“Isn’t this nice?” she asked with a sigh, eyes fluttering closed.
The tea they had selected for her that day was a blended green. Long, tightly rolled leaves, dotted with great hunks of pungent red fruit, the aroma of the dried strawberries heady in her nose.
She understood their reasoning for remaining shadow-bound during the shop’s hours of operation — the invisible hands that pushed the tea cart, the feline hostess, the air of mystery that surrounded the scrolls and tarot cards and spirit boards — that was why people came back. She herself admitted if they had been a typical restaurant with average servers, she might have only ventured in that one afternoon.
She understood the reason . . .But after closing,shewas in charge.
“A powerful familiar told me I’m a shadowmancer and you have to do my bidding. My bidding is for you to get physical, so step to it.”
They would grumble and grouse in their way, a sibilant susurration, but the shadows would swirl and coalesce, settling into the shape they seemed most comfortable with — humanoid, tall and slender, with two sets of arms and half a dozen trailing tentacles. She thought it was adorable that they had no idea what constitutednormal, but she wasn’t going to do anything to change the shape they had chosen.It is uniquely theirs, and it’s perfect.
“There’s jam to have with your scone,” they whispered, the rattle of the windows on a windy, stormy night, and she noticed the little pot of strawberry jam they’d placed on the table for the first time, sitting next to the clotted cream, the scone resting on a lace doily.
Drawing three cards from the shuffled deck before her, taking a bite of her jam and cream-slathered scone, Harper placed them in a line. The Star, the Chariot reversed, and the Hanged Man.
“An auspicious draw, my sweet one.”
“It is, isn’t it,” Harper mused, taking another bite of her scone. “The Star.”
“A foot on the earth,” Azathé gestured, “a foot in the water. Balance in all things. The Star is one of the most optimistic cards in the deck. Look at the goodness surrounding her. It is easy to overlook the bounty in one’s life, but consider — the Star follows the Lightning-Struck Tower. Devastation and trauma. There will always be hard times to navigate in this life —”
“But things will always get better if you let them.” She nodded. Her father used to tell her the same thing. “This one makes me nervous, though.”
“The Chariot. Two opposing forces that we must control. If you allow one to win over, you’ll never move forward. Reversed, it tells us —”
“I swear to the mother, if you tell me balance in all things one more time,” Harper laughed. “Why do I get the feeling that the great myth of tarot is the cards all mean the same godsdamn thing?”
Their laughter was a pleasant buzz against her skin, and for a moment, they lost their form, nothing more than a swirling black shape before her, reforming a heartbeat later. A curling tendril of smoke wrapped around her ankle.
“You are not wrong, little witch. Balance is, I’m afraid, the answer to most of life’s ills. Sweet with the sour and laughter to temper your pain. The Hanged Man . . . A sacrifice needed? Perhaps you must set aside your own desires in order to achieve something more important?”
“No,” Harper murmured, shaking her head. “Here, it means taking my time. Letting a new relationship progress as slowly as it requires to feel comfortable.” She glanced up, watching their form waver across the table. “I know I said this is what I want,” she gestured to their corporeal presence at the table, “but-but if it makes you uncomfortable, or if it’s too much right now —”
“You know, little witch, someone very wise recently taught me that theabsenceof choice is sometimes a gift we bestow on those who mean the most to us. Allowing them to make the choice for us, and trusting them to take care of us. It seems to me that having that trust in another must be the deepest measure of love and affection.”
Her heart thrummed in her chest as if it had sprouted wings like a beautiful black butterfly. “It is. I would never give my choices to someone I didn’t trust entirely, and I can only trust someone if I love them.”
“Quite right,” they hummed.
She walked home that evening carrying the bag containing her little dish of spiky green rosettes, with a comfortable, familiar weight around her ankle.
“Is there really such a thing as a shadowmancer?” she asked, once she was stretched in her bed, shadows pressed to her back. Harper was comfortable being the little spoon and did not crane her head over her shoulder to see the form they had taken. It did not matter. “He’s super inspiring, but I won’t pretend that Holt doesn’t have a dash of sus. I may have been born at night, but I wasn’t born last night. Cats can’t be trusted, so I don’t know if he was just yanking my chain.”
Cold fingertips walked down her spine, making her shiver. She wondered if it was cold in the shadow realm, and if they found the topside world intolerably warm.
“There is certainly such a thing, my sweet one. Regrettably, for your career aspirations, I don’t know that I would consider you to be one, although, you possess the predisposition, should you choose to seek it.”
“What the actual fuck is that even supposed to mean?!”
They chuckled, low dark, plush velvet pressing to her back. “I have already told you, little witch. Most people cannot see the things that dwell in the shadows. Your ability to do so is quite rare, particularly as it is not a skill it seems you have studied. The majority of topsiders who can see my brethren can only do so once we have made ourselves known, taking form, as I have done for you.”
She shrugged. “I already told you; most people can’t match blacks. They go out of the house thinking they look chic and put together, but they actually look like a patchwork clown.”
“Yes, well, your fashion predilections aside, I assure you, your ability is not common. If one of the shadowfolk entered your home, you might not notice them immediately, but you would eventually. Movement from the corner of your eye that most would not notice, a darkening of corners —”
“It’s not only that,” she interrupted. “You have a different energy. It’s like . . . an electric charge. Static against my skin, like if you rub a balloon against your arm. It makes your hair stand out, yes, but you also feel that crackle against you. But yes, I can also see the difference in color of an empty shadow and one that you’re in.”
They shifted behind her, seeming slightly discomfited by her disclosure.
