Gillian

  She noticed he was human the second he stepped inside the Beanstalk Cafe, the salt and iron scent swept in on the cool breeze from the open door.

  Gillian von Karnstein had worked at the Beanstalk Cafe for 239 years, 4 months, 13 days, and 47 minutes– not that she was counting. It was her punishment for a long list of alleged crimes she'd rather not talk about, thank you very much.

  In all that time, nothing interesting happened to Gillian. She spent her days filling mugs of coffee for goblins, serving danishes to ogres, and pouring gsses of water for selkies. Once, a distant cousin of Bigfoot ordered a vender tte with twenty-six shots of espresso. She heard he didn’t sleep for a week. That remained the single most exciting thing to happen at the Beanstalk Cafe.

  Until the human walked in.

  The morning had been slow– only a pair of banshees still sat finishing their breakfast at one of the small tables scattered across the dark, hardwood floors. Sunlight filtered through the paneled windows lining the front of the cafe, casting squares of shifting gold across the exposed stone and millwork walls.

  Gillian wiped up the mess that a pair of orcs recently left when the door creaked open, and he walked in. She lifted her eyes to the door just in time to see the human enter. He had messy, chestnut hair and rge round spectacles, but she couldn’t see the color of his eyes as he pressed himself through the door with his head bowed. His arms were den with books and papers, an old leather bag slung across his chest.

  After recovering from her initial shock at scenting a mortal in the cafe, Gillian’s eyes roamed over the remaining patrons. They didn’t seem to notice the living, breathing, red-blooded human man breathlessly dumping his belongings onto an empty table. This was bad. Very, very bad.

  Humans didn't come to the Beanstalk Cafe. They couldn’t.

  The cafe was founded in the seventh century– as London became the popur city it is known to be today, mankind grew to be a nuisance to the local magical folk. Layers of powerful enchantments ensured the cafe’s continued secrecy, shielding it over hundreds of years of witch-hunts and pitchforks. A safe haven for all magical creatures, the cafe allowed these beings to exist in their true forms without fear of discovery.

  So, how exactly had a human sauntered in for a cup of tea?

  Gillian nonchantly glided to the man’s table and asked in a hushed, urgent tone, “Is there something I can help you with?”

  The man didn’t look up. “Oh, uh, sure. A cup of Earl Grey would be grand,” he said in a rich lilting accent, still preoccupied with settling his books and loose paper.

  Seriously?

  She cleared her throat and leaned down, her fingers tightening around the edge of his table.

  “What exactly are you doing here?” she asked through gritted teeth.

  That got his attention. The man finally looked up, his confused gaze meeting her piercing bck eyes.

  “I, uh,” he started, while pushing his gsses up the bridge of his nose. “I suppose I came in for a cup of tea?” He gnced around, a grin crooked to one side.

  Gillian gave him a hard look, noting the creases around his light brown eyes, the stubble lining his jaw, and the freckles dusting his aquiline nose. Her fingers drummed the edge of the table and her gaze fell to his single dimple.

  The audacity of this man.

  “You need to leave. This pce isn’t for you,” she whispered urgently.

  Gillian wasn’t sure what kind of reaction she expected from this human, but it certainly wasn’t the loud, easy ugh that escaped him.

  “This pce isn’t for me?” he asked with a humorous glint in his eyes. “What is it, a secret club? Tell me, how do I join? Do I need to make a blood pact?” The man held his palm out to Gillian, offering it to her with mock solemnity. “Go on then, take it.”

  Gillian’s jaw sckened, her eyes widening. Words caught in her throat and she stood frozen for a moment before leveling her gaze at the man.

  The man’s grin faltered at her gre and he offered an apologetic smile. “Is it really not okay that I’m here? I need a pce to go through these books. I’m this close to making the most important scientific discovery of my lifetime.” He held up his thumb and forefinger a centimeter apart. “I’ll just be staying for an hour. Two, tops.”

  Gillian hadn’t figured him for a scientist, given his crumpled shirt with sleeves pushed up to his elbows, the messy paperwork and books unceremoniously scattered across the table, and his general air of confusion.

  Her eyes narrowed. “How did you even get in here?”

  Beanstalk Cafe’s magic wards should have made his mortal eyes skip right across the doorway. If by some fluke a human saw the storefront, the second yer of wards should have made him want to avoid it at all costs. If that failed, there was yet another yer of magic to physically expel mortals from the entry.

  How had this human stumbled into the cafe simply in search of a cup of tea and peaceful pce to read?

  The man frowned, gncing to the doorway and then back to Gillian. “Um, through the door?”

  She struggled not to roll her eyes as she reached for the man’s forearm to haul him out of the cafe. The moment her pale, ice cold fingers touched his skin, sparks flew.

  Ok, not literal sparks, but the electricity running through her finger tips felt like it could have lit all of London for a month. She pulled her hand back and stared up at the man.

  “There must be a lot of static electricity in here,” he mumbled, rubbing his arm where Gillian had grasped it. “Look, let’s start over. My name is Jack,” he announced, holding out his hand.

  She looked down at the outstretched hand warily, choosing to cross her arms instead of risking touching him again. “We don’t need to introduce ourselves,” she hissed. “You shouldn’t be in here and you need to leave before anyone else notices.”

  Her eyes darted around the cafe again, her gaze lingering on the banshees. Their heads were bent together, still oblivious to the human. She let out a relieved breath, the tension in her shoulders loosening a fraction.

  Good. I still have time to deal with this.

  Jack held up his hands in surrender and began gathering his belongings, muttering about the infamous inhospitality of the British. As he stacked his books into his arms, a few crumpled sheets of paper escaped his hold and drifted down to the floor.

  For someone on the verge of the ‘most important scientific discovery of his lifetime,’ he sure wasn’t being very careful with his research. Impatiently, she stooped down to retrieve the fallen sheets.

  That’s when she saw the runes.

  She froze.

  All sense of time stopped and blood pounded in her ears as she stared at the page in her hand. Dread crept up her spine.

  She slowly raised her head from where she was crouched on the floor and met Jack’s bemused gaze, looking down at her with one eyebrow cocked.

  “What are you doing down there?”

  Gillian shook herself mentally and began to rise back to her full height. Her mind spun.

  He was definitely mostly human, that much was obvious from the way her throat tightened and her canines ached as his scent filled the air. She steeled herself before inhaling deeply, sifting through the yers of his scent, searching for a hint of any other creature’s blood lurking beneath the mortal essence. Nothing.

  Her mind whirled.

  How could a mortal have sketches of magic runes? What was he pnning to do with them? How did he get into the cafe? What is he hiding?

  She couldn’t let this man out of her sight until she had answers, but she also couldn’t let him stay out in the open at the Beanstalk Cafe. Perhaps she could convince him to go to the back room.

  Gillian pstered on a bright smile– too bright, too practiced, and, if she were being honest with herself, not at all convincing.

  “Sorry, here you go,” she said, handing him the pages with a sheepish grin.

  Then, because she was clearly suffering from some kind of head injury, she tucked a stray lock of long, bck hair behind her ear and batted her eyeshes. “I have some space in the employee area if you really need to work.”

  Oh gods, she thought, horrified. Was she really trying to flirt her way out of this? She was so out of practice. No, scratch that, she had quite literally never flirted before.

  Jack either didn’t notice her tragic attempt at charm, or was too much of a gentleman to comment on her disastrous tactics. “So…” He gnced around the mostly empty cafe. “I can stay? But only in the back?”

  Abandoning the awkward attempt at being sweet, Gillian unched into a rapid, nonsensical expnation about the tables being too small and the cafe being too busy as she guided him behind the counter at the rear of the cafe. Jack followed her dutifully past the dispys of pastries and the ancient cash register to the employees-only door behind the counter.

  They entered a dreary hallway beyond the swinging door. It was piled high with boxes and crates on either side, a small card table wedged against one wall.

  Gillian hurriedly gathered the receipts and invoices stacked on the table and shoved them into an adjacent crate, before turning back to Jack with an overly bright smile. “Here you go,” she announced, presenting the cleared space to him as if it were a grand throne.

  Jack looked at the table, then at Gillian. “Here I go?” he parroted. “You want me to sit here? At this table?”

  A flicker of doubt crossed her face before she straightened her shoulders and met his questioning gaze. She needed to get answers.

  “Go on and make yourself comfortable,” she said with a tight smile. “You wanted tea, right? Earl Grey? I’ll grab that for you while you get settled.” She backed toward the kitchen door, trying to make the arrangement seem like the most natural thing in the world.

  Jack stared at her bnkly, then shrugged and set down his things on the table. Gillian let out a relieved breath and pushed her way through the kitchen door.

  ***

  The Beanstalk Cafe kitchen had everything you’d expect from a restaurant built in a bygone era. The rge open firepce at the far end of the room was rge enough for Gillian to stand in comfortably, though at the moment it housed a roaring fire and a hanging pot of simmering butternut squash soup. A rich, nutty aroma, accented with hints of sage, wafted through the room. Copper pots and pans lined the walls. Dried herbs hung from the ceiling. In the middle of the room was a wooden work table where a small gnome with mouse-like ears rolled out buttery pastry dough.

  “Hi, Phi. Just grabbing a cup of tea,” Gillian said casually, though her voice was a bit too loud, too forced.

  Philomena was the heart of the cafe. She’d been there for as long as Gillian had been alive, and probably much longer than that. It was no-nonsense Philomena who showed her the ropes when Gillian was first sent to the cafe.

  “Quiet morning, no?” she asked in an unidentifiable melodic accent, something long forgotten. “You haven’t sent back any orders in awhile.”

  “Uh, right,” Gillian responded, her back to the cook as she filled the kettle from the tap. She hoped the remaining patrons weren’t waiting on anything, and she knew she needed to get out there soon. A disgruntled banshee was nothing to ugh at.

  As soon as the tea was ready, she hurried out the kitchen door. She knew Philomena would be busy minating croissant dough and wouldn’t venture into the hallway for hours. No one would be happy to find a human hanging out in the Beanstalk Cafe.

  Stepping into the hallway, Gillian found Jack hunched over the desk, three books open in front of him and papers spread out. She approached and cleared a corner of the table before setting down the hot porcein cup and saucer.

  Gillian was ready to get her answers.

  “So,” she began. “What is your research about?”