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It is a universally recognized fact that Hyacine runs the best café in town. The reviews are in: no matter who someone is or what they’re ordering, it’s always perfectly sweet and perfectly iced, and the mildly obese white cat familiar (yes, mildly, Little Ica is not that fat!) hanging around the shop only makes it better… even for people allergic to cat fur, because somehow no allergies have ever been triggered in the store.
And it’s all because of a very special family secret:
See, Hyacine is a witch.
Not a particularly formidable one, no. The Daythunders are known for creating ordinary tools borne from perfectly ordinary magic, like water bottles that never spill and wallpapers that always come off without peeling. Nothing life-changing; just making lives a little bit better, one thing at a time. But they have never commanded the type of magic which could level cities or transform worlds, much to Hyacine’s disappointment, because she’s always wanted to do advanced magical studies, and her lackluster power means that pretty much no master will ever even consider taking her on as an apprentice.
And she’s tried. Hundreds, even thousands of times, each application met with a stone-cold rejection — different in wording, perhaps, but all saying the same thing: household tricks aren’t real magic.
It’s not fair. But Hyacine has learned to live with it a long time ago.
So, with her Magic-Mastery dreams shattered, eighteen-year-old Hyacine had deemed it apt to open a small shop in a smaller corner of Okhema, and now the Twilight Courtyard is one of the most famous artisanal cafés in the nation.
It’s not too out of left field. After all, Hyacine is a potioneer above all else, which means she can weave spells into her drinks without anyone ever noticing. Good health, better grades, successful relationships… within one conversation, she can find out exactly what her customers need and give them the slightest magical edge to actually do it. Legally, of course. She’s had to learn the importance of displaying her coven-approved permits on the storefront — albeit disguised with a glamor — the hard way after one-too-many calls from concerned members of the magical public.
Well, there will always be customers who are concerned about one thing or another. It is, however, much rarer for Hyacine to meet a customer who, after all these years, thoroughly concerns her.
“Sixteen shots?” she repeats slowly, hoping against hope that she’s heard the man wrong. “You want an espresso with sixteen shots?”
The man in front of her — Professor Anaxagoras Nouspore, says his Grove University lanyard — blinks and brushes a strand of limp green hair away from his teal-purple eyes. There is a certain mania in his gaze that Hyacine, whose business skyrockets during finals week, knows comes only from at least two days’ worth of sleep deprivation. “Yes. Cirrus-style, with extra bīja seeds.”
And here’s the thing: this man is clearly not a student who doesn’t know any better, clearly not suffering the stress of finals week because it is mid August, and, most importantly, clearly magical and therefore cognizant of the fact that Cirrus-style brews double the effectiveness of any caffeine dose.
At minimum.
Hyacine is a lot of things, but ‘enabler of someone actively trying to destroy their own health’ is not one of them. She is also very, very familiar with how people like Professor Anaxagoras Nouspore operate.
“Sure,” Hyacine says, giving him her best customer service smile. “What you need is coming right up!”
Instead of heading to the coffee machines, Hyacine beelines straight for the back, flinging aside the curtain separating the two sides of the café as she does. Little Ica jumps off the table they’ve been sleeping on with a loud thump and runs after her, trailing at her heels.
“Oh, good morning, Hyacine,” Phainon says, sounding strangely high-pitched as he leans against the door to the broom closet in what he probably thinks is a casual-looking pose. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“Good afternoon to you too, Phainon. This is my café, you know, even if your boyfriend’s in charge of the pastries,” Hyacine says. She tilts her head, considering. “Speaking of which, I need him for something, so can you please tell Mydei to see me in the brewery lab once he has all his clothes back on? And can you man the till for a few minutes?”
“Yeah, sure- wait a second — ”
Hyacine sends Phainon a shrewd smile and continues walking, ignorant to the delivery boy’s stammered protests. “Cassie,” she calls out, poking her head into the storeroom so Little Ica won’t run inside, “do you know where the whitewater is?”
Castorice looks up, eyes wide, from where she’s taking inventory. “Ah — yes!”
She vanishes from view and reappears at the door a couple of seconds later, a bottle of shimmering seafoam-green liquid in her hands. “Is this right?” she says anxiously. “It was in the marine section, but I’m not sure it’s been re-sorted according to the new system yet, and Cipher’s on leave, so I couldn’t… ”
Hyacine accepts the bottle and holds it up to the light. “I think this is it. Good job, Cassie!”
A pretty pink flush settles over Castorice’s cheeks. “Ah… it’s my duty.”
“Still, this is good.” Hyacine smiles at her. “At the rate you’re going, we’ll be able to break your curse before you even know it.”
“Really?” The sheer hope on Castorice’s face makes Hyacine’s heart break.
“Before you even know it,” she promises.
Mydei is already waiting at the brewery lab when Hyacine arrives, albeit slightly more… disheveled than usual. The telltale patterns of his teleportation sigils are glowing on his neck, right next to a rapidly darkening bruise that Hyacine chooses not to dwell on. “Lady Hyacine. What did you need me for?”
“Just consulting our resident warlock before meddling with Dark arts.” Hyacine pauses. “And most of our staff don’t have High Magic lineages, you know. You don’t have to keep up the formalities here.”
“Right,” Mydei says after a beat. “My apologies.”
“I’m not saying you have to change how you address us! It’s your choice, dummy,” Hyacine says lightly, mock-scolding, then turns towards the cauldron. “Would snakeskin or crow feathers be a better agent for binding Instant Sleep to a Wake-Me-Up draught with Will-Detecting properties?”
“Snakeskin,” Mydei says decisively. “Two inches. Crow feathers are too finicky for a Dark spell.”
“Okay, good, I just wanted to make sure.” Hyacine taps her wand against the cauldron, setting various bottles and ingredient packs around it in a blink. “Premade brews are very convenient. Your mother is a genius.”
The corners of Mydei’s mouth curl upward minutely. “She is. Do you still need my help?”
“No, thank you, but the pastry shelf does,” Hyacine says, dumping the base ingredients into the cauldron and giving the mixture a stir. “So please fill it for the afternoon customers before you continue whatever you were doing with Phainon in the broom closet.”
Mydei turns about as red as his sigil tattoos and promptly teleports away from the brewery lab in a loud crack.
As Hyacine turns back towards the cauldron, Little Ica climbs up her clothes, eventually wrapping themself around her shoulders. They always enjoy watching Hyacine work, especially on blue potions; there’s an ongoing bet pool amongst the employees about whether or not it’s because the blue is similar to the sauce Hyacine coats her familiar’s snack apples with. It’s their favorite reward for spending a long day in cat form instead of their natural baby-unicorn body.
One dash of powdered mother-of-pearl, two inches of snakeskin and three dragonfly wings later, the concoction is a brilliant, bubbling blue-green. Hyacine scoops a spoonful into a ceramic mug, leaves the rest in the cauldron — she’ll ask Castorice to deal with it later — and heads back towards the counter, where Phainon is calming down a furious-looking harpy.
Want me to step in? she mouths at Phainon, but he shakes his head, so Hyacine heads towards the decaf coffee machine to fill up the remainder of the mug.
“Anaxa, was it?” Hyacine says, approaching the professor, who looks up from his laptop like he’s been awoken from a daze. He really is extraordinarily thin, she notes in disapproval as she scans his bony wrists. A few — or a dozen — of Mydei’s honeycakes would do him wonders. “Here’s your drink, tailor-made for you.”
“It’s Anaxagoras,” the professor says, somewhat grumpily, then accepts the drink. “Thank you.”
Six days later, Hyacine is wiping spilled stardust from the countertop when the door bursts open to reveal a professor with a frenzied joy in his eyes that is, frankly, even more perturbing than simple, pure mania.
He stalks up to the counter. The dark circles around his eyes are gone. “Who made the drink I was given before?”
“I did,” Hyacine says evenly, squaring herself up to kick out a hostile guest if need be. “If you have any issues — ”
“Issues?” Professor Anaxa tosses his head back and, to Hyacine’s utter confusion, laughs. “Are you joking? That was the most inspired energy boost — and induced crash — I have ever had the pleasure of consuming.”
Hyacine blinks, completely wrong-footed. “Excuse me?”
“Five experimental roadblocks! Solved in a night! And my insomnia — gone.” The professor sighs wistfully. “I slept for forty-seven hours.”
Hyacine, tactfully, does not tell him that it’s about what is expected from someone who, presumably, had been consuming an unnatural amount of caffeine, even for magical standards.
Professor Anaxa sobers up a bit and looks at her. “What would’ve happened if the reaction had gone sideways?”
It’s a question she’s heard, and answered, far too many times before. “A contingency is built into all our beverages here,” she says steadily. “Within the boundaries of this shop — and so long as you are using one of our mugs or takeaway cups — there is a protective ward that nullifies a brew’s effects if they are incongruous with the brewer’s intent. It supersedes all other consumable magic within its bounds.”
“I haven’t seen that before,” Professor Anaxa says. There’s an odd, genuine curiosity in his tone.
Hyacine proudly draws herself up to her full height. (Which isn’t a lot, but well, the professor isn’t that tall either.) “That’s because I invented it.” And the coven is taking their sweet time to officially announce it, even though it’s already been certified.
Professor Anaxa nods, like he’s settled on something. “Then, Miss Hyacinthia, how would you like to become my apprentice?”
Hyacine gapes at him. “What?”
“My name is Anaxagoras, the only Master Alchemist alive. Your skills are exactly what I’m looking for in a student. So, I ask again,” Professor Anaxa says, “would you like to become my apprentice?”
An apprenticeship. It’s all Hyacine has ever wanted. And with an alchemist’s help, Castorice’s curse…
But the café.
As if sensing Hyacine’s turmoil, Little Ica curls around her feet, a reassuring weight as her mind churns.
“Of course,” Professor Anaxa adds smoothly, “you can keep working here full-time. I am rather inclined to visit this place again, anyhow, as long as I can have your miracle brew every week.”
Hyacine makes her decision.
“Alright,” she says, hoping her voice doesn’t betray her eagerness. “I’ll be your apprentice.”
The moment her words ring out, Professor Anaxa’s serious face changes into one of unrestrained glee. “Right, then, dear apprentice. I’ll see you tomorrow!”
Before Hyacine can say anything else, he hurries out of the café in the same whirlwind way he’d entered, singing to himself a tune that sounds suspiciously like miracle brew, miracle brew, miracle brew.
Standing at the counter, Hyacine takes a deep breath. She tries very, very hard to stay cool. She truly does.
But if Hyacine runs into the back five seconds later and throws her arms around Phainon, practically squealing… Well, she’s caught him in the broom closet with Mydei way too many times for him to say anything about it.