City of Magic (Happily Ever Afterlife Book 1) Read online

  Even after finishing the large bowl, I still wasn’t full. It wasn't enough, it would never be enough to fill the gnawing hunger in my gut.

  It was also a little possible that hunger was making me a touch over-dramatic.

  A moment later, the white-blonde girl sitting across from me finished her BLT and leaned back in her seat, tilting her head up toward the ceiling with a happy sigh. "That was amazing."

  I nodded along. "Thank you so much. You have no idea how much I needed that." I had been well past the point where I would have eaten anything at all, including some of the more bizarre options on the menu. Fried tundra-rat with a side of mashed nixbeans, anyone?

  Immediately, the girl's gaze flicked to my wrist even though I had it safely tucked away behind me, trying to look natural. "Actually, I think I do. And if I'm right, I know you wouldn't say no to more food. I'm almost full, but if you want something else, don't hesitate to ask."

  The girl produced a thick black wallet from her pocket, and held it up in front of her. On her right wrist sat one of those leather-banded bracelets with cheesy metal studs, though somehow the accessory suited her look. "I'll be honest, I'm technically not the one paying either. So seriously, if you need something else, go for it."

  My eyes widened a little as I took in the wallet, thick with paper bills. "Where did you get it?" I whispered. Stolen money had paid for the food I had just eaten, but right away I knew I was forcing myself to care. More than anything, I was still just grateful.

  Reading my expression, the girl in front of me put the wallet away. "It's mine, don't worry about it."

  I shook my head a little, finding myself again. "Sorry. It has just been a strange day. I think I need to sleep for about a week before I start thinking straight again. I meant what I said before, thank you so much for the food. No judgment here, you're basically my new hero."

  The girl grinned, revealing a row of white, but slightly crooked teeth. "In that case, how would you feel about splitting a pizza?"

  I laughed out loud, and the action seemed to shake a little of the weight from my soul. "If you're my hero, then pizza is probably my superhero. All hail pizza!"

  "I like the way you think." The girl stood up only a little, moving to take off the bracelet she was wearing as she rose toward me, and then extended her hand across the table, looking pointedly down at her wrist. "I'm Harper. Nice to meet you."

  "Kadie." I stood to shake her hand but couldn't miss the skin underneath where her bracelet had been sitting bore the same symbol as my own wrist. "I’m pretty damn glad I ran into you. And I have a few questions."

  "I don’t have any answers. I’ve been making things up as I go along ever since I got here."

  "This morning?" I asked. Harper nodded, and I forced down the feeling of disappointment that came with realizing she was just as much in the dark as I was, even if she looked like she was handling things better. When we were both sat down again, Harper waved over the flying man. He didn't speak, but smiled at her politely. He refused to even look at me.

  "We'll have a pizza," Harper said. "Large. Meat lovers?" She looked over at me for a second as she placed the order, and I gave a quick nod. Even if I had been a vegetarian, I think I would've made an exception in that moment, putting my own survival ahead of anything and everything else. Was I a crappy person? Mostly, I was just hungry.

  "Whatever you want sounds good to me."

  The man nodded and zoomed away, but not before casting me one last withering glare.

  I kept my voice low, not wanting to piss anyone off any further. "Okay, the little flying guy. Do you know what that is all about?"

  Harper chuckled but shushed me. "Don't, that's probably rude. But also… I know! I mean, I saw a guy today who was seven feet tall with long pointed ears that stuck out from the side of his head. I don't think I understand what anything is in this place."

  My suspicions had been confirmed. "Please tell me you have some idea where we are?" I asked. "I showed up here this morning with a letter in my hand and no idea what was going on."

  Harper shook her head before pulling out the wallet again, then rifling through it before pulling out a piece of paper. After unfolding it, she handed it over to me. It was an identical letter to the one I had received, but with the name Harper Mitchell written on the top instead of my own.

  A little embarrassed, I reached my hand down the loose fabric of my top, and pulled my own letter out of the sports bra I'd worn to bed the night before. My pants didn't have pockets, so it had been my only option. "I won’t make you deal with my boob sweat," I said, turning the letter to face her. "But I got the same thing. It all seems so impossible. And I don't know what to make of this," I said, holding out my wrist.

  All the humor seemed to melt from Harper's expression at once. "Seriously, put that away. It was when some guy saw the mark on my wrist that things started going south for me. I grabbed his wallet and ran before he could start any trouble, but I got the distinct impression that I shouldn't be flashing that around."

  I put my wrist down, admonished. "But yours is new too, right?" I couldn't help myself asking. "I definitely didn't have this yesterday."

  She shook her head. "Me neither."

  "So, you've been letting some random jerk fund you all day?" I looked around the room to see if we were being watched, then back at Harper with an obvious hint of admiration. "I've been walking around in my pajamas for hours and people keep giving me weird looks, but no one's exactly stepped in and offered to help. The letter said there would be help. Instead, some guy tried to grab me too."

  While it probably didn't hurt that I was desperate for a friendly face, I had no problem letting myself trust Harper. Over the next few minutes I filled Harper in on everything that happened to me since I'd arrived, but the two of us mostly stopped talking once the pizza arrived, saying little beyond how great the food was. Every bite of pizza I ate tasted like pure magic, though I couldn't say if that was simply because it was pizza or if there was something special in the recipe.

  It took a while to get to the last slice, but we were both fully committed to polishing that bad boy off despite Harper having already said she was full. After the last bite, I slipped out to the bathroom, and took a real pleasure in cleaning myself up. There was a lot to be said for washing my face, and just feeling human again.

  I felt better. Not good and still weary, but better.

  I was visibly relieved to see Harper still sitting at the table when I got back, a little afraid that with just how jumpy she seemed, she’d take the first opportunity to go out on her own again. But she didn't seem any more eager than I was to face whatever was waiting outside for us again by herself.

  "Did you need anything else?" the bartender from before asked, showing up at our table just as I sat back down.

  Harper looked over at me, but I just shrugged. At some point over the two courses and the half dozen glasses of water, I’d managed to eat my fill and then some. "I’m good if you are."

  "I guess we’re ready to pay." Harper answered the original question with an earnest smile.

  "I’ll be back with your bill." The woman turned and moved faster than I would have guessed she was capable of. As soon as she left, Harper’s expression fell again.

  "Weird favor," she said, handing me the wallet she’d been hiding behind her, "but would you mind paying when the bill gets here?"

  I almost opened my mouth to ask her to answer the obvious question, but between how uncomfortable Harper looked and the fact that she had already done me a much bigger favor, I kept my mouth shut and did what she’d asked. The money didn’t look like anything I’d ever seen before, each denomination of bill tinted a different color and decorated with the same white building I'd seen earlier decorating one side. Either way, there wasn’t enough to pay for our food. Thankfully, two different credit cards, each with a tap-to-pay chip, filled the inside folds.

  The giant question mark hanging over what came next was enough to hav
e me squirming with anxiety all over again, but, too soon, I had our receipt and had handed the wallet back over, leaving Harper and I both staring at each other expectantly, waiting to see what the other would do next.

  "So," I said finally, drawing out the word. "Where are you headed now?"

  "Honestly," Harper said with a shrug, "I have no idea."

  "I'm in pretty much the same position," I admitted. "Before this, basically all my body wanted was to get to some food. Now that that's covered, who knows?"

  "Yes!" Harper said a little too loudly. "I don't know if it was just the stress of today, all the running around, or maybe it's just part of the process of showing up here, but I've never been that hungry in my life."

  "Well, thanks to you, I’m feeling a whole lot better." I braced myself for what I wanted to say next. "And if you're open to it, I wouldn’t mind sticking together, at least for a little longer. Before, I'd been trying to find someone who looked like they had some authority to see if they could help. But after everything, I’m not sure I should be confessing to my ignorance. It would probably just put a huge target on my back."

  "If I’ve learned anything, it's that we’re all born with targets on our backs. But until we know more, keeping quiet is probably a better idea. Maybe we're being paranoid, and the fact that we were both attacked on our first day here is a massive coincidence. Yet, somehow I'm having trouble seeing it that way."

  I looked down at myself. "Well, playing it cool or not, anyone who might be looking for me can probably spot me a mile away. Look here, new girl without a clue who doesn't even have real clothes."

  "That much we can fix. We'll just have to go and find a store to buy you something decent to wear. The shopping opportunities in this city are like… I've never seen anything like it. And it seems like anything goes in this place. If you want, we can find you some medieval looking gear, since I've seen more than a few people who look like they're straight out of the 14th century."

  "Honestly, even jeans and a T-shirt would be heaven right about now. But…" I didn't say anything next. I had already asked for too much, and the reality of everything that had just happened was quickly catching up to me.

  Harper shook her head emphatically. "No, this is totally on me. Or, at least on that asshole from before. Having someone else here to figure all this out with me is way more valuable than a few extra bills and a wallet that isn’t mine. So, if you're willing to stick with me for a while, then I'm totally happy to buy you some clothes that will help both of us blend in a little better. I mean, I don't exactly want to be the girl walking around with the lunatic in pajamas." Harper laughed easily and I tried to follow suit. She made all this sound easier than I thought it could ever be. But even as I was nodding in agreement, I found myself glued to my seat, sweat beading on my forehead.

  "What's wrong?" Harper was looking down at me, her forehead bunched up. She seemed puzzled as to why I hadn’t stood up too.

  I took a deep breath. "I'm not sure. I just keep thinking about those guys today. I mean, that one dude changed from a bird into an ass-kicking superhuman. And that first guy? I have no idea what his plans were for me, but I don't exactly want to find out. They're both probably still out there somewhere, unless they managed to kill each other."

  "Well, we can always hope. You can't stay here, right? I mean, I've seen the way that little guy has been looking at you, and I don't exactly think you're welcome." Harper did her best to keep her tone light, but I knew she was only trying to make me feel better. Luckily for her, it worked anyway. I still didn't want to go back outside, but I did really want to find something new to wear. And unless I mugged some of the pub’s customers and stole the clothes from their bodies, this was my best plan. Plus, the sooner I found something new I could wear, the sooner I'd feel better. At least in theory.

  Harper offered me her hand and pulled me up from my seat, and the two of us left together. I only looked back once at the pub that had fed me when I'd been at my lowest. I couldn't remember what its name was, but would definitely remember it for the rest of my life as the place with the best food I'd ever tasted.

  Stepping back out into the daylight, the sweltering afternoon sun greeted us. There were more people around than there had been earlier, which made it easier to act like we knew what we were doing.

  "I think I saw a department store a few blocks back," I said while trying to remember exactly where I'd seen it. I'd seen a lot of things as I'd run from block to block, trying to lose the two guys fighting by the park.

  "No way, I know exactly where we are going to find some clothes for you. And probably a few other things we could use."

  I looked in trepidation back in the direction I'd come from originally. I wasn't sure I was ready to go exploring again quite yet.

  "Trust me," Harper said, locking her eyes with mine. "You're going to want to see this."

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I followed Harper through the city for a few blocks. It was hard not to be impressed with her confidence walking such unfamiliar territory. She strode through each street and alley like she’d been born in this city while I was still feeling like it was out to get me.

  We ended up in an area full of homes, which felt vaguely residential but still so unlike anything I'd ever seen before. One block had rows of townhouses lining the streets, another was made up of mid-level apartment buildings, and the next had small huts that would have been at home in a different century. Mothers walked with small children either strapped to their bodies, in strollers, or toddling beside them, and groups of children walked in groups, talking amongst themselves.

  We had just passed an elementary school that was hovering ten feet in the air, with a sign out front that read ‘no prosaics’, when Harper finally stopped moving and pointed off in the distance. "See, there."

  My eyes followed Harper's finger across the street. It took me a second to realize what she was looking at as my eyes drifted across an ice cream truck and over to the corner store next to it. But then I did a double take. The vehicle I was looking at was certainly part ice cream truck. In the middle, a bored looking teenager sat at the window, with pictures of various ice cream treats I'd seen a million times before painted underneath him. But at both ends of the truck were a set of white stairs leading up into the vehicle. On one side, people piled up into the vehicle, sometimes in groups and sometimes alone, and from the other side people walked back down. Completely different people than the ones I'd seen go in. And the closer we got to the ice cream truck, or whatever it was, the easier it was to see that there was no one walking in between the two doors in the actual ice cream selling part of this thing. This impossible thing.

  "What is that?" I said, hoping Harper would have a better sense of what was going on here than I did. She was the one who had brought us here after all.

  "I heard a few people calling it the bazaar the last time I was here. And look, most of the people coming out have shopping bags. It’s like… a magic mall!"

  “You’re way too excited about this.” One glance at the exit showed she was right, and her enthusiasm was contagious. The people coming out varied in outfits, ethnicity, and age, and most of them were carrying bags or parcels.

  “Come on, doesn't part of you want to see what's going on there, no matter what it is?"

  "Well, I do need to change out of these clothes, and shopping has always been one of my favorite past times." I put on my biggest smile, trying to look as normal as I could, all things considered. It was embarrassing, and probably kind of naive on my part, but whatever was going on in front of us had me feeling entirely unsettled.

  It was magic. Same as a grown man flitting around the bar with wings, or another changing from a bird into a human. There was magic here, and it was both amazing and terrifying how little I understood. But I wanted to learn. I just didn’t want to be grabbed by one of those goons in the process.

  "You worry too much.” Harper studied my expression, making a face clearly meant to mock
my nerves.

  If anyone had a good reason to worry, it was us. After everything we’d both been through that day, a little caution certainly couldn't be anything but an advantage. But knowledge is power, or that was the theory. And the sooner I started to face this world, the easier it would be to act like I belonged. “I’m in.”

  “Yes! I don't know what it's like where you’re from, but magic isn't something I'm used to. It's the kind of thing you read about in stories, things that shouldn't exist outside of fairytales and daydreams. If there's magic in there, I want to see it. I want to see all of it. I never would have forgiven myself if I didn’t check this out. Today has been the strangest day of my life, bar none. But if somehow this isn't real, or if I’m simply lying in a coma somewhere with a bump on my head and imagining all of this, then I want to see as much of it as I can before I wake up."

  I held up my forearm to her, and for a second she looked at me like this world had completely robbed me of my sanity. I turned over my arm until a small purple bruise was visible. "I've been pinching myself all day, trying to wake myself up, to see if this is real."

  "I thought maybe I died, and this was the weirdest heaven ever," Harper said, her shoulders hunching together slightly, making her look smaller. "I know it’s real. I believe it’s real, but it still feels too good to be true. Everything here is better than what I left behind.”

  During our last few hours together, I'd never even considered that the world or book she came from had been different from my own. Yes, I'd seen so many people who would have fit right in in my hometown, in a lecture at my college, or in one of my yoga classes. But there were also so many who were distinctly different than what I was used to. There were races other than human here, and clothes from other times. But that didn’t make this place bad, just something I needed to adapt to. And quickly. At least I wasn’t in any of this alone anymore.

  Wherever Harper had come from hadn't had magic either, but that didn't mean much. She could've come from somewhere in the past, or the future. Her book might have been a murder mystery, and she might have lived in a city full of serial killers and stalwart detectives. Or a country riddled with war. Even without magic, the possibilities were endless.