3. Unexpected Company
THREE
UNEXPECTED COMPANY
As it is necessary to interact with lesser beings in the course of daily life, one must always maintain a veil of decorum.
Courtesy should not be mistaken for camaraderie.
Just as one would treat a servant with kindness but never as an equal, so too should one interact with shifters, fae, and other such creatures.
They have their place in the world, but it is not by our side.
–EXCERPT FROM THE ARCANE ELITE: UPHOLDING THE SANCTITY OF WITCH BLOODLINES
Minerva didn’t recognize the cloaked customer. This was unusual, as Primrose Court was such a cloistered community by design. Newcomers were a rarity but not unheard of.
She smiled and was about to offer help, but the shopper waved to dismiss her before diving straight into the stacks and stacks of books that filled the converted bedrooms toward the back of the house.
Most of the customers didn’t stray far from the home’s capacious parlor, which was now the heart of the bookshop cafe.
But there were always others who preferred to wander off alone while perusing in the bookshop.
Minerva peered back at Zephyr. The old wizard was unabashedly grinning at her, his eyes growing starrier by the moment. Meanwhile, she’d forgotten why she was standing.
“So you’ll let me have some more of your biscuits, then?” Zephyr raised an eyebrow, hopefully.
“Cookies! Do you even hear yourself? So pretentious.” She rolled her eyes at him.
“Biscuits, cookies. I’ll take whatever crumbs you care to toss my way.” Zephyr sipped his tea without breaking eye contact.
Minerva felt a kaleidoscope of butterflies awakening in her belly. She wiggled her fingers as if the motion could release the fluttery feeling, but she just couldn’t shake it. It was best to keep moving.
“You just reminded me,” she said, busying herself behind the counter.
“Would you like a marvelous piece of cheese with your breakfast?” She piled more cookies on an antique toile-patterned plate, leaving space to one side.
Then she unlocked the small glass-fronted cheese fridge beside the counter and removed a precious parcel.
Carefully, she unwrapped a small wheel of handcrafted white Stilton.
“I wondered about the dairy case. It’s new, isn’t it?” Zephyr nodded his approval at the display.
“Yes,” she explained. “Lucretia tried to talk me out of it, but you know how much I enjoy an excellent cheddar.” Her niece Lucretia had indeed argued against the addition, but it was difficult to take advice from someone who was lactose intolerant.
Lactose and everything else. Lucretia was not known for being tolerant.
“Well, I’d say adding a petite fromagerie case was a gouda idea.” Zephyr chuckled, and Minerva groaned.
“That’s how you plan to woo me? With terrible dad jokes?”
“What’s a dad joke?” Zephyr asked. He was genuinely curious, without guile.
“Oh, it’s just a term that Ordinaries use for punny humor and pitiful jokes.
” Minerva placed the plate back on the table and sat down.
Despite Zephyr’s renowned intellect, this was one area where she had more cross-cultural expertise.
Her travels had brought her into closer contact with the Ordinaries.
She also had a vast collection of video cartridges and a small smuggled television stashed in her bedroom.
Watching Ordinary sitcoms was her guilty pleasure. That, and eating extraordinary cheeses. In fact, the two pursuits paired well.
Minerva sighed happily as she bit into a crisp, sweet lemon cookie topped with a bit of the Stilton. The flavors paired perfectly. She washed it all down with a sip of her aromatic tea.
Zephyr was still stealing glances at her. She noticed he hadn’t turned the page of his newspaper since they’d started talking. The headline on the article he kept returning to read: “Langour Epidemic Worsens: Experts Question the Effects of Ordinary Products on Magical Folk.”
She looked away. She didn’t want to think about it, much less talk about it. Now that she was finally home and safe, she just wanted to relax. She topped off Zephyr’s teacup.
“This is so nice,” Zephyr said, taking her hand in his after she set the teapot down.
“Yes, it is,” she admitted, making no move to pull her hand away.
The bells jangled once again as an unusually tall and brawny young man propelled the front door open with a rough shoulder thrust. Clearly, he didn’t know his own strength.
The doorknob hit the rubber bumper that was placed on the wall, precisely for this purpose, and stuck there a moment as if to regain its composure before closing again in a much slower and more dignified fashion.
Minerva studied the boy. He wasn’t a regular here, but she’d seen him around town.
He had high cheekbones and long, shaggy, dark hair that fell into his eyes.
His large, wide-set brown eyes had a glossy, bestial sheen.
One of his nostrils twitched, mid-flare.
His lips pressed together, forming a tight, resentful seal.
Despite the angst that oozed from every pore, there was something devastatingly beautiful about him.
Now that he was inside the shop, he seemed confused about why he’d come in. He glanced around as if he had lost his way, then looked back at the front door. Two rough-looking boys, presumably his friends, were waiting for him outside. They sat astride their kinetic bikes, hovering near the stairs.
“I’m looking for my friend Rosie, have you seen her?” he demanded bluntly.
Of course Minerva knew Rosie. She was a regular in the cafe, always there for game night and slam poetry readings. Even though the vivacious teen lived outside the neighborhood, she seemed to spend most of her free time in the shop.
The boy sneezed loudly, blowing dust clouds off the curio cabinet in the entry. She was too short to see the top, so she always forgot to spell away the dust there.
“Is everything old in this place?” he sneered at Minerva. He wasn’t sure what his chief complaint was, but judging by the belligerent tone, he would not let that stop him from picking a fight.
Minerva hoped there wouldn’t be trouble. Petty theft and pranks were par for the course, but on the whole, things were peaceful in Primrose Court.
“Is there anything else that I might help you with, young man?” She beamed her sweetest shopkeeper smile at him. It wasn’t entirely his fault that he was so broody. Teen hormones could be akin to a curse. He was only sixteen or seventeen. Barely more than a child.
“Rosie was supposed to meet me here,” the boy repeated. “I need to get a book from her. Are you sure she didn’t leave it here for me?”
“Afraid not. Do you want to take a seat and wait for her? I can make you a sandwich and some tea if you like?” She didn’t care whether he could pay for it. She could always spare a sandwich.
“No,” he muttered, crossing to the counter and sweeping the surface with his eyes. As if he expected his book to materialize there. “I just want my book.”
“I don’t have your book,” Minerva said.
“You sure?” The boy raised a suspicious eyebrow.
He continued to look around, pulling open stock drawers beneath the bookshelves, and nearly toppling a display in his haste.
He eyed her skeptically and spoke to her like she was the child.
“You didn’t sell it to someone else by accident? Or maybe it slipped your mind?”
Now he was getting on her nerves. Normally, she would have more to say to such a rude teenager, but noting the colorful Nocturnaturals “performance patch” on the boy’s bare bicep, she chose her words cautiously.
She didn’t want to rile him up further. She didn’t know the circumstances that had driven him to dabble with that stuff.
“Yes, I’m sure. I haven’t seen Rosie, and she hasn’t left any books for…What did you say your name was?” Minerva kept her head high and jutted her chin out just a touch.
The boy pounded a fist on the counter and glanced back at his friends waiting outside. “I can’t believe she didn’t come!”
“What kind of book did you say it was? What’s the title? Perhaps we have another in stock?” Minerva ducked behind the counter, sweeping up the stack of flyers Zephyr had placed there and hiding them on a lower shelf.
“You know what? Since you’re here already, try the biscuits. They’re really scrumptious,” Zephyr called out from the reading nook. He’d folded his paper, concealing the disturbing headline.
The boy slowly pivoted towards Zephyr, noticing for the first time that someone else was sitting in the coffee shop. He shook his head with a shudder. Minerva smelled the strong animal scent clinging to him. He smelled gamey. Wet wool, with an unsubtle note of barn.
He must have shifted recently. Thick fuzz clung to his jawline and the backs of his hands.
Suddenly, the boy drew his brows together and lowered his head at her, almost like a bull about to charge at the counter.
Minerva’s heart skipped a beat, and her hand flew to her wand pocket.
But before she could wrap five fingers around the slender, polished bit of ash, Zephyr was on his feet, standing by her side.
Thunderbolts and lightning! He was still fast. Far quicker than one might have thought possible for a one-hundred-and-eleven-year-old wizard.
Zephyr drew himself to his full height, which was still close to six feet tall. But he barely reached the boy’s chin.
“Easy there…” Zephyr spoke in soothing tones. “How about we all sit down for a nice cup of tea and cookies?”
The boy ignored him, swatting away the suggestion with a flick of his hand like a beast of burden swats flies with its tail.