The clients barged into the store demanding to know why the store wasn’t open at seven like the hours on the door said. Viri plastered a fake apologetic look on her face, well as much of one as she could muster. She wasn’t a pro at disguising her emotions. Luckily, she was levelheaded.

She rarely felt the need to let the outside world dictate her feelings. It required too much energy and she had to reserve all the energy she could for the hours she and Aly spent dancing on the weekends. It was demanding work being so social.

“I’m sorry the store was opened late. The pesticide company was finishing up. We wouldn’t want to rush a treatment with korvu season approaching.” She lied as she walked back behind the jewelry counter andtook a seat to scroll the internet while pretending to look through important files.

“Feel free to look around and let me know if I can help you any.” The clients grumbled but no one fucked around when it came to korvu, so they didn’t argue further.

Korvus swarmed in the warmer weather and if you didn’t get your home or building treated, you risked the toad-faced, flying insects gnawing it down. They had the appetite of a thousand slug worms, were no bigger than bees, and only had a taste for buildings.

Annoying little shits, but useful as an excuse for pretty much anything around this time. It wasn’t the first time she’d used them in a lie, and she knew it wouldn’t be the last.

“Excuse me, what can you tell me about the necklace in that case with the large green gemstones on it?” Viri looked up from the computer monitor to see the thick accent coming from a stunning older woman pointing towards a standing jewelry case on the other side of the room.

Her glowing, silver hair fell in waves over her toffee-colored skin. She looked like she was in her forties, but her aura was strong enough for Viri to sense that she was much, much older.

She smelled like a witch. Viri could always tell them apart from human women. Not only were they all magically gorgeous, but they also smelled like a crackling fireplace. It wasn’t an aggressive smell. It was just enough to make you think of the nostalgia of smelling chimney smoke from a house on a snowy day.

“This necklace was worn by the Wolf Queen, Esmerelda, millennia ago. The emeralds were handcrafted by one of the finest jewelers in the realm, Rinaldo Xerxi, and gifted to her on her wedding day.”

Viri talked as she walked towards the necklace, trying her best to completely ignore the fact that the older witch had been sniffing her ever since she walked past her to guide her back to the necklace.

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“She wore this piece until she took her final breath at the great Battle of Litia against the Ogre King, Morachnor.” Viri stopped at the case and turned to face the witch, who was staring at her like she smelled foul. Viri sniffed herself and smelled her usual perfume.

“Do I stink?” Viri squared her shoulders and stared at the witch. She smirked and looked Viri up and down.

“You do not smell as you appear, girl.” Her guttural voice sounded like she belonged somewhere tropical and ancient. “Excuse me?” Viri narrowed her eyes at the witch. “You do not smell as you appear. I do not know what prowls beneath your skin, but I take it you do not either, girl. When you shed this fake skin, make sure it is known across the lands so that I may come and look upon what you truly are.”

The witch’s smile broadened, and she turned and walked towards the door. Viri was too confused to do anything but watch her walk out of the door, seemingly uninterested in the necklace.

She couldn’t stop thinking about the witch’s words for the rest of the afternoon. She was too thrown off her game to try to convince clients to buy jewelry with theelaborate stories about them, so she mostly sat behind the counter on the computer, researching gems from a list that Morgana gave her two days ago, trying and failing to take her mind off that weird conversation. If you could even call it a conversation.

She sniffed herself again. She’d bathed and the walk to work hadn’t even been that warm this morning, so she'd barely sweated. Viri was halfway convinced that the witch was just becoming senile in her old age, so she did her best to convince the other half of her to get on board with the looney bin theory so she could finally focus on something else.

Her phone buzzed around three o’clock and she looked down to see a text from Hanley, Alyson’s eagle-shifting boyfriend. A bird and a horse seemed like an unlikely couple, but they were super adorable together in their human forms.

She was a forever third wheel to them, so it wasn’t unusual for Hanley to text her to invite her to places with them if Alyson was busy. She opened the text and squealed. Her work phone rang seconds later, and she cringed when she saw Morgana’s extension on the caller I.D.

“There better be a damned good reason you screamed loud enough to make me spill my coffee.” Viri winced. “Sorry! I just got a text from Alyson’s boyfriend asking to help him plan a surprise engagement dinner for her tonight.”

“How nice for her. At least one of you cares enough about your future to consider settling down. If only I'd have been so lucky to be an aunt to the one with sense instead of the one who can’t keep any sort of man to save her life.” Viri rolled her eyes.

Morgana wasn’t her aunt of course, but she and her mother were such close friends – again, she had no clue how or why - that it seemed wrong to call her anything else. “You know, I don’t see your husband coming through the front door to take you on any lunch dates.” Morgana growled, “and you won’t get the chance to because you’ll be a centerpiece in my stone garden.”

She heard the dial tone before she could respond. She smiled to herself, despite being a little nervous that Morgana might’ve meant it. Not even gorgon threats could put a damper on her newfound joy. This dinner was just the thing she needed to forget all about the senile old witch and her riddles.