Page 4

“Oh my god,” I whisper.

Aurora, the ever patient cat she is, chirps from the office.

“I know.”

CHAPTER 2

FLORA

The trees lining East Madison Street have finally started turning overnight, flashes of burnt orange and deep red caught between gray buildings and rain-slick Seattle traffic.

I unlock the coffee shop at six-thirty sharp, just like I do four times a week for my morning shifts at The Spindle Café and Bakery.

The bell above the door jingles as Luis follows me inside carrying two boxes of pastries balanced against his chest.

“You know,” he says, nudging the door closed with his foot, “normal people sleep later than this.”

“Then it’s fortunate we’re not normal people.”

Luis gives me the same look he gives me every time we have the opening shift together, somewhere between fondness and concern that I might one day dissolve entirely into black turtlenecks and silence. Then he snorts. “Speak for yourself.”

The shop is as quiet as it can be before sunrise, before commuters start trickling in and pretending coffee is a unique personality trait.

The scent of yesterday’s coffee lingers faintly beneath lemon-scented cleaning products the early morning cleaning crew used a few hours ago to sanitize all surfaces and mop the floors.

Outside, the residential neighborhood is only beginning to wake up. Rain has left the sidewalks shining, and traffic slowly crawls outside the window, doing a delicate dance of moving and stopping at a predictable pace. Our delivery truck is idling at the curb, the driver scrolling on his phone waiting for Luis to go out to get the rest of today’s supplies.

I switch on the espresso machine while Luis starts stocking muffins and croissants into the display.

Routine settles over the morning slowly, heavily, like everyone is collectively agreeing to survive another dreary workday.

I wipe down tables and refill napkins and straighten one of the pictures hanging on the wall that doesn’t need straightening.

By seven o’clock, the shop is ready. The first customers won’t arrive for another few minutes, so I pull out my phone and open The Third Fairy dashboard to look at the orders that came in overnight. Six total—one reconciliation spell with a candle, two protection charms, one road opener ritual for someone looking to unlock their career, one attraction spell, and one custom message request.

Those are the most complicated ones, so I don’t open it yet. Instead, I glance absently out the front window toward the bus stop across the street.

Right on cue.

There she is, running per usual. I don’t know her name, but she catches the bus often enough that my brain has started arranging mornings around her arrival without asking my permission first. It also doesn’t help that Luis started a tiny tally on the whiteboard in the back labeled Little Miss Hurricane vs Public Transit, and now half the staff has opinions.

It is, begrudgingly, the only thing I enjoy about opening shifts nowadays.

Today she’s carrying a giant tote bag, what appears to be a laptop case with papers poking out, and a to-go coffee cup. Her camel-colored coat is falling halfway off one shoulder, and she has absolutely no sense of balance and she sprints full speed down the sidewalk.

It’s such a familiar sight that Luis sighs dramatically beside me. “Ten she doesn’t make it.”

The bus slows down to a roll and finally pulls up at the curb at the exact moment she reaches the stop, though not before pointing aggressively to someone waiting as if asking them to personally hold the bus through sheer moral obligation.

“I should have taken you up on it,” I say, even though I absolutely should not be encouraging my coworker at all.

“Wait, look,” he says, taking a step toward the windows, muffins be damned. “She might miss it, after all.”

Across the street, the woman is digging through her bag for her ORCA card. She nearly drops the coffee, somehow—impossibly—catches it at the last second, then knocks her own sunglasses onto the sidewalk instead.

An entire sequence of disasters in under ten seconds.

The driver seems to be looking at the woman, patiently waiting. I can see the woman’s mouth moving, maybe apologizing, maybe begging for an extra second.