But how do you shop for groceries without a car?
“It didn’t last very long,” I finally answer the owl, choosing a banana from the fruit basket Ash gave me, wishing it were a muffin. “I’m fine now.”
“What are you doing?” he asks, sounding both repulsed and intrigued when I set peanut butter and bread on the counter.
“I’m making a peanut butter and banana sandwich. I didn’t bring anything else with me, and I haven’t had a chance to shop yet.”
“You drove all the way from Washington with only peanut butter and a loaf of bread?”
“I stopped for fast food a couple of times.”
“I’ve never had fast food,” he says disdainfully.
“That doesn’t surprise me.”
“Laverna cooked everything from scratch,” he adds.
“I’m sure she did.”
Most pixies enjoy those domestic sorts of tasks—the quiet, homey things. Cooking, crafting, sewing, gardening, and the like. I enjoy gardening, but the rest? Not so much.
I toss the butter knife into the sink to wash later and take my sandwich to the breakfast nook table. It sits in a bay window and looks into Laverna’s garden. Rose bushes grow against the lower panes, covered in blush-pink blooms. Dark purple clematis climbs an arbor just beyond it.
This might be my favorite spot in the house.
“Does anyone else in town know you’re a mage?” I ask Rowan.
“No—and I’d like to keep it that way.”
His answer is curt, making me think he doesn’t want to talk about himself. Which is fine. Even if I am a bit curious about this mage who turned himself into an owl, I have too much on my plate to worry about his past.
“Ash is going to be here in twenty minutes,” I tell him. “I’m going to check out the tea shop, maybe buy some flowers for the window boxes, and meet some of the other shopkeepers.”
Shopkeepers.What a strange, old-fashioned word. The town is already affecting me.
“And you’re going with Ash?” Rowan flaps his wings, his birdy body language matching his disgusted tone.
“He texted me last night,” I explain.
The owl’s gaze sharpens on me. “When?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I hedge. “It was after ten.”
“Before or after it stopped raining?”
The bird is annoyingly observant.
“While it was raining,” I admit.
I expect him to say something else, but he doesn’t. He just sticks his sharply hooked beak into his steaming mug of fancytea and then lifts his head, repeatedly moving his jaw to swallow it. It’s sort of adorable.
“So, I did some research, and owls don’t really drink water,” I say. “They get their hydration needs from their prey.”
“This isn’t water.”
“Which makes it stranger.”
“And I’m not an owl.”
