Marina listened. The salt smell had faded slightly, but her locket was still warm. Waiting.
She shook her head and went back to her croissants.
The morning rush hit like a wave, and Marina let it carry her.
Mrs. Whitmore came in for her usual blueberry muffin and stayed forty-five minutes discussing her cat’s digestive issues in alarming detail. The Blackwood twins ordered six scones and ate them at the window table while doing homework they should have finished last night. A vampire tourist asked if she had anything without garlic and seemed genuinely disappointed when Marina said yes.
“Everything has garlic?” he asked, peering mournfully at the display case.
“Everything except the lemon bars.”
He bought four and left a generous tip, though he kept glancing at the harbor through the window like it made him nervous.
Old Mr. Callahan, the selkie who ran the bait shop, stopped by for sourdough and told Marina her grandmother would be proud.
She smiled. Thanked him. Definitely didn’t cry in the walk-in freezer for ten minutes afterward.
She’d just gotten better at working around it.
Between customers, she prepped. Rolling dough until her shoulders burned. Tempering chocolate for a truffle filling she’dadded to the menu in a moment of madness. Making practice batches of honey cakes that still didn’t taste quite right: close to her grandmother’s recipe, but missing the secret Nana had never written down.
Through it all, the strange electricity hummed beneath her skin. And twice, she caught herself standing at the window, staring at the harbor, the sea calling to a part of her she’d tried very hard to forget.
At ten, the bell chimed and Estelle Nakamura swept in.
The mayor of Sweetwater Cove was somewhere north of two hundred years old, though she looked forty and dressed like she was perpetually late for a gallery opening. Today: a silk blouse the color of autumn leaves, earrings that caught the light like they remembered being part of something larger. Her shadow had too many tails.
Kitsune. Fox spirit. The kind of creature who knew things before they happened.
Marina’s locket pulsed with heat.
“The usual, please.” Estelle settled onto a counter stool. “And gossip. I’m desperately low.”
Marina started on the chai latte. Oat milk. Extra cinnamon. A whisper of honey. “I don’t have any gossip.”
“That’s because you never leave this bakery.” Estelle accepted the drink with an elegant nod. “But I have gossip. Interesting gossip. The kind that might concern you.”
Marina’s hands stilled on the espresso machine. “Concern me how?”
“The Draven heir is coming to the summit.”
The name meant nothing. But Marina’s locket flared hot, and she pressed her palm against it before she could stop herself.
Estelle’s eyes tracked the movement. Her shadow-tails stopped swaying.
“Is that… significant?” Marina managed, forcing her hand back to the counter.
“Dragons, dear. One of the old families.” Estelle’s eyes glittered: knowing, ancient, amused. “They’ve been cursed for generations. Something about a broken vow and a particularly vindictive witch. The heir has been trying to break it for years. Very dramatic. Very tortured. Very single.”
“I don’t see what that has to do with me.”
“Don’t you?” Estelle sipped her chai. “I’ve been alive for a very long time, Marina Pearl. I’ve learned to recognize when the threads of fate are tangling together.”
“I don’t believe in fate,” Marina said.
“That’s the lovely thing about fate. It doesn’t require your belief.” Estelle set down her cup. “When was the last time you swam?”
Marina stiffened. “That’s—I don’t?—”
