She should have stayed home. This was the worst. It was so mind-numbing it was exhausting. She wanted to leave. She kept thinking of the hundreds of things outside that would be infinitely more thrilling than standing in this stupid shop. Whittard of Chelsea just across the hall. She could get something from the tea bar. Maybe a few jars to bring home. She was running low, wasn’t she?
Avery led her around the corner to a long hallway of offices. At the end there was a water cooler.
The distant buzz of office chatter made her feel like she had to whisper or not speak at all. It created a static in her brain interrupting any thought other than how soul destroying it must be to work there. Everysight, sound, even the smell could be described as monotonously beige, painfully featureless, and utterly unstimulating.
Maybe if she had to stay here she could drown herself with the damn water cooler.
And that was when Avery reached out a hand to the wall…and it rippled.
Every sensory receptor in Saga felt like it woke and snapped to attention. She gawked as the taller woman’s fingers brushed along the wall searchingly, and the wall, doorways and all, reacted like a large swath of fabric.
At last, at the frame of the second office door, she found the selvage and pulled back the entire wall like a curtain, gesturing for Saga to enter. “After you.”
Saga blinked, staring at the wall that somehow simultaneously looked like fabric, but also the doorway and beige drywall it had previously been. She examined the first office, which waved a little like a flag in response to the wall next to it being lifted but was otherwise undisturbed. She reached a hand through the open doorway, expecting it to collide against the fabric, but instead, it went through into the office as normal. Her eyes widened and she turned to Avery, who did not attempt to hide her amusement at her companion’s expense.
“Magic,” said Avery.
“Uh-huh,” was the only response Saga could manage. She stepped through the opening in the curtain into pitch-black darkness, and then into what felt like another curtain. Velvet, heavy, large. Her hands fumbled over it but found no opening and thus she became a little more frantic.
Two hands caught her own from behind. Warm, gentle, safe.
She could feel Avery standing at her back and a strange thrill from her abdomen to her sternum caught her by surprise. She swallowed, her throat feeling too dry and her face too warm. Her hand was guided out, fingers layering over her own as if they might meld together, and brushed over the velvet surface slowly, searchingly.
Their fingers caught the hem, and as they pulled it back together, it revealed a single wooden door inset with a window.
Firelight shone through the stained glass, and Saga followed the way the colors flickered along the curtain, her gaze stopping on their hands. She’d been able to feel the way their fingers had intertwined, butseeingit was something else entirely. She chided herself internally. This was not the time to get a crush. This was not thepersonto have a crush on.
“Something wrong?”
Saga turned to her companion and stopped. Avery was…luminescent. The same light was dancing across her features as if toying with what exactly it wanted to highlight and draw attention to. “You’re stunning.”
Avery was as surprised by these words as Saga. Initial shock melted into a gentle smile. “Thank you.” It was spoken so quietly that were there any other noise in the space, she never would have been able to hear it. Avery cleared her throat and simply nodded to the door.
It didn’t need to be awkward. Saga was giving a friend a compliment. She was remarking on a fact, that’s all. Averywasstunning, she’d thought it when she first saw her. It would be ridiculous if no one everdidtell her such things. Her hand gripped the doorknob, turned, and pulled.
Warmth washed over her. All worries of awkward social interaction melted into oblivion as the scent of apple cider filled her senses. Cinnamon, nutmeg, clove… The scents wafted through the air like a breeze, accompanied by the faintest hint of pine.
Directly in front of her, in the center of a vast dark wood room, was a great golden oak tree. The branches stretched high above them, extending outward in all directions, with soft glowing lights scattered throughout the leaves. Surrounding the tree trunk was a great circular counter, behind which baristas worked their craft, pulling levers on great copper contraptions. From her current vantage point, she could see the bar was partitioned off into at least two sections.
As she examined how the tree branches extended nearly to the edges of the room, she noticed it brought the partition with it, as the branches to her left were covered in frost, and the leaves to the right had turned shades of orange, red, and yellow. As if she were standing directly between winter andautumn. Even the windows lining opposite walls reflected either season, one displaying a serene snowy mountain range and evergreens while the other depicted an amber forest in the middle of an October shower. If she fixed her gaze beyond the branches, in place of a ceiling, the Milky Way danced across the night sky.
Patrons of this establishment were also a sight to behold, scattered throughout on plush couches and chairs and at heavy carved tables. It was obvious there was no risk of discovery here, as many fey had forgone any shape-shifting at all. A minotaur daintily drank an espresso while reading a book next to the roaring fire in the winter section. Three pixie-like fey chittered around a small table over tea in autumn, giving secretive looks toward one of the baristas.
Saga took a few steps inward, overwhelmed and overjoyed by every sight she took in. She glanced back to Avery, only to see that the wall they had emerged from was in fact a giant bookshelf.
Avery strode beside her, and gently drew a finger under her chin, coaxing Saga’s open mouth to close. “You’ll give yourself away gawking with your mouth open like that,” she teased.
“This is the most amazing place I have ever seen in my life,” Saga whispered.
“And you still haven’t seen the spring and summer sections, let alone the spas.”
Saga’s eyes widened until the whites fully surrounded the irises. “Are you serious?”
“Welcome to Hygge,32 the joy of all four seasons in a city with only one,” Avery commented wryly. She was watching a large group of fey in the corner of Winter until the waitress, a small faun, stepped into view from behind them. Avery was looking for someone. Someone she hadn’t seen yet.
“We have seasons,” Saga defended half-heartedly. “They just all happen to heavily feature rain…” Saga gasped as one of the glowing orbs flit to another branch, realizing they were not twinkling in and out, but actively moving through the leaves. “Fireflies?”
“Will-o’-the-wisps.”
