Page 7 of The Fantastic Fluke

He gave me an innocent look, all wide brown eyes and incomprehension. Well, familiar or not, he was a fox after all. Also, he looked cute as hell licking his chops over and over to get all the peanut butter.

“Okay,” I agreed, as though we had come to an accord. I suspected I was going to be sadly disappointed with how this ended, but with a shower and a good night’s sleep under my belt, dressed in comfortable clothes that actually fit me, I felt like a new man.

I hadn’t been this energized in years.

Foxy hopped down from his chair and followed me to the sink, where I rinsed our plates and the spoon and set them in the dishwasher.

“Okay, bud, time to get to work. I’ll call the registration office from the shop and see if your mage has reported you missing.”

If no mage was looking for him, it was going to be tempting to keep foxy for myself. He was good company. He listened to me ramble with minimal judgment. I’d never heard of a social mage with a fox familiar before, but we did favor some breeds of dogs, so maybe I could pull off pretending.

It was a hell of a turnaround from “I can’t have a dog,” and in under twelve hours, but it was nice to have someone to talk to.

I stuffed my wallet in the pocket of my jeans and headed for the door, foxy still trailing after.

Oh gods, I’d left Dad on the entry table all night, with my keys and the discarded mail and jacket. I snatched up the mail and tossed one flyer after another into the recycle bin under the table.

The card with the linen paper envelope and the actual freaking wax seal was a surprise. Delivered to the wrong address, maybe?

Nope. My address, and “Mr. Sage McKinley,” right there in script so neat that it looked like it had come from a machine.

I pulled the last flyer off it and tossed it away, but then froze when it exposed the return address. A queasy pit opened in my belly. Mrs. Iris Elaine McKinley.

Foxy whined and leaned into my leg, and I absently reached down to scratch his head.

“Sorry, bud. Just never in my life thought I’d hear from her.”

My mother’s mother, from an old and well-to-do family of mages, was never part of my life. Mom didn’t have anything to do with her, and even after Mom’s death, she’d never so much as made a peep about wanting to meet me.

So what could this be?

A reminder in card form that I wasn’t in her will and wouldn’t be inheriting any of her no doubt vast estate? It wasn’t like I needed to be told.

Hells, it was a surprise she even knew my name.

Mr. Sage McKinley,

You are cordially invited to attend dinner at the home of Mrs. Iris Elaine McKinley on Friday, the twenty-second of October, at seven p.m. sharp. Dress is casual, no RSVP is required, a car will be sent.

Your presence is eagerly awaited.

Yours,

Iris McKinley

I had to read the invitation twice. Was it an invitation, though, really? More like a summons. A demand. No RSVP required, “because you’re coming” implied.

As foxy and I walked toward the bus stop, I realized something else. There was no way they were going to let a fox on the bus. Dammit. I was going to be late to open the shop. I looked down at foxy, who at least wasn’t limping like he’d been last night, and sighed.

“This is gonna suck, but we have to hurry. I guess we need to set the alarm earlier tomorrow morning.”

By the time we arrived at the shop, huffing and puffing, I was ten minutes late to open up.

Mr. Ashwell was waiting outside the front door, tapping his foot and glancing at his wrist for the time on a watch he didn’t even wear. He looked up at me, lips pursed. “It’s about time you showed up.”

I had to stifle a retort about how important it couldn’t possibly be to get a book at eight in the morning on a Wednesday. He wouldn’t understand. He was wearing a crisply ironed shirt and a belt in his pants, thinning gray hair neatly combed, at the crack of dawn. He’d probably been up for hours.

“I don’t know, I always thought the shop opened too early,” a friendly voice announced from across the street. David Halliwell. Also a regular customer, but he had always been less interested in my father and more interested in me.

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