Page 20 of A Subtle Scar
The smith’s eyes widened. “Oh, right. And I should apologize to you, Mr…?”
“Chandler’s fine,” I said because I knew my manners. I’d neatly avoided falling in the gossip mill when I’d first come to Chymical Street, but it looked like the jig was up now.
“Mr. Chandler, again, apologies. It’s just not the first thing you assume in my line of work. Usually it’s all these baby magic users, and they think they know everything, and thattheydon’t need a talisman becausetheyare special. You are new in town?”
“No, I’ve been here a while, but I travel a lot for work. If you’ll excuse me, I should get my shopping done,” I said, doing my best to not appear like I was running.
“Absolutely,” the smith said before reaching out to grab one of her business cards. “But take this. Has my name and contact info in case you ever need anything.”
I took her card and glanced at her name. “Thanks, Marisa. I’ll remember that. Have a good day.”
“And you too, Mr. Chandler.”
I flipped her card over as I wove my way through the shoppers. Marisa did a lot of practical magic it looked like: security wardings meant to work like electronic alarm systems, magical ice boxes, and locks, among other things. That was unusual, because on the one hand, that kind of work required a wide skill in craftspersonship, and on the other, most insurance plans wouldn’t cover magically powered home appliances, not to mention the prejudice a lot of magic users faced.
Which I did too, but as a mage, I didn’t need talismans and all the other paraphernalia a lot of people found disturbing. My kind was fairly rare and therefore, just like a cut of fugu, alluring to all those who had a fascination with the status that came with being near something so rare.
Meaning if I didn’t do any obvious magic, I could pass for a non-magic user. If, on the other hand, I wanted to get invited to exclusive dinner parties to chat adorably about magical theory, I could spend my time doing that.
Many a mage would have told you that being a mage meant being the best kind of magic user. After all, the only thing rarer than a mage was a necromancer, and necromancers worked with the dead or the dying. A subset of magic users definitely hated them for no good reason while the not magically inclined generally found them creepy.
At any rate, at this market, I saw more fusion of magic users and the not so magical, and I simply couldn’t walk past the coffee shop donuts with the herbalist’s glaze.
The herbalist was a guy about my age, and the second I looked at the donuts, he came up to me. “Mr. Chandler, right? Would you like to try them?”
Marisa the smith had clearly worked the gossip grapevine like a bellows. I had to give her credit for that.
“A box of three, please. What’s special about the glazes?” I asked but examined the magic. I always did, with herbalist magic.
The herbalist shot me a dazzling smile. He was kind of my type—broad, excellent cheek bones, and he worked out. I even liked the smattering of freckles. It was cute. He was cute. And from the way his eyes lingered near my shoulders and hips, he was interested.
“Right, so the base of them is not my magic. That’s all Lynn’s work over there.” He pointed at a younger woman wearing the coffee shop’s uniform and ballcap. The two of them had a strong besties vibe going. She waved back at me. “The purple glitter ones create an optical illusion. When you eat it, you see glitter. Lasts only for a few seconds, but everyone under twenty loves that. Hmm. But maybe you want to try something younger?”
Yup, someone was definitely trying to dazzle me. The herbalist was maybe twenty-five, if that. A kid. I was ten years or almost ten years his senior. I wondered if I had time for that. It depended on whether all the dazzling was supposed to lead to something casual or not. If it did, I’d have another reason to throw my sheets in the laundry other than the dust, and I wasn’t opposed.
“Maybe, but glitter isn’t for me,” I said, deciding I was going to play.
He smiled at me, more than just friendly. Willing. “Green makes you hear the sound of the forest. Also a hallucination. Much more popular with people who know what they want in life.”
Uhm. Maybe not for me after all. “You don’t say. Some of us just want the sugar rush, you know.”
“You say that now,” he said. “But wait until you try these. How about I pick for you, and then you tell me what you thought of the selection?”
Well, I had nothing better to do for the next three days. And the weekend. “All right. Surprise me.”
Chapter Six
Luckhadbeenonmy side when I’d spotted Chandler just minutes after they’d rudely asked me to leave his place of work. I’d stuck around in the shadow of a beech tree and had gone through my phone, deciding what to do next—who to call for help.
I’d not really paid that much attention to the human’s magic last night because his mouth had been so very distracting and there had been so much background magic there, but I tuned in to his human magic as he walked inside.
There was something organic to it, something like grass, but softer, floral, although I couldn’t quite make it out. The scent of it was almost like the afterimage of a warm touch, always fading, barely even there. It was a little odd, because he was obviously one of the stronger human magic users, and their type was usually, well, brighter wasn’t the right word, but Chandler wouldn’t be as easy to pick out of a crowd as most of them.
Which was fine. I smiled. I liked a challenge. Something dropped on my head.
“Hey! What—” A squirrel shot up deeper into the foliage. I looked down at my feet. The tiny beast had dropped a hazelnut on my head. “I do not want your tree, you utter dick of a squirrel,” I told it.
But when I turned to head into the building, Chandler was on his way out again already. He’d just arrived though, which was not how work worked for most humans.
