Probably.
Chapter 15
I’ll Be Home Soon
TuesdaymorningandIam back behind the counter, which is where I belong, except that nothing feels quite like it belongs anymore.
It has been eight days since Hex materialised in my bedroom. Eight days since my entire understanding of reality quietly packed its bags and moved out without leaving a forwarding address. Eight days of shadow princes and family dinners and my books being reorganised without my consent.
The morning rush is the same as it always is. Flat whites and oat milk lattes and one man who orders a decaf americano with such listless energy that I want to ask him what the point is. Felix is on the register. I am on the machine. The indie playlist is doing its thing. The vegan bakery next door is doing something with cardamom.
Everything is normal. Completely normal. I am a completely normal person making completely normal coffee.
I’m definitely not regretting telling Hex he had to stay in the flat so I could work in peace. What kind of overly-clingy person would regret that?
“Your aura is doing something really weird,” says Felix, without looking up from the till.
“You look great too.”
“I mean it.” He glances over his shoulder at me. “It keeps flickering. Like a dodgy light bulb.”
“Maybe I’m tired.”
“You’re not tired. You’re unsettled.” He turns back to the next customer with a brilliant smile that gives absolutely no indication that he was just discussing my supernatural energy field. “Hi! What can I get you?”
I make the coffee. I steam the milk. I do not think about flickering auras or what they might mean.
The rush dies down around nine. Felix appears at my elbow with the focused energy of someone who has been waiting for exactly this moment.
“Talk,” he says.
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“Something is off.” He leans against the counter and crosses his arms, which makes his pentagram rings catch the light in a way that would be quite theatrical if Felix weren’t entirely sincere about all of it. “Not with you specifically. With the energy around you. It started yesterday but it’s stronger today.”
I think about the shape in the doorway across the street. There and then gone. Hex’s easy smile sliding back onto his face. Nothing to worry about today.
“Hex said everything was fine,” I say.
Felix gives me a look. “And you believed him.”
It isn’t a question. It doesn’t need to be. I busy myself wiping down the steam wand.
“He said there was nothing to worry about,” I say, which is not the same thing, and Felix’s expression tells me he has noticed.
“Something in the Shadow Realm is paying attention to Bristol,” Felix says, keeping his voice low and even, the tone he uses when he wants to deliver alarming information without alarming me, which never actually works but I appreciate the effort. “I felt it last night when I was doing my evening practice. It’s likea frequency. Something tuning in.” He pauses. “Something that wasn’t there a week ago.”
The steam wand is very clean now. I keep wiping it anyway.
“Are you sensing Hex?” I ask. “He’s getting stronger, maybe he’s putting out some kind of signal?”
“Maybe.” Felix doesn’t look convinced. “If you’re right, that’s not necessarily a good thing.”
I stare at him.
“If I can sense Hex, then his enemies, or other entities, can too.”
I set down the cloth. The coffee shop hums pleasantly around us. A woman in the corner is typing on a laptop. Two students are sharing a pastry and arguing softly about something. The fairy lights are doing their fairy light thing.
