Page 61 of When Storms Awaken

“Just enjoy it,” Nik told me before taking a gulp himself and resting his mug back on the table. “Oh, Eight Bells. How I have missed you.”

“Can we order food?” Tess asked, practically reading my mind.

“Of course.” Puck flagged down a waitress to grab us a few menus.

Within the hour we had devoured two dozen chicken wings, and nearly half a dozen mugs of Dragon’s Ale between me and Tess. Nik and Puck had consumed much more than that, but you wouldn’t know it. The only difference in them was that they were more flirty than usual, which was really saying something because Nik was incorrigible. As we sat in the booth and watched the other patrons, I noticed people using subtle magic around me. It was absolutely fascinating. What would it have been like to grow up in a place such as this, where easy magic was commonplace?

One gentleman used his magic to send an ale down the bar to a beautiful woman who thanked him with a smile. Another used magic to grab his coat from the rack by the door and bring it to his chair, never having to get up to go and grab it. My favorite had to have been the woman who had used her magic to spill a heavy pitcher of water that a waitress had been carrying past on a man who wouldn’t leave her and her friends alone.

I felt my own magic impatiently at my fingertips, itching to get out. It was crazy to think I had lived my whole life without this magic, but never a moment passed now where I didn’t feel it. Ever since I had started practicing, it had become second nature to me. It felt as if it were such a deeply rooted part of me, I have no idea how I had ever lived without. Maybe it was the three mugs of Dragon’s Ale, but I vowed that when I got home, I would ask my mom about my magic. If she had no idea about any of it, then it had to have come from my dad. Then I would know for sure. I needed answers.

I was so at peace here in Prins, sitting in this worn leather booth with Tess, Nik, and Puck, a wooden mug in my hand. I couldn’t remember a time I had felt this happy, this light. This…at home. I loved it here. It was only my second time visiting Istmere, but it already felt as if it were home to me. More than the other realm ever had.

As I watched the people of Istmere, admiring their clothing and their easy ways of magic, the door to the pub jingled open. A sharp spike of dread shot down my spine before I even saw who it was that had entered. It was as if my magic noticed something…wrong, something sinister, and responded without me having even noticed. My eyes snapped to Nik’s and in his expression, I could see that he had felt it, too.

I peered around the booth to see who had entered, but it was not a man that I recognized. I had never seen him before, but somehow, he felt familiar. He had a familiar set to his jaw, but I couldn’t see his eyes. He had his newsboy cap pulled down low over his brow to obscure his face. He wore a fitted jacket and clean, pressed slacks. Who did he remind me of?

“Time to go,” Nik whispered in my ear as he kicked Puck under the table and nodded towards the front door.

“Shit,” Puck replied as he gathered his cloak and Tess did the same.

“Who is that?” I asked quietly, sliding out of the booth behind Nik.

“Fletcher’s brother. We can sneak back later, but for now we’ve got to get out of here. Before we’re spotted,” Nik replied.

No wonder he looked so familiar. He had the same strong jaw, the same firm set of his mouth. The likeness was so uncanny they could be twins, and I wondered how I hadn’t put it together initially. What was Fletcher’s brother doing here? Had Fletcher known we went through the portal? Had he sent him to search for us?

We kept our eyes on the ground and quickly moved to the door, slipping through it and starting down the cobblestone street away from the pub.

“That was a close call.” Nik let out a sigh of relief as we rounded a corner out of sight of the pub. We continued to walk down the road until we came to a crossing.

“Where are we going now?” I asked as we paused at the corner, letting the horse-drawn carriages barrel past on the busy street.

“To kill some time before we go back. Kane can’t stay there forever. He’s not a frequent patron of the esteemed Eight Bells, so I have to assume he was looking for us. They don’t like him there, it’s only a matter of time before he gets kicked out. How he might know we are in Prins, now that is the question.”

“Maybe a little fellow that looks exactly like him just a smidge taller, and younger, and more annoying, tipped him off…” Puck ran a hand through his shaggy brown hair, his shoulders moving as he laughed silently.

“You don’t think he saw us?” Tess asked, nervously shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

“No, I don’t think he saw us. He would have been on us by now. But it couldn’t hurt for us to pick up a few glamour vials while we’re here. Hopefully we don’t have to use them,” Puck told us. “I’m out anyway, and they work great on humans in the other realm.”

“Glamour vials?” I asked. Were they similar to the glamour we had encountered when we approached the pillars that led to Prins? The one that hid the city from those that didn’t know it was there?

“It’s a potion that makes you look like someone else. It obscures your obvious features and changes little things about you such as your hair color, or the shape of your nose. Not a long-term solution, and kind of expensive, but good to have on hand just in case,” Nik replied.

“Alastir’s?” Puck asked Nik, pulling the hood of his cloak over his mess of curls.

“Alastir’s,” Nik confirmed with a nod before turning to me to explain, “An old friend. He owns a charm shop here in town.”

Nik led the way, and we turned left at the corner, deeper into Prins and further away from the steep staircase that had led us up from The Shadow. This part of the city was much livelier than that of The Shadow, but not quite as chaotic as the port we had encountered when we first arrived in Prins. The clouds continued to cover the city, it had been threatening to storm all day but so far it had remained clear. The shops had their doors propped open and their merchandise could be seen in the windows or on the tables set up outside. Many shops had long open awnings with the shop owners sitting in rocking chairs out front, talking with patrons as if they were old friends.

The cobblestone street wound left and right through a maze of alleyways and houses. Many of the houses were four or five stories tall in this part of the city, housing many different families on each level. The buildings were set close together with Juliet balconies leading out onto the streets below. Most houses appeared to be shotgun style, short one way and long the other. The houses were stone and brick here, exactly as they were at the port where we entered Prins. Many shop keepers and residents had colorful tapestries strung out on their balconies or had painted the stone or brick something bright and colorful.

At the top of a rounded hill, we stopped in front of Alastir’s Charm shop. It was a narrow building wedged between a blacksmith and a cobbler. A thin alleyway separated each building.

“Stay here, and don’t move,” Nik told me as he and Puck turned to open the door.

“We can’t come in?” I asked, my brow furrowed. I was desperate to see the types of wares a charm shop in Istmere might sell, and see if there was anything I could get my hands on to bring back with me to the other realm.

---