1
An Uncommon Traveler
Iris
The hiss of the espresso machine is the heartbeat of my morning. I’ve worked at The Daily Grind so long my hands know the rhythm without my brain getting involved. I twist the dial, and the grounds pack under the tamper with the satisfying give of fresh espresso. There’s something settling about it. Like a well-worn blanket that never fails to keep the rest of the world at bay.
“You like your silence too much for a barista,”Camille once told me. It is probably true. But somehow, I make it work.
Behind the heavy mahogany counter, the air smells of roasted beans and old paper. The steam fogs my glasses every time I leantoo close to the wand. Some mornings I forget the rest of the city exists at all.
It’s just past ten on a Tuesday, the quietest hour of my shift. The morning rush is gone. The lawyers in their bad ties left first, and the night-shift nurses followed close behind. What’s left now is the low hum of the refrigeration units, the aggressive typing at one of the tables, and me.
“Do you think the ferns look a bit thirsty today, Iris?” Mary asks from her usual corner.
I run a clean rag over the counter for the third time this hour. It’s habit more than necessity. “They probably just miss the rain.”
Mary is a wood nymph who works at the botanical gardens three blocks over. She always looks a little wilted by mid-morning, but today the tangle of ivy growing from her scalp has drooped past her shoulders. The leaves are pale at the edges, as if they’re visibly complaining. She has both hands wrapped around her chamomile tea and breathes the steam in with her eyes closed. I make a mental note to give her a refill on the house.
Mary sighs, her fingers tracing the rim of the ceramic mug. “The city air is so heavy with exhaust.”
“I’ll give the ferns an extra misting before I head out at noon,” I say, already reaching under the counter for my paperback.
The cover is creased, and the edges curl from a year of being shoved into and dragged out of my bag. It’s an academic historyabout Mediterranean trade routes, specifically the salt taxes that bankrupted half the ancient world. Most people would rather chew glass than read about Phoenician customs duties. I have a paper due in nine days that proves I’m the exception.
Leo is at his usual table by the window, and his typing is becoming more frantic by the minute. “Iris, if I don’t finish this essay by noon, I might actually turn into a gargoyle,” he groans without looking up from the screen.
“No, you won’t,” I tell him. “If you had that kind of skin tone, you’d cry. Now finish your latte, and stop worrying.”
Leo grumbles under his breath and keeps typing. I find my place on the page again.
I’m halfway through a paragraph on a Tyrian salt merchant when the bell above the door rings. It isn’t the brassy jingle I know. The chime is deeper, and I can feel it buzzing in my teeth before I properly hear it.
For a few seconds, my glasses fog up. I blink, and the world is clear again. Then, I look up.
The air in the shop changes the moment my eyes find the door. It thickens, like the pressure that builds before a summer storm. A man stands in the doorway, though the wordmandoesn’t quite fit him. Underneath his obsidian skin, fine veins of amber fire pulse with a slow, steady rhythm. Two black horns, dark as volcanic glass, curve up from his hair.
Leo’s fingers freeze on the keys. Mary’s mug pauses halfway to her mouth. The shop falls so quiet my own heartbeat sounds loud in my chest.
“Good morning.” I mark my page and slide the bookmark home. “What can I get for you?”
He goes still. His gold eyes settle on me with a level of attention that prickles the back of my neck. He starts toward the counter. The floorboards creak under his weight, but the sound is wrong. Heavier than it should be.
His suit is a deep blood-red silk that shifts when he moves. He stops a few feet from the counter. Up close, he smells of ancient spices and desert heat.
With a touch of distant hysteria, I wonder if Tyrian salt merchants ever smelled something like this. I certainly haven’t.
“You speak to me,” he murmurs, “as though I were anyone.”
His voice is low, unhurried, and something in my chest answers it without my permission. But I refuse to let that show.
“You’re a customer in a coffee shop,” I reply steadily. “Unless you came for the plumbing, I assume you want a drink. Do you need a minute with the menu?”
His gaze moves to the chalkboard behind me. He studies it like he would a foreign train timetable.
“I do not need the menu.”
“Suit yourself,” I say with a small shrug. “We have coffee, tea, and espresso. There are muffins, but they’re from yesterday. The lemon loaf is fresher if you’re hungry.”
