Chapter 1
Colette
The square is filled with Leafshire Cove folks, my new neighbors, and I couldn’t be more excited. Snowlight is just a fortnight away. It’s my favorite holiday.
An orc carries a garland into The Gold Coin, a pub across the square. Three pink and green fairies and a blue-skinned pixie sip from steaming mugs in front of Two Cats Bakery. Their scarves are every color of the rainbow, likely made by our town weaver.Our!I’m a Leafshire Cove inhabitant now.
Pride swells inside me, and I bite my lip as I head back inside to the Acorn Inn, my new place of business and home in one. My family helped me save up the coin to buy the place. It took a lot of scrubbing other people’s homes, running errands for folksbetween regular work, and eating beans, but we did it.
The inn is quiet right now because I only opened back up yesterday. No one is in the gathering room or at the desk by the door. I hang the six sets of room keys on the hooks behind the desk. I asked one of my two employees to come in later this morning. Hopefully, she will be on time. Using the mirror near the card table, I braid my blonde hair into a long tail and set it over my shoulder. My mother’s eyes look back at me.“Green as the pines,”my father used to say. I miss the old man.
The mirror straightens itself and the teapot whistles. The scent of freshly laundered linens and lemon wood polish wafts through the air. Living and working at a sentient inn is going to take some getting used to.
“Thank you,” I say to the inn, trying to sound at ease.
I’m relieved the inn appears to be accepting me as the new owner. I pour a cup of tea into a flask that’s actually meant for something far stronger, and I leave in a rush. It’s already time for the book faire and I can’t be late.
Hurrying through the crisp air, I pass the chandler’s shopwith its hanging rows of beeswax candles. Their gentle honey smell is lovely. I need to grab a few more pillar candles for the upper-level rooms at the inn. Perhaps after the faire.
The shutters on the weaver’s windows are shut tight, and her dragonfox sleeps on the roof, his green wings tucked tightly and his red fur puffed for warmth. His mate is curled along his side. I can’t help but let out an-“Awww.”
When I arrive at the faire, a dozen or so folks are already going in and out of the doors. On the lighter-colored cobblestones in front of the bookshop, the baker sets up a towering display of iced cookies in white and green. My mouth waters because I know exactly how good she is at her work. I will definitely try each one of them.
My table is set up with books stacked in neat piles of cream, pink, and red. Five more tables of books by other authors make a crescent shape beyond the baker’s cookies. I recognize the purple books with the dragons on the covers. That’s my favorite fantasy author’s spot for the faire. I can’t wait to devour her newest release. Winter is the best time for reading.
“Colette! Finally!”
The bookshop owner—she also runs the library—clops toward me on her little hooves. Lysandra isa faun, quite rare, and very proud of her very pink horns. I don’t blame her one bit. They’re adorable.
I hug her and smile at the table. “Thanks for setting up my books.”
A blush colors her light brown cheeks. “I was worried you wouldn’t show up today.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you. You’re so famous now. Your last two books are on the Royal Reading List, you know?”
“I didn’t know that!” I hug her again. It’s a huge honor.
“Once the rest of the Veiled Kingdoms find out you bought an inn, the tourists are going to swarm this town.”
“I hope not.”
“Why?”
“I like how small and sweet Leafshire Cove is. It’s so different from the hustle and bustle of Kingstown.” I lived in the king and queen’s main city my whole life until now.
Lysandra beams at the circle of singers at the base of the Snowlight tree. “Leafshire Cove is a charming place. I can’t deny it.”
The Snowlight tree is made of fallen branches from the woods bound together by the town witch’s magic. A youngshifter reaches up to hang a clay snowflake from one of the slender limbs. A song begins, the singers lifting their voices in the traditional soft tune of the Frost and Fire ballad.
Lysandra grunts and crosses her arms. “That vampire is late. Very late.”
“Who?”
The faun jerks her pointy chin toward another table of books. “The thriller author, Archer Darkheart. He didn’t want to accept our invitation to the event. I could practically hear his sigh through his letter back to me. But his publisher informed me that he would be here.”
“I’ve heard of his books. Never met him though. What a gorgeous name. I bet he’s handsome. Vampires always are.”
