Ada’s still tall and lithe, but her dark brown skin shimmers lightly in the golden morning light slanting in through the front windows. Her ears taper to points at the top, slimmer and taller than Conall's. But her most surprising feature is the beautiful, delicate wings rising from her back. They're sheer and sparkle like her skin, lavender in color, big enough to poke up above her head and trail down to her ankles.
"Hey," I say tentatively.
"Hey!" She beams. "I heard about the mimic and the basilisk. How are you feeling?"
My mind feels a little glitchy. I’m still shaken from barely surviving the monster attack, so Ada’s casual question feels surreal, as if she's just asking about the weather.
"Fine. Just a little cut,” I say.
She frowns with what looks like genuine worry.
"Well, I saw you coming, so I made your usual. On the house, since you did almost die." She hands me my to-go cup. On the side, it saysfeel betterwith a little heart. As I look from my cup back up to her, glimmering skin and wings moving lazily behind her, I realize I might actually be friends with a monster.
"Thanks."
She hands Conall his cup. "That'll be $5.75."
He frowns, pulling out his wallet. "I saved her. Doesn't that earn me a free coffee?"
She quirks an eyebrow. "I'm not giving you a freebie for doing your job." He huffs as she runs his card. She looks back at me. "Still on for Friday game night at Layla's?"
I stare like a deer in headlights. In all this chaos, she genuinely expects me to show up to game night like everything is fine? From the open, hopeful look on her face, she absolutely does.
Caught off guard, I say the first thing that comes to mind. "Yeah, of course. I'll bring wine."
She does a little happy clap. "Great, see you then."
I leave the café, my head spinning. I feel more confused and strangely adrift than ever.
Conall
She's handling this better than I expected, being human. Humans aren't exactly known for their tolerances. She was clearly thrown when we first got to town, but as people have come and gone from Shipton's, she's gotten more used to the most common features. Horns, tails, pointed ears, claws, sharp teeth. Every so often, someone comes in with something she hasn't seen yet, and she has a hard time not gawking.
She's standing in front of a shelf full of jams and small enchantments, lips slightly parted, watching a patron look over some goods. I ignore the way the sight of her sends heat tugging low and slip behind her, bending until my mouth is close to her ear. "If you stare long enough at a unicorn, you'll turn to stone."
She jerks, breath hitching, and rounds on me. She glances back at Lawrence. His pale white skin, light pink eyes, and shimmering silver horn mark him as a rare albino unicorn. "Would I really turn to stone?" she whispers.
I smirk. "No." She swats me on the arm. "If you're going to be here for a while, you need to learn to be less gullible, Freckles."
"Forgive me for not knowing all the ins and outs of monster humor," she deadpans.
Amy helps Lawrence pick out horn polish. Ivy stops in front of the round mirror hanging on the display wall. I watch as she looks from side to side.
"Trying to figure it out?" I ask.
"Yeah. Why does it look so right, but so….wrong?" I step up behind her and gently turn her so she's facing me, away from the mirror. I twist a few curls and gently pin them back with a clip from the hair section. Her big brown eyes meet mine. I nudge back to face the mirror and she gasps, reaching up for the clip. I placed the clip on the right side of her hair. She reaches up with her right hand. But, instead of being the mirror image the reflection also raises its right arm.
"It's a dopple." I explain. "Not your reflection." Suddenly the woman in the glass who looks like Ivy smiles walks back into the mirror shop reflected in the mirror, away from us.
Ivy turns, looking up at me with large eyes. "It lives in the mirror?"
"Most dopple's do. This one lives in this mirror."
"Fuck, I'm never going to be able to face my reflection again."
Laz walks in with that too-casual air about him. He looks mostly the same. Wizards and witches have very humanoid features. His eyes, however, are a more vibrant blue than humans, as though electricity crackles behind them.
"There's going to be a town meeting tonight about the situation." His gaze cuts to Ivy, and I step forward without really thinking about it, angling myself between them. Laz's eyebrow cocks, but he doesn't say anything.
