Page 8 of The Fantastic Fluke

I turned a smile his way as I unlocked the door. “And yet here you are.”

He gave a half-hearted shrug, dimples popping out as his grin gave away his amusement. Not for the first time, I wished I found David attractive. Objectively, he was gorgeous. Tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed, and muscular, everything about him was model-perfect. Beez told me I was out of my mind for not wanting him, but something about the glossy perfection just left me cold.

Foxy wrapped himself around my leg, looking from Mr. Ashwell to David and back again, leaning half his body weight into me.

Ashwell finally noticed him and took two swift steps back. “What the hell is that?”

Even David quirked a brow. “I didn’t realize you had a familiar.”

“I don’t,” I told him as I turned to unlock the door. The three of them followed me in as I headed for the back to flip off the alarm, Mr. Ashwell coming in last and glaring at foxy as though he were a teenager in a hoodie. “I found some guys kicking him around last night, figured he must be lost. I’m going to call the registration office this morning and see if someone’s missing their fox.”

David’s face fell back into his usual easy smile at that. “You’re such a good guy. Hero to children and familiars everywhere.”

“You can’t have that thing in the store,” Mr. Ashwell insisted. “It’s a dangerous wild animal.”

Foxy, David, and I all turned and stared at him, equally dubious.

With a dismissive wave at foxy, David turned to look at the new release rack. “It’s obviously a familiar. Wild foxes aren’t that well behaved.”

“And David’s the magic expert,” I informed the cantankerous old bastard. “He’s a quaesitor.”

Ashwell turned and stared at handsome, golden David with new eyes. Everyone was always impressed to hear that. For myself, sometimes I wondered if the fact that he was in magical law enforcement was why I couldn’t get interested in dating him. Maybe because Beez told me that was the problem, and maybe because yeah, I clearly had issues with authority figures.

Quaesitors were the law enforcement arm of the Aurora Aureum—the governing body of mages. I didn’t know what David specialized in, but the quaesitors were constantly in the news for seizing stolen magical goods, investigating magical crimes, and stopping mages who broke the law.

Your average city cop couldn’t be expected to stop someone with magical ability, after all, so someone had to be trained to do it.

When magic had first been put to practical use some two hundred years earlier—when it had been accepted as reality and not folk-tale fiction—the government had tried to regulate it. As it turned out, that was easier said than done. Not only had mages become more and more powerful since serious training became an option, but even early on, handcuffs weren’t much good against earth mages, and juries couldn’t be expected to find against even the most clearly guilty social mages.

In the end, the organization that had formed to teach mages, the Aurora Aureum, had entered into an uneasy truce with various world governments to be allowed to police their own.

David, meanwhile, continued to scan the new release rack. He grinned as he reached the bottom and leaned over to snap up the book I knew he’d come for. Far be it from me to judge someone’s literary choices, but—no, I totally judged. Mass produced ghost-written thrillers were entirely judge-worthy.

He turned to me and winked. “Always putting him on the bottom shelf. You’re so predictable.”

“And yet you always start at the top,” I pointed out as I walked around the counter. I hadn’t gotten the cash drawer from the back yet, but it wouldn’t make a difference. David always paid with a credit card. “Either you expect me to change, or I’m not as predictable as all that. Regardless, you should spend more time on the top two shelves. Better books.”

“He’s one of the most popular authors in the world,” he protested, setting down his find in front of the register.

“He’s forty different people writing under the same pen name. Maybe one or two of them are good, but it’s a crapshoot.” As soon as my tablet fired up, I scanned the book and held out my hand. “That’s eight sixty-five.” He set his card in my palm, and by rote, I swiped it and handed it back.

“Most of them are pretty good,” he said, his voice softer, prodding and a little hopeful.

I rolled my eyes. “This one’s okay.”

And there was the enormous grin again.

“He should take that creature to the Aureum building then. Keep monsters like that away from decent people.” Mr. Ashwell interjected, out of nowhere. Referring to foxy, who had followed me around the counter and was standing at my side, where he couldn’t even be seen in the shop.

We all turned to look at him, the smile slipping off David’s face. “By decent people, one presumes you mean non-magical ones?”

“What? No, I just mean—” He broke off and glanced around, as though some fifth party in the store would jump in and defend his opinion. He was looking for my father.

I had to bite my tongue to keep from pointing out to him that my father was dead, but my issues shouldn’t have to be Mr. Ashwell’s. Even if he was a jerk.

Finally, he shook his head and muttered, “You’re not supposed to keep animals in businesses.”

For the first time in our acquaintance, he turned and left the store without so much as touching a book. Usually, he wandered the shelves for half an hour, picked a book, and then sat in the store and read it. He only rarely bought the books he read. My father had always allowed it, so I had too.

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