The Ongoing Trials of Harmony Astor

Part 3

 The shop was ordinary on the outside, brick and mortar with an awning stained by years in the midst of winter storms. The display windows were dusty and filled with a stage cluttered by goods, there was nothing bright and cheery about Mirror's Edge, but no one wanted an aesthetic fit for a jewelers in a shop designed for the woebegotten. Three doors, lined the front wall, a stained glass one that showed a busy high street, an intricately carved oak door with a deadbolt, and a modern steel and bullet proof glass door that was too frosted over at the moment to reveal any world beyond it.

Shelves filled with seemingly random goods cluttered the shop floor. A collection of dolls in all states of disrepair and era sit above an assortment of music boxes. Herbs hung from the ceiling in bundles attributed to the moon they were picked under while I sat before a towering bookcase of jars. Raw wood, iron ore, and old eyeglasses; tarot cards, simple charms, and crystal shelves; twine, knives, mortar and pestles; the Mirror's Edge existed as a one stop shop for anything a spellcaster might need. If it didn't exist here, it would be on the other side of another door.

The shop was silent at the moment, something to be expected considering it was almost midnight in Edinburgh and dinnertime in D.C. Tourists keep walking by the door but nobody came inside. It made sense, there's far more of interest to the casual observer in the nation's capital than within these walls. Even Mira and her parents were out for dinner that night, speaking with some Senator and his wife about some unknown cause. The Wards are good about keeping up appearances.

Sweep the floors, dust the shelves, apologise to any disturbed spirits. It took me five years to stop being amazed by the daily ins and outs of working for the Wards, three years to grow accustomed to the odd disturbances at night, but I had yet to be quite comfortable in the place I call home. Cook the meals, balance the books, travel to pick up unusual aspects for a special order. When the world around you is exhaustingly extraordinary, your capacity for wonderment dwindles to nothing.

As I replaced the mirror I had been polishing, the bell at the front of the store tinkled gently, the oak door. Returning to the front, my eyes were accosted by the towering figure of a man draped in what appeared to be a cloak made of glossy crow feathers. Before I could falter, the person turned their face to mine. Cheekbones that were carved from black marble, lips full and pouting, and a perfectly shaved head. Feminine and masculine in kind, they were an unearthly sort of beauty, but the most piercing part of their appearance came in the form of pale, wide eyes that were nearly silver framed by criminally long lashes. They stared at me, looking me over as I did them. They sniffed delicately, a light crinkle in their skin showing nearly white as the skin folded around it etching out a short, jagged scar across the bridge of their nose. Their eyes moved from mine and to my forehead instead.

"Good evening, your grace," I smiled lightly and moved behind the counter, a dais that granted me some extra height when facing someone as imposing as this. "How might I be of service today?"

"You are an indent?" they gestured at the silver band around my head instead of answering the question. "I hadn't known the esteemed owners of the Mirror were looking for one."

"Your grace I have been working under the acclaimed Master and Mistress Ward for some six years now. Are you picking up an order?" perhaps this was one of the court I'd been warned of but had never met.

"No, child." They peered at the shelf behind me, elegantly shrugging aside part of the feather cloak to reveal a sheathed sword at their hip. "But I am here to leave a message, seeing as Phantasma and Julius are not here to receive it."

I reflexively activated the protection spells embedded in the wood of the counter, but even as the almost opaque wall went up between us, they just smirked at me. The stranger withdrew their sword and laid its shining blade upon the counter between us, the edge of the steel rippling in tandem with that of the shield between me and it. Double edged and ornate, deadly with a mirror's shine. The stranger slid a forefinger gently across the blade, leaving a scarlet stain behind. With a salute, the odd individual turned on a heel and seemed to fold inwards until all that remained was a single glossy black feather.