Page 1 of Shaedes of Power (Soul Magic #1)

CHAPTER 1

W hen we first came to the human realm, I tried a lot harder to hide what we were. But with only two short months left, I’d grown lazy and even more disenchanted with my own appearance.

“Stop staring, Opal. We get it, you’re beautiful,” said Dru sarcastically, coming in from the back room carrying three large boxes of coffee beans and setting them on the counter like they carried the weight of balloons. She kept her almost neon-green hair cut rebelliously short, her matching eyes always glinting with the kind of energy only unnatural strength and agility could fuel. I forced my eyes to turn from the mirrored wall behind the counter and refocused on the open drawer of the register. I was already bored and today’s shift hadn’t even started yet.

“You know that is not why I keep looking,” I said quietly, slowly counting dollars and putting them in their respective slots.

Leyanna chimed in from the front of the shop, her tone laden with insincerity, “Oh, I learned a new human phrase the other day.” Her fire-red hair and crimson-colored eyes shone brightly, free from their usual glamours. “‘A watched pot never boils.’ It means stop checking if your hair is a tint darker and come help me wipe these tables down. Eew, I think there is gum under this one.”

I could almost hear Dru roll her eyes as she turned to start all the coffee machines. We were very thankful for Dru because, in the almost two years we had been the sole operators of Espresso Yourself, a hip and trendy cookie cutter coffee shop in the epicenter of SoHo, neither me nor Leyanna had ever learned how to actually make coffee. Dru seemed more interested in the technical aspect of things anyway, so I figured out the cash register and dealt with the people, and Leyanna mostly just complained about all the human-ick qualities of things and how much she missed home. We were only eighteen when we arrived in this city, sent to work and live and interact with humans. To better understand them. To learn how we could better protect them. We were supposed to be journaling every night—which Leyanna totally wasn’t doing—and completing a list of assignments meant to put us in the heart of human activity.

I walked around the counter with a damp rag and set to cleaning, wondering if this was a glimpse into my future. In the faerie realm, those devoid of true color magic were servants. We called them Naturals, with the typical physical attributes of the common faerie. Blonde, brunette, or auburn, ethereally beautiful, perfect skin, and blessed by the Balance with the type of organic magic that kept the world healthy. They were the Tinkerbells of the faerie world, I figured after watching Peter Pan for the first time—whimsical beings of magical ability who served the faerie courts with their healing, their ability to grow plants and foods, and their interactions with magic on a very base level. They were the fixers, helpers, and domestics of the realm, and although I had just enough color magic to pass for a Shaede, I often figured I’d still end up just like one of them.

Everyone believed I would grow into my shaede eventually. But it never happened. Not fully anyway. No one knew if when a faerie was born, the shaede was already within them, planted by the all-knowing Balance, or if the shaede was attracted to the person one became. But in either scenario, I couldn’t help wondering if something was wrong with me .

“You’ve been wiping that same spot for ten minutes, Opal. I think it’s clean,” said Dru gently from behind me. I allowed the smell of warm coffee brewing to bring me back from my self-loathing. “Is everything okay?” she asked, making a move to unlock the front doors. Outside the city was already alive, a limitless number of working parts set in motion under the heat of a sizzling summer sun.

“She’s fine,” sneered Leyanna. “Probably just daydreaming of Astor back at court. Still keeping the dream alive that he’s been saving himself for you all this time?”

“Well, that’s not nice,” said Dru, forever on my side. “Of course he is loyal. Opal and him had been together for almost a year before we left.”

“A year is nothing to a faerie, especially an overly ambitious, high-energy green Shaede like Astor. No offense, Dru, but your kind easily bounce from thing to thing. You have the attention span of a human.”

“Okay, Leyanna, now that is really not nice. What is your problem today?” I asked.

Astor was overly vigorous as a warrior and a boyfriend, but what we had seemed like it could be special. He was one of the more handsome male faeries at court, always strutting around dressed as if ready for battle, in dark leather and shiny weapons at his belt. He had no problem with his future, he knew who he was, and he wasn’t afraid to tell people. He thought himself born to become a High Shaede, and I think a part of him believed he could will it to happen. I used to think his confidence was kind of sexy. Perhaps I was drawn to him because I admired his ability to manifest his future, whereas I was certainly on the cusp of giving up on mine.

“I don’t know,” Leyanna sighed, twirling one of her long braids around a finger. I saw her eyes flicker mischievously even from across the room. “A friend would warn you of the truth, wouldn’t she? You must know he is only courting you because your mother and father are both High Shaedes and he thinks he can become royal by association. I don’t mind being the bearer of bad news generally, but it brings me no joy in this instance.” She tried to hide a smile but failed. Dru and I just stood there like two stunned statues, the unveiled shock frozen on both our faces. It was just Leyanna being Leyanna, but this seemed extra spicy even for her. “Ugh, fine,” she conceded, pulling at the black spandex shorts she was wearing. We all weren’t the biggest fans of human clothes but were forced to dress the part. “Maybe I’m just missing home. Don’t you feel the Balance? It’s like something tangible is tied to me, pulling me back to court. It’s starting to disturb my sleep, and resisting it is making me cranky.” She pouted, and Dru and I reluctantly walked over to give her a hug.

I couldn’t speak for Dru, but I always felt the Balance inside me. It was like walking around with an internal shadow. It made me sensitive to other faeries’ shaedes. I couldn’t draw some incredible power from it—I was no High Shaede—but it was always with me, making itself known. I kind of just assumed that it was a sensation that all faeries had, but seeing Leyanna in distress over feeling the Balance’s pull gave me pause.

“Two more months, Leyanna. You can do it,” Dru encouraged.

“If I never smell another coffee bean in my whole immortal life, Balance bless me,” she said dramatically. Then something caught her eye outside the window. “Oh no, it’s that human with the weird name again.”

“You think all humans have weird names,” Dru said. “ Christopher, now that is a weird name ,” she said mockingly, doing her best Leyanna impression. “ Alex is a weird name. Eew, Katie. What a weird name. ”

I tried not to laugh as we all moved to take our positions like little faerie robots and threw our glamours up fast and hard. I froze my ever-changing eye color to an unremarkable gray and made sure my pointed ears mimicked a human’s. I allowed my long, wavy, opalescent hair to remain, but it was the spell I cast over my skin that was perhaps the most necessary. My body, which since birth sported a sort of pastel shine that picked up various shades of colors when in sun- or starlight, had become downright crystalline—freakish, really—even by faerie standards. So I dulled my skin to make sure it had that gritty, natural coloration that all humans had in one shade or another in an effort to hide the weird iridescent sheen my body had really come into, just as the customer in question opened the front door, sending reflective shards of sunlight bouncing all over the walls and ceiling.

“Welcome to Espresso Yourself . Would you like to try our Iced French Vanilla Cappuccino this morning?” I recited like an overly enthusiastic coffee sycophant.

The stranger was not really a stranger. His name was Farris, last name unknown, and he had a masculine, no-nonsense way of ordering his coffee.

“Hello, Opal,” he said, shifting the heavy backpack to his front so he could reach his wallet. He pushed some stray damp tendrils behind his ear with the hand that had fished out his credit card. “I think I will just stick to the usual.” He smiled, a friendly half-smile. We’d done this so many times before. It was like a choreographed dance. He came in here almost every morning, eyes blue and bright, disheveled shoulder-length blond hair either tied up in a loose bun or hanging wet and wavy post shower. He couldn’t be more than twenty-five, but something about the handsome, sharp angles of his face made him look older and more mature. Like most of our patrons, he crossed the threshold into our shop with a busy, eager sort of energy. A little bit of caffeine, and that was all it took for humans like him to be industrious—to go out into their realm and do something of substance. To make an impact. To start a ripple. It wasn’t like that for faeries. We lived forever; all the big stuff had already been created, and most major conflicts had already been resolved. Over countless years, our lives had been made more and more easy. Every day had the potential to be such an adventure for this man, and he probably didn’t even realize it.

“So a large black coffee with a shot of espresso?” I started pressing buttons on the register without even looking at him. Behind me, Dru started making a machine whirl to life. The light in the room shifted again as two young high schoolers in private school uniforms came in, giggling about something on one of their phones, and got in line.

“Actually,” said Farris, a little too loudly, “I think I’ll have that Iced French Vanilla Cappuccino thing.”

“Really?” I raised an eyebrow. New choreography. He was looking a little more intently at me than usual, like he wanted to say more, but he had run out of all there was to say about coffee.

“Yes, but better still put a shot of espresso in it.” He laughed softly. “I need the energy to make it through some long research hours today.”

I smiled at him. Like a lot of the more extroverted humans that were always dropping little bits of their life onto the counter to make conversation, Farris wanted to be liked. People like him wanted other people to feel comfortable around them, so if there wasn’t anything remarkable about the weather, out tumbled self-deprecating quips about themselves, vague details about their day, or generic compliments that weren’t too forward.

From our little clips of conversations, I knew that Farris was actually not currently any kind of student. He was just on a personal crusade to learn. He loved history and spent most of his mornings reading books about past wars and countries far from here, all while putting off grad school or making any major decisions about his life. He hadn’t really divulged anything else other than that he liked rainstorms, he appreciated the smell of coffee more than he liked the taste, he was an only child—and was this just my faerie brain that managed to carefully catalogue a random human’s every thought dumping, or was I mildly interested in who this man was?

I took his money, and he brushed more wet hair from his face. He did that half-smile thing that really could be charming as Leyanna thrust a cup of sweet-smelling slush into his hands.

“Have a nice day,” she managed to say sarcastically. He took the cup, secured his heavy bag back on his back, and I watched him awkwardly wave goodbye as the next humans in line stared expectantly at me, awaiting to hear the day’s special.