It looked like it was going to be another stormy day, with a mild wind blowing through the trees that lined the sidewalk. The trees were all in full bloom, flower petals drifting through the breeze and lining the pavement. Lola stepped out of the car and took a deep breath, enjoying the sweet, crisp scent of spring morning.
Danae got out of the passenger seat, and whistled a quick note. Rova and Dulun came swooping down out of the trees. The two crows had been following alongside them as they drove through the city, and their caws echoing through the parking lot.
“Follow me,” Lola said, gesturing for Danae to follow. Rova and Dulun circled along after them, but Lola shook her head at them. “Tell your crows to stay outside, okay?” she told Danae. “I don’t think Mrs. Dasgupta would appreciate having birds in her store…”
Although she usually entered through the back door, this time Lola took Danae around to the front. The bells hanging from the door jingled as they entered, clacking against the dozens of protective charms and talismans tied to the handle. That was the most obvious part of the cafe’s defenses, but Lola knew that there was also a ritual chalk boundary line drawn along the outer walls, feysilver in the foundations, and a no-harm-no-entry sigil drawn beneath the floorboards. The Haven took its reputation as a safe, neutral area seriously, that was for sure.
They were greeted by the smell of fresh coffee and pastries as they walked in, as well as the low hum of quiet conversation and the acoustic indie music playing over the speakers. The cafe was the usual amount of busy: packed on the inside, but no line out the door. Most of the tables were taken, but Lola led them over to an empty seat at the counter at the back of the shop. There was a small succulent sitting on top of the counter, and it was right next to a cozy brick wall covered in small handwritten notes and graffiti left by the customers.
Initially, Mrs. Dasgupta had tried to discourage the practice, but she’d quickly realized, as the small notes and names written on the wall grew, that it was an unusual interior decoration that gave the shop more character, and an attraction that could draw more customers. Now, they encouraged it, and for the past few years people had started leaving little rolled up slips of paper in the gaps between the bricks with notes written on them for others to find. Lola thought the whole thing was very charming.
Danae settled down on her chair. “What time does Cato usually come by?” she asked.
Lola glanced at the clock. “Well, his break is from 1 o’clock to 1:45, so he usually stops by at about… 1:15? That’s in a few hours, so if there’s something else you’d like to go do, you don’t have to wait here.” A thought occurred to her. “What do you usually do during the day?”
Danae shrugged. “Nothing, really… I just walk, from place to place. Rova and Dulun and I, we watch people and learn things.”
Well, that’s a little creepy, Lola thought, but honestly what else had she expected?
“Well, you’re welcome to wait here, then, or leave if you’d like. We have newspapers at the front of the store, so feel free to help yourself. Would you like a drink, or some food? We have pastries.”
Danae smiled slightly and shook her head. “No thank you.”
Lola nodded. “Alright then. We’re here a little early, but I still have to get to my shift in a few.” She turned to go, but then paused, turning back to look at Danae. “By the way, we sometimes do see other spirits here, so there might be someone you can ask for help. I wouldn’t trust anyone too much, but this place is pretty warded so the people in here are usually safe to talk to.”
Danae nodded again, and Lola left to go prepare for her shift, glancing once behind her shoulder as she went.
-
Slowly, minutes and then hours went by. More than once, Lola glanced back at where Danae was sitting at the back of the shop, flipping through a newspaper.
The abominable crows had presumably flown off to who-knows-where, but Lola could have sworn she saw them fly past the front window once or twice, probably just to mess with her. (Lola was aware she was being unreasonably petty towards two literal birds, but she didn’t care. Those birds were menaces. Sure, they hadn’t actually done anything to her or her apartment yet, but Lola could just feel it in her bones. Menaces.)
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
As the clock passed noon, business started to increase, patrons on their lunch breaks stopping by for a latte or a pastry. She recognized most of the regulars, saying hi to several of them and exchanging a few pleasantries. In the afternoon especially, the cafe was a hot spot of social activity, friends running into each other and stopping to chat, or meeting up to share a coffee on their break. The Haven Cafe was, first and foremost, a gathering place, and it was Friday afternoons like this one where it really showed.
Eventually, 1:15 rolled around. The line was stretching out the door, and Lola was in a flurry of motion preparing drinks left and right. Every time she had a spare second, she craned her head around the coffee machines, trying to catch a glimpse of Cato in the crowd. She didn’t see him anywhere, and as the minutes ticked by he was never at the front of the line. Lola frowned. Maybe he was running late. She didn’t have time to worry about it too much, though, because the lunch rush seemed to be even busier today than usual.
1:15 turned to 1:30 and then to 1:50, with still no sign of Cato. There wasn’t anything she could do about it, though, except worry. She caught Danae’s eye at the back of the cafe and shook her head. Danae frowned, and Lola mouthed, sorry, I don’t know, before she was dragged back to her job.
Finally, at about 2:45, traffic started to slow. By the time 3 o’clock rolled around, Lola was able to slip around the corner and stealthily attempt to call Cato. She held the phone to her ear, listening to it ring. Pick up, pick up, she chanted to herself like a mantra, as the worry in the pit of her chest steadily grew. It wasn’t all that big of a deal that Cato hadn’t come in, except that it was- he’d come by every single Monday, Thursday, and Friday for the past year and half, without a single exception.
All of a sudden, Cato’s voice rang out: “Hey, this is Cato, sorry I can’t make it to the phone right now! Leave a voicemail and I’ll call you back later!”
Beep!
Lola sighed slightly, and then raised her voice to record a voicemail: “Hey, Cato, this is Lola! I noticed you weren’t at the shop today and I was wondering if you’re okay. There’s something I need you to talk to you about, so, uh… please don’t be dead, okay? Get back to me whenever you can, um, bye!” She hung up, and immediately typed out a few messages to Cato. Where r u? Is everything alright?
She slipped her phone back into her pocket and went back to the counter, making eye contact with Danae and shaking her head again. Danae was still holding the same newspaper, and… was she holding it upside down? Lola shook her head and went back to her job; she had bigger problems to face right now.
During the last hour of her shift, she couldn’t help but check her phone every five minutes, and each time to her disappointment and concern there was nothing from Cato. She sent off a few more texts, each getting exponentially more frantic, but still nothing. She attempted to rationally console herself, It’s fine! His phone is probably just dead or something.
But deep down, past rationality, she knew in her gut: something was wrong.
It was with a deeply troubled expression on her face that she finished her shift. To add to her worries, when she got to the table Danae had been sitting at, the other woman was gone. A spike of panic shot through Lola, fraying her already frazzled nerves. Frantically, she looked around, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw Danae standing outside talking to someone, a crow perched on her shoulder.
She made her way towards the entrance, the door swinging open with a faint tinkling sound. Outside, the wind had picked up even more, and she shivered slightly. The person Danae was talking to had their back turned to her and was wearing a dark hoodie with the hood up, and so she couldn’t quite tell who it was as she made her way over to them.
Danae caught her eye as she approached. “Hello, Lola.” She gestured at her companion. “This is Kezi. Kezi, this is Lola.” The person turned, and Lola finally got a good view of their appearance: long blue-tipped box braids swept over their right shoulder, round tortoiseshell glasses, and a silver septum nose ring. They weren’t an unfamiliar face; Lola had seen them around at the coffee shop once or twice. Kezi nodded at Lola, raising a hand in greeting.
Danae continued: “We’ve been talking about a multitude of things. They just told me some news, I think you’d be interested in hearing it.”
Lola sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Danae, I’m sorry but I don’t really have time right now. Cato isn’t answering his phone, and I really worried something might have happened to him-”
Kezi interrupted: “Cato Salhi? The Silksmith?”
“You know him?”
“Of him. What your friend and I were talking about has to do with the mage families, actually. You know, it’s interesting that someone like you is friends with one of them… mages are famously insular,” Kezi said, eyes looking at Lola sharp as a hawk.
Lola wasn’t in the mood for games, and she said, rather curtly, “What ‘news’ did you have to tell me?”
Kezi’s eyes drifted up to meet Lola’s gaze. “You work at the Haven, I’m sure you’ve heard the gossip about people going missing. So far, it’s mostly been people whose absence has barely been noticed: rogue magicians, lone shifters, seers on the brink of losing it, et cetera.” They accentuated their point with a rolling hand gesture. “But last night, someone a bit more important disappeared.”
Lola frowned. “Who was it?”
“Why, none other than Caterina Salhi, the Silksmith heir.”