Page 33 of Built Orc Tough
One, two—violent, full-body things that sound like a bear being startled awake.
I stagger back, knocking into the calming tea tray I set out for old Mrs. Temberlin, who gasps so hard I’m afraid she might actually levitate.
“Oh dear stars!” she cries, tea sloshing. “Is the shop cursed?”
I grab the edge of the table, trying not to sneeze again. “Ivy!” I bark between wheezes. “What in ten hells did you do?”
She appears in the doorway like the world’s smuggest thundercloud. “Just a little air purification. You know, for ambiance.”
I wipe my face with a sleeve, glitter sticking to everything. “This is warfare.”
She grins. “This is glitter.”
Mrs. Temberlin dabs her eyes with a lace handkerchief. “Young love is so lively these days.”
We both freeze.
Ivy mutters something I don’t catch and disappears again.
I spend the next half hour trying to unstick herbal bundles from glitter and apologizing to customers who now believe our store is hosting a fae rave.
Later, when the last client leaves, I find her reorganizing the sage bundles like she didn’t just commit a war crime.
“Ivy.”
She doesn’t turn around. “Yes, General Gorran?”
“Consider this a declaration.”
“Of surrender?” she asks, all fake innocence.
“Of retaliation.”
She finally looks up. There’s a dangerous light in her eyes and the shadow of a smile that would make a lesser man reconsider his life choices.
“Good,” she says. “I was starting to get bored.”
I stare at her. “You moved my black pepper into the moonwater shelf.”
She shrugs. “It needed a better view.”
I cross my arms. “You’re a menace.”
“And you’re sneezing sparkles.”
Fair.
I don’t smile. Not exactly. But the corner of my mouth twitches, and she sees it. Her grin widens, bright and victorious.
The war is on.
And the shop feels alive again.
I don’t even remember what sets it off. Maybe it’s the way the glitter refuses to come off my beard, clinging like enchanted dandruff. Or maybe it’s Ivy tripping over a rogue bucket of moonwater and trying to pretend she meant to do that with all the grace of a half-drunk fawn.
But whatever the trigger, I laugh.
Not a chuckle. Not a grunt. A real, full-body, unrestrained laugh that cracks out of me like a dam finally giving in.
