“One second!” She slammed the door shut in my face. I heard a scurrying, a commotion, and a flurry of voices. Five seconds passed. Ten. And then the door swung open. “Quick!” she demanded. “She bolts when it’s left open for too long.”
I hurried inside.
Magic shivered over my scalp, past my shoulders, slipping over the lengths of my legs as I passed the threshold.
I shook off the sensation. It wasn’t painful, it was merely… unsettling. Magic still made me feel squirmy. I wasn’t quite used to it yet.
Magic had been around for ages, as long as time itself. But when the Old Gods abandoned the realm hundreds of years ago, they snatched most of it with them. Recently, though, after a fateful Hallow’s Eve and a witchy ritual gone haywire, the magic had suddenly returned.
Nobody knew exactly why.
We were all still reeling from the change, even us less magically inclined folk.
Fauns were supposed to be in touch with magic. Or so legends said. Thirty-three years in this realm and I hadn’t figured it out, yet. Not that I had tried. I left the magic to the witches and the elves.
But with the return of magic to the realm… Maybe magic was in the cards for all of us, whether we liked it or not.
The door slammed shut. It hardly missed the tail of my cloak. Thankfully, the sprites that constantly swarmed Kizzi’s apothecary kept their tiny hands off me, but they did hover close by.
Rotten little creatures. They were pretty cute though, if you were able to catch a glimpse of them from the corner of your eye. They were difficult to see, otherwise—at least to my untrained eyes.
Brambleby finally managed to free himself from my grasp, and I let him go. He zoomed over to where Raine was locked in Tandor’s arms, covered in dozens of sprites. Tandor released the little blue dragon, and she squealed, leaping and tackling Brambleby to the ground.
She was bigger than Bram, but not by much, and she took him down easily.
It was all very chaotic.
And quite precious, if I was being honest.
My stomach twisted as I watched the critters roll around on the floor together. Like a mama bear, I wanted to snatch him up and keep him safe. He was the youngest, after all, and surely still somewhat fragile.
I sucked in a deep breath through my mouth. It tasted like cinnamon and lavender.
It took me a moment to adjust to the liveliness of Kizzi’s apothecary shop.
There was life and movementeverywhere. The very air hummed with magic. Sprites dotted nearly every surface. Hex, Kizzi’s scary slime familiar, lounged in the corner, popping bubbles in front of a fluffy white cat. And Kizzi and Tandor stood amongst it all, hand in hand, looking like they belonged. Like they were knit into the very heart of the chaos.
I felt like an intruder.
I tried to banish that feeling, but it persisted, simmering low in my chest like a bad case of heartburn.
“How’s the green beast?” Tandor asked casually, settling onto a rickety looking stool that somehow managed to hold his weight.
“Not very beastly, if I’m being honest.” I watched as Raine easily pinned Brambleby to the ground again, laying on top of him and chewing on one of his horns. Brambleby let it happen. He didn’t even squeak in protest.
“Now that you said that out loud, he’s going to be the wildest of them all,” Kizzi joked.
“I somehow doubt that.”
“Are you managing okay? Is he eating? Sleeping? Destroying everything he touches?” the witch asked as she shoved some crystals into a basket.
“Lighting fires or covering everything in ice, like the other two?” Tandor added.
“We’re fine, actually. He ate some of my stew for dinner and seemed perfectly happy. No fires. No ice.” He had no magical power that I could discern at all, but I didn’t say that part out loud. I was feeling protective of the little dragon and didn’t want to make him sound any less impressive than his siblings. Egg mates? Litter mates? Whatever. His fellow baby dragons.
“You lucky bitch,” Kizzi grumbled. “Of course Ginny would get thegooddragon.”
Raine huffed, snorting a stream of water at Kizzi’s skirts.
