Chapter One
THE MOMENT I STEP OUTof Lauve Studio, I put my earbuds in.
It's instinct at this point. Something bad happens, I reach for a book. It's been that way since I was eight years old and figured out that stories were better than real life. Or at least, better than the version of real life that involved my father's voice shaking the walls and my mother's silence filling up all the spaces in between.
Books were my door out. Still are.
Today's door isOlympus Bewitchedby Alice Bloome. I've listened to it so many times I've lost count, but that's the point. I don't need surprises right now. I need Blair and her awkward crush on Mr. Handsome and the cozy magic of Silver Mist. I need a world where self-taught witches solve crimes and the mysterious man at the diner counter turns out to be worth all the pining.
The narrator's voice fills my ears, warm and familiar, as I start walking.
"Magnetic hazel eyes collided with mine, and I quickly snapped my head back. As mortifying as it was to admit, having our gazes meet was already more excitement than I could handle..."
I smile despite everything. Blair is such a mess. I love her for it.
My feet carry me down the sidewalk while my mind stays in Panda's Diner, watching Blair try not to combust from the sheerproximity of a beautiful man. I'm not really paying attention to where I'm going. That's the whole point of this. To not be here, in my body, on this street, in this city where Marilyn Yuson just walked back into my life with a designer engagement ring and a smile that saidI remember exactly who you are, and isn't this fun?
It's not fun.
It's the opposite of fun.
But I'm not going to think about that right now. I'm going to think about Blair, who just spilled coffee on her textbook, and Mr. Handsome, who's about to do something impossibly charming—
A raindrop lands on my nose.
I blink, looking up. The sky has gone the color of wet slate, and even as I'm processing this, the clouds open up and rain comes down in sheets.
Great. Perfect. Exactly what today needed.
I pull my jacket over my head and look around for shelter. I'm on a street I don't recognize. Old brick buildings, iron lampposts, cobblestones slick with rain. How long was I walking? Where evenamI?
And then I see it.
A shop, tucked between two taller buildings like something that doesn't want to be found. Light glows from its windows, and my photographer brain immediately starts cataloging: warm color temperature, maybe 2700K, the kind of tungsten glow that makes everything look like a memory. The buildings on eitherside cast long shadows over the entrance, but the window itself is lit from within, drawing the eye exactly where it wants you to look.
Someone designed this. Someone understood that light reveals and shadow conceals, and they used both to make this little shop feel like a secret meant only for whoever stumbles across it.
There's no sign outside. No name. Just the light, and the rain, and the strange pull in my chest that makes me pause the audiobook and take out my earbuds.
The rain is soaking through my jacket now. I should find a coffee shop, something normal, somewhere with WiFi and overpriced lattes and people looking at their phones.
Instead, I push open the door.
THE FIRST THING I NOTICEis the warmth.
Not just temperature, though that too. The kind of warmth that seeps into your bones after you've been cold for too long. But something else. Something that settles over me like a blanket I didn't know I needed, pressing gently against all the tight, anxious places in my chest until they start to loosen.
I stand just inside the doorway, dripping onto a worn Persian rug, and try to make sense of what I'm seeing.
The shop is bigger than it looked from outside. Much bigger. The ceiling soars overhead, crisscrossed with dark wooden beams, and from those beams hang dozens of brass lanterns. The light they cast is uneven, intentional. Bright where it wants you to linger, dim where it doesn't. A photographer's lighting setup, Ithink, except no photographer would have this kind of patience. This kind of craft.
The brightest glow falls on the books.
Of course it does. That's what this place wants you to see.
Bookshelves line every wall, floor to ceiling, made of wood so dark it swallows the light around it. The books themselves are another story. Leather-bound spines in jewel tones catch the glow and throw it back: emerald, ruby, sapphire, amber. Cracked paperbacks with yellowed pages nestle between them, their covers faded to soft pastels. The spines aren't arranged alphabetically or by size. They're arranged bycolor, I realize. Gradients that shift from warm to cool and back again, leading the eye on a journey around the room.
Someone curated this. Someone who understood visual rhythm.
