-five and work in a coffee shop. In between shifts, I struggle to meet deadlines for a degree that may very well be useless.
Our lives couldn’t be more different. He called The Daily Grind priceless… But is it really?
The notion that a creature like him would arrange his entire morning around a simple barista is ridiculous.
Camille was right. I’ve been spending too much time with my head buried in history texts. Clearly, I had been reading into things that simply weren’t there.
I’ll go out with her on Friday. I’ll put on the no doubt ridiculous dress she’ll provide for me. Maybe, just maybe, that’ll stop me from thinking about Rakan al-Rashid.