I cringe, remembering how I recommended a new sushi place to my mermaid coworker. She’d been nice about it, but still. There are some things you can’t come back from.
But then again, a fair pawn shop, in this economy…?
My fingers find my grandmother’s bracelet, its familiar weight on my wrist both comforting and suddenly heavy with possibility. The delicate gold links have survived two world wars, countless family dramas, and my entire awkward teenage phase.
I’ll always remember sitting on Gran’s lap as she told me stories about how it came from the old country, how it was lucky, how it brought protection. Back then, I thought she was just spinningtales. Now, with everything we know about magic being real… I try to ignore the pang of guilt as I twist it around my wrist.
Gran wore it through the London Blitz, through immigration, through every hardship life threw at her. “It will always bring you home,” she’d say, kissing my forehead as she fastened it around my wrist on my fourteenth birthday.
The guilt of considering pawning it sits like lead in my stomach, but I can easily imagine what she’d say now: “It’s just a chunk of metal, love. You’re what matters.”
She was the person who taught me that material possessions aren’t important. That sometimes you have to scratch and scrimp to get by.
It’s the slow season at work right now, but as long as things pick up, I should get enough tips to buy the bracelet back in a month or two. Then again, if I don’t…
I sigh. “I don’t know, Mags.”
“What I know,” Maggie says, swinging her legs off the couch, “is that your choices are, one: pawning something you can buy back later, two: moving back home with your overbearing parents, or three: doing that kidney thing. And honey, you don’t have a good enough poker face for the black market. They’d take more than just a kidney.”
She’s right. Of course she’s right. I hate it when she’s right.
The next morning findsme standing outside The Golden Scale Pawn Shop, the name written in elegant gold lettering that somehow manages to look both ancient and modern. Through the window, I see display cases filled with objects that seem to shimmer with more than just regular dust.
When I push open the door, the soft chime of bells is drowned out by my thundering heartbeat. The air smells like old books and something spicier—incense maybe, but earthy.
Display cases line the walls in a bizarre parade of the mundane and mysterious: a rack of used guitars stands next to what appears to be a floating violin playing itself, while a case of vintage Rolexes shares space with watches whose hands spin backward. A perfectly ordinary beer sign flickers next to a crystal ball that’s showing what looks to be last week’s weather forecast.
It’s like someone combined a typical cash-for-gold joint with Hogwarts’ Lost & Found department.
I drift deeper into the shop, drawn by the gentle hum of magic that seems to pulse from the stranger items. A porcelain doll in a Victorian dress curtsies as I pass—definitely filingthatunder ‘things that will haunt my nightmares.’ Past the front displays, the space opens up, revealing more mysterious treasures tucked into shadowy alcoves: a collection of hourglasses filled with sparkling sand, a floating carpet, and—hang on—is that a first edition Furby, still in its original box? The demon-spawn of 90s toys, sandwiched between actual magical artifacts?
Somehow it’s more unsettling than the haunted items
That’s when I hear a voice as smooth as velvet. “Of everything here, it’s theFurbythat catches your attention?”
I jerk back, turning to see… him.
The naga Maggie told me about.
And good God, she was not exaggerating.
He rises from behind the counter where he’s been apparently organizing something, and my brain short-circuits.
The first thing that strikes me is his height—he towers at well over eight feet of coiled muscle and gleaming scales. His upper body is humanoid in shape but entirely covered in sleek black scales that catch golden highlights under the shop’s warm lighting. He wears a vest that does nothing to hide his broad shoulders, and a deep crimson sash wraps around his waist where his torso seamlessly flows into his serpentine lower half. Though, frustratingly, I can’t see much else behind the counter.
His face is a fascinating blend of human and snake—with a refined muzzle, sharp cheekbones, and expressive brow ridges. His molten gold eyes… God, it’s like they’re piercing right through me, with vertical pupils that seem to catalog my every movement. A cobra hood, currently relaxed, frames his head like a living crown, as if he could look any more regal.
“Welcome,” he says—and Lord save me—his voice. It’s deep, smooth, and with an accent I can’t place that somehow makes that single word sound like rich honey. “I’m Sundar,” he continues, his head swaying slightly. “How might I be of service today?”
I open my mouth, close it, then open it again. The best I can muster up is a very unattractive throat clearing as my mind races, unable to form words.
He cocks his head, and a forked tongue slips out for a split second, like it’s trying to detect any signs of intelligent life.
“Yeah, so, uh,” I begin, then clear my throat again.
Wow. Way to go. I’m really nailing it.
What was my whole plan again?
