Page 9

A STELLAR LINE UP

The color-coded wristband system that Tempest was proposing was simple and visual. And yet her stepbrothers seemed perplexed when she tried to review it with them, the night before the signing.

She’d gone over it twice and had even furnished them with a laminated visual aid. Yet here she was explaining it a third time, through gritted teeth.

“Blue group is three thirty,” she said, tapping the clipboard. “Green is four fifteen. Purple is five. Each group gets forty-five minutes. That gives Dan Wilder time to catch his breath between waves, keeps the queue outside from backing up onto Burnside, and means everyone who reserved a copy gets their moment without feeling like cattle.” She paused. “Any questions?”

Barnabas raised his hand.

“You don’t have to raise your hand, Barney.” She sighed.

He raised it higher. “It’s an awful lot of infrastructure for a simple book signing event.”

“Simple? Two hundred and forty-five people have pre-registered and reserved copies.” She was both surprised and heartened by the number of people who were planning to come. Dan’s trivia book was a runaway hit.

“People queue for stuff all the time.” Archibald shrugged. He spoke with the aloof certainty of a man who had never stood in a line for anything. He considered himself far too important. “It’s part of the whole fan experience. It builds their anticipation. Plus it’s good optics for the store.”

“They’ll be queuing outside, Archie. In the rain.”

“This is Portland. People are used to the rain. They’ll bring umbrellas, Pestie.” He waved her concerns away.

Fortune, from her perch above the till, produced a loud noise that sounded like a game show buzzer when a contestant gets the answer wrong. Even the parrot knew that only tourists used umbrellas in the Pacific Northwest. Natives might occasionally don a hat or wear a raincoat, but for the most part they shook the rain off like ducks.

Tempest took a deep, cleansing breath.

“If we stagger the groups,” she said, with the hard-won patience of having dealt with these two for most of her life, “the people who are still waiting can come inside. They can get a coffee from the cafe. They can shop for other books. They can spend lots of money while waiting, instead of standing outside on the pavement getting soggy and resentful.” She looked between them. “We want to sell more books, right? That’s the whole point of gathering a crowd, no?”

A brief silence.

“I still think it’s an awful lot of wristbands,” Barnabas said. “And why those colors? Couldn’t you have chosen something a little more flattering with my skin tone, Pestie?”

Archibald had already stopped listening. He was examining a boil on his chin in the reflection of his glasses, holding them out like a mirror and tilting his jaw to get a better look. “Who’s going to sit with Wilder and assist him?”

“I was going to do that,” Tempest tapped her pen against her thigh.

Both brothers looked at her with identical pitying expressions.

“Don’t you think it makes more sense for one of us to represent the store for something this high profile?” Barnabas said.

“I’m a manager. I run the till and the buyback program. Owl’s has been in my family for generations.”

“Yes, well, you stock the shelves, and ring up some sales, but we all know that’s not the same thing as being the face of the brand.” Archibald’s face was oozing. She had to look away.

Everyone thinks the pyramids were built by slaves. Everyone is wrong. Archaeological excavations at Giza have turned up the remains of a worker village complete with bakeries, breweries, and a surprisingly well-resourced medical facility. The people who built the pyramids were paid laborers working in rotating crews, and they named themselves things like Friends of Khufu and Drunkards of Menkaure, which tells you something about both their organizational capacity and their priorities. They were buried near the monuments they built, an honor not extended to slaves.

Facts from Dan’s book were still fluttering in through the cracks of her consciousness, distracting and delighting her. She didn’t mind it.

“Fine.” Tempest sighed, conceding the point of who should sit next to their celebrity guest. She’d been looking forward to meeting Dandelion Wilder but that didn’t mean she had to be the one sitting next to him at the table all night. “Let’s move on to the next point. Who’s checking people in at the door?”

By the following morning the store was ready for their special event.

“Building a sphinx out of the books was a genius idea!” Priya enthused, as they admired the display in the front window. “How did you come up with it?”

“It’s right there on the cover.” Tempest pointed at the golden image on the cover of Dan’s book. “I never could have gotten the books arranged into this shape without your help, though.” She gave her magical friend a quick hug. “I don’t know how I’d survive here without you.”

“We make a good team.” Priya beamed.

Tempest couldn’t argue with that. She didn’t know what she’d do without her vivacious friend. She had a lot in common with the younger witch. They both loved spicy food and disliked the ABCs. They both enjoyed reading romantic fantasy and loved helping customers find just the books they needed. There was just one major difference. Priya’s magic had always flowed smoothly, and reliably from her wand, whereas Tempest was drawing from a dry well.