4. Chapter 4
Asking questions was for those who could afford to.
At the end of her two-week provisional period, a direct deposit had hit her bank account, and her eyes had almost fallen out of their sockets.
It was more than she had expected; she had enough to pay for her portion of the rent, send some home, and still have some left over for her savings.
Thus, when Donna called her to offer her the position full-time, she had accepted despite her gut warning her that something was off at Enchanted Brew.
However, as long as the money streamed in, she could swallow her suspicions.
What she couldn’t ignore was that someone had avoided her since their encounter, and she wanted answers. She opened their text messages and, after hesitating, she called. It took a moment for the call to connect; it rang a few times before he picked up.
“Yareli?”
His voice was muffled, like he was in a tunnel.
“August, tell me what you were doing at Enchanted Brew. You told me you were napping, but my sixth sense says something is off.”
The line crackled. “… was sleeping.”
She grimaced, holding the phone away from her ear. “Where are you? It sounds awful.”
The call popped and clicked, then dropped.
Yareli frowned at her screen. That was odd.
She tried calling again, but it went straight to voicemail.
Her frown deepened. He had told her he would be working on an essay this week, but where had he gone to work on it?
Antarctica? It can’t be helped. She had already accepted the job, and money was money.
She readied herself for work, ignoring her mom’s text once again.
She kept asking her to visit, but Yareli didn’t want to.
The past two weeks had been hectic enough attempting to impress her new workplace and keep up with her coursework.
Family obligations would wait. It had to wait, because if she were honest, she was exhausted.
All she wanted was to settle into her new routine.
Maybe fall in love, keep sending money home, and get her shit together.
She couldn’t risk falling apart due to family.
Work was unusually busy that night. It was as though all their customers had received the same memo: The new employee is on her own. Flood the cafe!
Don gestured at her from across the room. “Yareli, could you grab more lychee cake from the back?”
She hurried to the kitchen, slowing down as she approached the fridge; lychee cake was August’s favorite.
Their call worried her. Where was he? However, as it was with customer-facing roles, she soon forgot her worries as she served the next patron, and the one after that, and so on until it was time for Don to clock out for the evening.
“Great work as always,” he said, putting on his coat.
He scanned the empty room. The cafe was open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, but business was slow after ten. Thus, only one employee—this particular night, it was Erick’s shift—manned the cafe.
“Let’s hope he isn’t late tonight.”
Yareli tilted her head to the side; Erick’s tardiness was always expected. “Why?”
“You know what they say about magic and the full moon.”
Used to Don’s enigmatic sayings, she raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“Have a good night, Reli,” he said, laughing as he closed the door behind you.
“Why are you always purposely cryptic?” she muttered, heading back to the kitchen.
While waiting for Erick, she tended to the never-ending task of rolling cutlery in napkins.
Although Donna was the manager, she wasn’t present at all times, which meant Yareli enjoyed a great amount of autonomy.
It was the employees’ initiative that completed the daily chores.
It was perfect for Yareli; it meant she had the chance to exist without a manager breathing down her neck, watching her every move, and waiting for the moment she fucked up.
At about a quarter past ten, Yareli checked her phone. Erick was never more than five minutes late. Fifteen minutes worried her. Leaning on the counter, she started to text him, only to be interrupted by a crash.
Her fingers paused on her screen, the hair on her arms raised.
Their last customer had left long ago. She closed her eyes and let out a long breath, listening.
There were footsteps on the second floor, loud in the otherwise quiet cafe.
Not this again. If there truly were a ghost, she’d find out tonight.
Without a second thought, she grabbed the broom and made her way upstairs.
Every step felt like moving through mud, and there wasn’t enough air in her lungs.
Alarms rang in her head, urging her to leave, but she gritted her teeth and peeked through the entryway on the second floor, fearing the worst. An intruder, a caved ceiling, the cafe’s “ghost,” or even the unknown, eccentric owner making an appearance.
The horrifying part, however, was that it was an enclosed space with only one entrance—the stairs she was currently on.
It was none of that.
She blinked, the scene before her unfolding in a dizzying chaos.
A luminous, swirling blue circle hovered in the middle of the room; a cool breeze kissed her face.
Three figures stood to the side of it, their faces hidden by what she could only describe as a gold glimmer.
It clung to them, blending their features into a blur of color.
She squinted, trying to get a better look, but that only made it worse.
Two of them stood over the third, who was on the floor leaning against a mushroom table. Their murmurs reached her ears.
“… hurt.”
“Needs healing.”
The figure on the floor waved its arm, sweeping it in a dismissive gesture. “Go. Erick will take care of it.” When they didn’t move, he raised his voice. “That was an order.”
The pitch, the intonation, it melded together in her ears.
She took a sharp breath. Yareli knew that voice; she knew it with such a blazing certainty that when the others disappeared into the portal, she ran toward the lone, injured individual with the determination that only a person so entrenched in their infatuation could muster.
She was, as her generation put it, down bad for him.
“August!”
She kneeled beside him, her eyes widening at the dark pool under him. Her apron was up and over her shoulders in a flash, pressed against the hole on his side. It was soaked through before she finished applying pressure. Her hands shook; it was bad.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, groaning as she applied more pressure.
She ignored him, her mind racing to remember what to do for a large puncture wound.
He was losing too much blood. They had to call 911 now.
How many liters of blood could a human lose before it was too late?
Was it too late already? What blood type was he?
Could she donate? She couldn’t answer any of it.
August was speaking to her, but the static in her ears was too loud.
He placed his hand over hers, squeezing, and the static faded, allowing his voice to pierce through it. “Where’s Erick?”
She shook her head. A lump grew in her throat, making it hard to breathe, much less talk. He squeezed her hands again, and the slight tremor in her hands lessened. His message was clear—he was here with her.
Air filled her lungs again, and she answered, “He’s late. I don’t know where he is.”
Before August could reply, a thunk from behind startled them.
“What the fuck?”
Erick stood next to his dropped duffel bag, a fast-food takeout bag in his right hand.
He ran over, removing Yareli’s hands before placing his own on top of August’s injury.
Before she could question what was happening, his hands shimmered a vibrant blue.
In the blink of an eye, August’s gaping wound fully healed.
The smooth skin was incomprehensible to her. What the hell was going on?
Erick leaned back on his palms. “You should rest for a few days before you,” he said, glancing over at Yareli, “you know.”
His voice broke the spell over her. She gave him a look and said, irritation coloring her tone, “Sure. Keep it a secret as if I didn’t witness you magically heal a wound the size of a softball.” She turned to August, on a rampage. “And you! How did you get hurt?”
“Any chance we can talk about it once we’ve rinsed the blood out of our clothes?” August’s expression was hard to read through the blur.
“Can’t Erick snap his fingers and clean our clothes?” she countered, not willing to let it go just yet. She had a feeling that if she let August slip away, she might not get the answers she wanted.
“I’m not a maid!” Erick protested, but he did it anyway. The blood was wiped from existence with a snap of his fingers.
A realization dawned on her. She whipped her head between the two; she could see Erick clearly—although, if she looked closely, there was a slight shimmer around his ears—but she couldn’t see August very well.
“Why can’t I see August?” she asked.
Erick’s face went slack, an unusual state, for his typical expression tended to skew toward the jovial side. Yareli narrowed her eyes; she had been right. Something fishy… something magical was happening here, and she was right in the middle of it. The words left her lips without hesitation.
“Are you guys wizards?”
Erick burst out laughing, but August remained silent.
“No.” August’s voice was quiet, gentle, like it always was when he was about to say something that could be upsetting. “We’re Fae.”
His confession brought an onslaught of information to the forefront of Yareli’s mind.
Popular fiction described Fae as tall, powerful, and most importantly, hot.
She cross-checked that with what she knew of August. Tall?
Check. Hot? Double, no, triple-checked. Powerful?
Now that she couldn’t answer, but she didn’t doubt his words; she had, after all, witnessed magic in person.
The frays of her mind stretched toward an unknown territory where magic existed in the world, but she anchored herself to reality, using her trust in August as her center of gravity. He would clarify everything.
“Okay, then.” She stood in one stiff motion, almost robotic. “How about you explain some of this over a cup of Erick’s hot chocolate?”
At Erick’s face of dissent, Yareli said, “You were late. Go.”
“Fine!” He marched off, picking up his duffel bag. “But someone owes me another joy meal. A double burger soaked in blood is not edible.”
She rolled her eyes, turning her attention back to August, who had a heck of a lot of explaining to do.
She held her hand out to him, where it hung in the air for a moment longer than she liked before he took it.
Biting her lip, she helped him up. He would make it make sense.
He had to, or she would lose her footing and spiral into the unknowns of her world.