This is fine. I can extend an olive branch—I can be the bigger person.
Keira makes a vague humming noise as she studies me, then she lifts her nose ever so slightly and turns back to Ryder. “I was hoping to catch you alone. We need to talk about Rowan and the poor relationship decisions he’s made recently.”
And…olive branch rejected. I think that’s my cue to leave.
I don’t hear how Ryder responds to Keira because I mumble an excuse to leave and hightail it out of the bakery so quickly, I might as well be a forest animal.
Seconds later, I hear footsteps behind me. Terrified it’s Rowan’s ex, I turn. “Listen, I know you’re not happy?—”
Rosalie pauses, looking unsure, and then glances back at the bakery. “That was nasty of her. Are you okay?”
Rosalie is just as pretty as Keira, with her dark hair and green eyes, but she doesn’t wield her beauty like a weapon. She’s also soft-spoken and a little shy, and I know it wasn’t easy for her to come after me to make sure I’m all right.
My shoulders sag, and I feel like I’m going to cry. “I’m not great with confrontation.”
“Ryder mentioned once that Keira is unpleasant…” She laughs a little. “That might have been an understatement.”
“It doesn’t sound like they get along well. I wonder why she’s there. Do you think she really wants to talk about Rowan, or was that just for my benefit?”
“I don’t know.” Rosalie gestures down the walkway. “You said you were going to the cafe. Do you want to walk together? I told Ansel I’d grab lunch, but I got distracted.”
“By the cinnamon rolls?” I ask, already feeling a little better.
She laughs again. “They smelled good, but no. Ryder asked me to make a tonic for his mother. She hasn’t been sleeping well.”
“That’s right—you’re an alchemist. Did you think about going into the healing arts instead of opening the rock shop with Ansel?”
“When we first moved here, I thought about running a small apothecary in our shop, but the natural health store was already established in town.” She dodges a small boy who runs ahead of his distracted mother. “And hiding magic is tricky when you’re running a human-facing store. Not only that, but I prefer to focus on fae remedies, and so many are toxic to humans. So I just gift a few things to the locals here and there.”
I don’t think I’ve ever heard Rosalie string so many words together.
“They’re not toxic to mages, though?”
“Some are,” she says brightly. “I have to be careful with those.”
As we walk to the cafe, she tells me about some of the more terrifying concoctions she learned to make in college, and my embarrassment over my run-in with Keira begins to fade.
I’m feeling pretty good when we walk through the cafe doors, laughing with Rosalie about a potion she made in her secondyear of high school that accidentally aged her handsome potions teacher thirty years.
“Thankfully, it was temporary,” she says. “And he didn’t fail me, probably because he didn’t want me to repeat the class. I’m sure he’d be horrified to learn I went into alchemy, though.” As we wait for a hostess to greet us, she asks, “Did you go to a fae high school?”
“No, I grew up around humans.”
“Lucky you.” She lowers her voice to a whisper. “Teenage pixies have it rough around people who can see their sparkles.”
“So I’ve heard.”
Even the thought of it nearly gives me hives. Humans can feel my summer magic, but they can’t see the glittering magic that surrounds me when I’m attracted to someone. And for that, I will be eternally grateful.
“Welcome.” Miralynn smiles when she greets us, already grabbing menus.
Standing at just over five feet tall, the mountain dwarf is even shorter than me, with sturdy shoulders and a wholesome girl-next-door sort of look about her. She’s sixteen, maybe seventeen years old. I’m pretty sure this is her summer job.
“A table for two?” she asks.
“I actually have a pickup order,” I tell her.
“And I’d like to make an order,” Rosalie adds.
