Rhys had not known Vivienne all that long in the grand scheme of things, but he recognized the look on her face now. This was a closed subject, and pushing her on it wasn’t going to get him anywhere.
So he slid his own hands back across the table, resting them on the edge and drumming his fingers as he looked around him.
“Busy place.”
Clearly relieved at the change in subject, Vivienne nodded and picked up her mug of tea. “It’s always packed. We’re lucky we found a table.”
Leaning forward, Rhys gave a subtle jerk of his head to the barista, a short girl with bright turquoise hair and a pair of heavy-rimmed glasses. “Witch?” he asked quietly, and Vivienne didn’t even glance over to see who he was talking about.
“Yup. They only employ witches here. Usually students from the college. It’s part of what keeps things running so smoothly in here. There’s some kind of light enchantment, means orders never go wrong, no one ever drops a glass, that kind of thing.”
Her words seemed to dawn on them both at the same time and, slowly, they both looked down at their teas.
“So. Magic helps run this place.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And magic is . . . bad now.”
“Maybe it hasn’t affected this place?”
He could see Vivienne steeling herself as she picked up her mug, and he already had a hand out, her name on his lips as she closed her eyes, jerkily lifted the mug to her lips and took a big gulp.
They both sat there, frozen, as she swallowed and then, to his massive relief, smiled, her hazel eyes bright. “It’s fine,” she said, setting the mug back down. “Totally normal tea, no disaster magic afoot.”
Rhys took a sip of his own tea, and she was right—it tasted fine, and there was no hint of magic in it at all. “Right,” he said, and then lightly tapped her mug with his own. “So maybe this place escaped the cur—”
The shattering of glassware cut him off, and Rhys had a horrible prickling sensation on the back of his neck as he slowly turned to look toward the source of the noise.
There, by the door, an entire table had been turned over, glasses and mugs lying in pieces on the floor, and amid all that broken glass was a body.
Rhys was on his feet almost without thinking, crossing over to where a man, an older guy in khakis and loafers, lay on the floor, the fingers of one hand still curled like he was holding a mug, his face locked in a rictus of surprise.
“He’s breathing,” Vivienne said, appearing by Rhys’s side, her fingers pressed against the man’s wrist. “And his pulse is fine. He’s just . . .”
“Frozen,” Rhys finished grimly as he took in the wide, staring eyes, the half-open mouth.
And then he noticed the mug the guy had been holding was lying on the floor next to him, its contents spreading slowly across the hardwood floor.
There might not have been any magic involved in Rhys or Vivienne’s tea earlier, but there clearly was in whatever this man had been drinking. Rhys could practically see the spell, hovering like a miasma over the spilled liquid, and then he looked back toward the bar.
The woman Vivienne had pointed out as the owner was on the phone, looking back and forth between the man and the crowd of onlookers, but there was nothing in her face except concern. No guilt, no fear.
Then his eyes slid to the right, to where the girl with the turquoise hair stood, arms folded tightly around her body, her lower lip caught between her teeth.
And when she saw Rhys looking at her, she gave a little jump before opening the door behind the bar and disappearing into the storeroom.
“Vivienne,” Rhys said in a low voice, nudging her, but she was already standing up, her eyes on the spot where the girl had vanished.