Page 31 of A Barista's Guide to Love & Larceny
McKenna floated in after her, announcing their destination with pride to the driver. She was in fine spirits and a killer outfit: black crushed-velvet leggings, a lacy crop top, and a dramatic floor-length cape illuminated with delicately beaten gold. She had slicked her volume of hair into a tight bun, and smoky eye shadow brought out the hidden amber fire in her eyes. She looked like a cross between a banshee and an empress, at once formidable and alluring. Whatever glamour she had on tonight, she’d made it so that it didn’t affect Dani too strongly, but even so, Dani found her gaze straying to her friend every few minutes without her permission.
“We lookhot,” McKenna said excitedly as the car began to navigate the streets. “Coffee boy’s eyeballs are going to fall out of his skull when he sees you.”
“Gods, I hope not,” Dani said. “Also, Kass.”
“Hmm?”
“His name is Kass, not coffee boy.”
“Noted,” McKenna said, “but he’ll forever be coffee boy in my heart.”
If it hadn’t been for her earlier confession, Dani would never have guessed tonight would be McKenna’s first official party. Sheseemed, as she so often did, as invulnerable as winged Nike, while Dani had come out of the womb bathed in the amniotic fluid of anxiety, and it showed.
Even so, she couldn’t help but feel a thrill of anticipation as the cab passed Quarter Cast and ventured deeper into downtown. It worked its way through the more gentrified neighborhoods buzzing with nightlife and into a quieter residential area, with big bungalows and turn-of-the-century moderns crammed together. Gradually, the houses retreated from the road, which smoothed and widened into a well-mannered avenue, until Dani knew for certain that they’d reached Eunoia Park.
The land here rose and fell in gentle hills, thickly wooded so all that could be seen of the buildings were spangles of light twinkling between the branches. The sidewalks were laid with river-stones and lined with lampposts, if they could borrow the term. They were more like tall pedestals crowned with orbs of fairy lights, soft and hazy and emitting a pale blue aura. The headlights of the car seemed garish in comparison.
Elaborate gates shielding sloped driveways sailed past, each laced with the cobwebs of protection spells. Only once did they cross paths with another car, a vintage Audi whose wheels had been removed in favor of a hover charm. The chauffeur raised a hand as they went by, but the back windows were tinted too darkly to see who they were driving.
After several minutes, the cab pulled up to one of the gates, a steel-and-chrome affair that looked more like the entrance to a top secret warehouse than somebody’s home. “This is the address,” the driver said uncertainly.
Sharing his sentiment, Dani rolled down her window. A beat passed before an image flickered and formed between the car and the gate: a sort of stock-image butler. “Please state your purpose,” he said in a mild German accent.
“We’re here for the, um, party?”
“Names?”
“Dani Lionet and McKenna Amari.”
The butler’s face went eerily slack for a moment, before a quick return to its approximation of human behavior. “Ah, yes, I have a Dani listed with a plus one, identity unknown. You may proceed. Your driver has two minutes to idle in front of the entrance.”
“Thanks,” Dani said, rolling up the window as the image faded. The slats of the gate lowered into the ground, and the driver urged his car up the forested drive, which was steep enough to block their destination from sight at first. Then, one tower at a time, Kass’s house came into view.
Eleven
“Holy shit,” McKenna said, and she was right. Dani’s nose touched the window as she craned to get a better look at the monstrosity rising before them: the design of an architect who had been instructed to build a Loire Valley chateau à la Art Deco. Its many turrets were plated with chrome and grooved with geometric designs, and the left wing of the house was raised on supports over a manufactured pond, around which abstract sculptures stood sentinel. Floodlights illuminated the whole thing with blinding radiance, throwing sharp shadows through the columns of the entrance.
Dani gaped as the driver pulled up between the front steps and the fountain composed of stacked octagons. This was Kass’shouse? It was so opulent it bordered on obscene. If this was his normal, what would he think if he knew she’d spent the last three years living on and off the streets?
Dimly she understood that the driver had come to a stop, that it was time for her to get out, but she couldn’t seem to bring herself to move. McKenna, on the other hand, had no such issue. She opened her door with a flourish and climbed out of the car like it was a cocoon and she the morphing butterfly. She bent down to look at Dani. “Are you coming or not?”
“Oh,” Dani said, startling. “Coming.”
Getting out of the car was a far less graceful event for her than it had been for McKenna. Once she had won the battle against her minidress and closed the door behind her, she looked up at thefountain and realized the octagons were not stacked directly on top of one another, but each floating in midair.
Mage shit.She had a feeling there’d be a lot of that tonight.
“Danica,” McKenna called, raising her voice above the sound of the car rumbling away. “Come. The night is young, but not immortal.” She always lapsed into speech like this when she was feeling especially fey, but it failed to spur Dani into action; she stood frozen, staring at the house. Despite the chilly weather, people were crowded on the front steps, taking advantage of the break in the rain. They could hear the throbbing noise of the party even from here. “Dani,” McKenna said, this time with a note of concern. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know if I can do this.”
McKenna crossed the driveway and hooked her arm through Dani’s. “Iknow you can do this, babe. You’re one of the strongest people I’ve ever met. You think a party could defeat you?”
“Maybe,” Dani said. “I don’t really like crowds.”
McKenna patted her firmly on the hand. “Good thing this isn’t a crowd, then. It’s just a hangout. And we can leave whenever you want—just say the word.”
“What’s the word?”
