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Pearl: How are you feeling? Any side effects?

Corvus: Only dealing with Fred’s inflated ego for his gallant efforts today. I told him he did very little, and he said I was an ungrateful git.

Pearl smiled and thought he’d leave it at that when her phone pinged again.

Corvus: What are you reading?

Pearl: How do you know I’m reading?

Corvus: Lucky guess?

Pearl snorted.

Pearl: Or it’s just statistically probable I have a book in my hand at any given time. I’m reading the first translation of The Odyssey by a woman. It had been on my TBR pile for a while, but your supposed first edition on papyrus made me think of it.

Corvus: What, pray tell, is a TBR?

Pearl: ‘To be read’ and my list could probably go around the earth a couple of times. So many books, so little time to read them. What about you?

Corvus: Grimm’s Fairytales seemed appropriate for tonight.

They continued texting until Pearl fell asleep with an unread book in her hands and a smile on face.

Chapter eight

Past - October

Corvus thanked his lucky stars he’d managed not to muck everything up on their second date, and somehow, here he was eagerly anticipating their fifth date. As charmed as his life had been, this thing with Pearl didn’t feel like a sure thing. It felt new and fragile, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever put more effort or care into anything in his life. Is this what it felt like for people who wanted things they weren’t sure they could have? This felt like a dangerous amount of self-reflection as Corvus walked up to Pearl’s place of employment. Pearl had sent Corvus a letter letting him know she was running late for their date, asked if he’d meet her at the store where she worked, and included an entire paragraph on why it was ridiculous that he didn’t own a mobile. Arriving at the store, he waited for a few minutes outside before deciding she must still be finishing up and walking into the bookstore for the first time. It was readily obvious the minute he walked in why Pearl worked here. With floor to ceiling bookshelves, this was about as close as you could get to living inside a book. He wandered the aisles for quite some time, attempted to pet a cat, who immediately hissed and took a swipe at him, and finally started calling Pearl’s name, asking for rescue. She appeared so suddenly, he almost jumped out of his skin, and rather than soothe his poor nerves, she chastised him for being so loud.

“It’s not my fault this place is designed like Daedalus’ labyrinth. Is that how you convince people to buy things here? They have to buy a book as the price of being guided back to the door?”

Rolling her eyes, Pearl took his hand and did indeed begin to guide him out of the maze. “How you manage to find drama in the most mundane things, I’ll never understand. The bookstore isn’t even that big.”

“Oh, but love, you know how I enjoy it when you rescue me. I’m too rich for you to have any compassion for me otherwise.”

Stopping, Pearl looked back at him with pursed lips. “One, that’s not true. I know just because someone has money it doesn’t mean they don’t have problems. Two, it’s very gauche to talk about how rich you are all the time.”

“So my mother tells me, which is a large part of why I enjoy doing so.”

After Pearl refused to rise to his bait, Corvus tried again. “So of all the bookstores you could have worked - why this one?”

Corvus loved it when he asked Pearl the right questions, and she lit up with excitement to answer. “Oh! So, I, of course, spent a lot of time when I first moved here and hadn’t made any friends yet just wandering around London trying to go to every bookstore here, which was more of a feat than I first anticipated. When I walked into this one, I could feel traces of magic lingering, and thought it must have been left off the list of magical bookstores, but no - the owner is not a magic user, but so many used books go through here, there are bound to be magical ones now and then, and even though he doesn’t know about magic, he knows when books are odd or “weird soddin’ books” as he says, and he will put them to the side for the “weird soddin’ customers.” I, of course, wanted a job on the spot, so I could handle the magical books and get some practice in. They rarely have curses, but sometimes there are little ones, so it’s great field training without too much risk.”

Grabbing her coat, she gave Corvus a quick kiss on the cheek and pulled him out into the crisp London autumn. “You know I haven’t forgotten that you still haven’t told me how you transport without knowing where you’re going!”

“Well, I need some way of keeping you going out with me, don’t I?”

“I mean I’m sure you have more unsolved mysteries up your sleeve that can keep me hooked?” She paused, and Corvus wasn’t sure if it was a blush on her cheeks or if they were just reddened from the wind when she spoke again. “Or maybe I think you’re unexpectedly lovely, and I’d want to keep getting to know you - transportation secrets or not.”

Corvus kissed her before his thoughts caught up with his actions. He’d had a big plan to romance her and kiss her at the end of the date with everything very thought out and intentional. Frankly, he was quite proud of his self-restraint in not kissing her sooner. But she was just so beautiful and sincere, and her hair was warm on his cold hands, and she made little breathless noises when he pulled her closer. It was a little awkward as all first kisses are, and they were in a deeply unromantic place wearing coats against the chill, but Corvus wasn’t sure he’d ever been so happy. And right now in this moment, he thought, maybe life could be this happy. Maybe he could kiss this girl in an alleyway behind a bookstore and keep kissing her for the rest of his life. Maybe this tenuous thing was sturdier than he’d thought. And when he finally broke off the kiss when he could feel how cold her nose was getting standing out in the wind, the way that Pearl looked at him made him hope that maybe she felt the same.

After a lovely dinner, Corvus expected he’d be going home as Pearl seemed wary about their dates going on too long. He’d tried many times to figure out ways to extend them, but she never took the bait - as though she were holding herself back. But tonight when he gave her a slow kiss goodbye and went to leave, she grabbed the sleeve of his coat and said, “Why don’t we go to my flat? It’s not far from here and we could…um…turn on an old movie or something.”

“That sounds like a lovely idea.” Pleased with himself for being at least somewhat cool and collected in his response, he rather ruined it by snogging her against the wall for a few more minutes and when they came up for air saying, “I hope by ‘watching an old movie’ you mean that you intend to ravish me on your couch.”

Pearl giggled as she rolled her eyes, which made Corvus speculate aloud that the two responses cancelled each other out. Ignoring his observations, Pearl replied to his previous comment with an air of mystery. “A woman can’t reveal her secrets. I guess you’ll just have to come with me and find out.”

As soon as they entered her flat, her fox began winding himself around Corvus’ legs in an enthusiastic welcome, getting gray hair all over the fine material of Corvus’ trousers. He’d seen her familiar a few times in class, but he’d never been nearly this friendly. “Well, hello there! I’ve not been officially introduced to this handsome fellow.”