Her pale hands scrabble against the glass that separates her from my bottles—the opaque green of the darkly bitter clava, the translucent pinks and peaches of fruit mixes, the speckled earth tones of the nutty milks, all frosted from the alchemical ice vaporizing around them. She’s been here every night this week. It’s the smell, I tell myself. The drinks, the pastries. She’s attracted by their smell. And then her eyes, grey lurking on the edge of black, with no pupils or irises or whites, just dozens of hexagonal facets, look at me. She looks at me. Sees me. My hands and feet go cold. The glass I’m polishing slips from my fingers, falls on to the granite counter. Cracks. She knows.n tger Somehow, even after two years of keeping my head down and staying home at nights, she’s found me. I’m a dead man. The warding bells on my door jangle. A party of bright young things, cheeks red from the cold, sweep in with a dance of colored ribbons and sparkles at their throats. Lights flicker in the square behind them.
