Swindler of Fortune
The coin wells were empty.
I stared dumbly into the cash register. They’d been full that morning, that much I was certain of. I myself had blindly emptied several rolls in my mad dash to open the store on time.
What can I say? Even wizards sleep in sometimes.
But business had been slow, and even on heavy days, we usually didn’t get enough cash transactions to clear out the whole register.
“Natalie?” I called, hoping she hadn’t left for the night.
I didn’t suspect her of stealing, of course, but she usually handled the front during weekdays. Thankfully, she was still in the back. I watched the doors swing open, and her bun bobbed just over the tops of shelves as she made her way over.
“What’s up?” she asked as she reached the front, leaning down onto the counter to meet me at eye level. I rolled my eyes at the gesture.
“Did somebody exchange a large bill for coins?” I motioned towards the empty wells. “Because we’re all out.”
Natalie frowned as she pushed herself upright. “No. I actually had to empty a roll of quarters about an hour before closing. Why, have we been robbed?”
“If we were, it was by the dumbest thief alive.” As Natalie cocked an eyebrow, I went on. “All the bills are accounted for.”
For several moments, we puzzled over it, but it was late, and I think we both knew no questions were going to be answered without effort. And that wasn’t happening after closing. This was a problem for another day.
So I dumped a couple new rolls into the register and decided to call it a night.
The next day was a Friday, which meant more business. After a quick check to confirm that the coins were still in their place, I flipped the sign on the door to ‘Open’ and welcomed the start of a new day.
Natalie was working inventory, so she hung in the back while I held down the front of the store. Rolling up the sleeves of my cardigan, I took in a deep breath and channeled my Manager alter ego - a mix of Customer Service feigned cheer with enough of an edge to hold some of the more entitled customers at bay.
Our first customer rolled in around 9:30. My back was turned as the bell rang out, but the excitement emanating from Nathaniel as he ran laps around my back clued me into their identity.
I spun on my heel to see an old man wrapped up in dark furs and a matching cap step over the threshold. A green parrot sat on his shoulder, wearing its own tiny hat.
“Mike!” My Customer Service smile eased into a genuine grin as I greeted one of my favorite regulars.
“Ms. Kim, hello!” When Mike spoke, it was with his familiar, thick Russian accent. I wasn’t sure exactly when he had immigrated to Canada, but he’d been coming into the store as long as I could remember, back when I was just a kid helping my dad restock shelves. Even back then, he’d struck me as remarkably old.
“I haven’t heard from you in awhile. I was beginning to fear the worst.” It was a half-joke, but before the mood could darken, I shook my head dramatically. “I thought you might’ve decided to turn to one of our competitors.”
Mike chuckled as he pulled his hat from his head, but his parrot cut in before he could protest. “Enough with the pleasantries! We’re here on business!”
Nathaniel had run down the length of my sleeve and was tugging it down my arm to press closer to the bird. I leaned forward onto the counter, and the parrot eyed my embroidered dragon cautiously.
“That’s a cute hat you got there, Charon.” I shot the parrot a wink and pushed myself back up. “What is it I can get for you today, Mike?”
“Do you have any tongue of frog in stock?” he asked as he brushed snow from his hat.
I wasn’t sure, but I promised to check in with Natalie. As I made my way back to the storage room, I found her crouched in one of the aisles, gathering some nonalcoholic liquid courage to restock.
“Hey, do you have any tongue of frog marked up on there?”
The face Natalie made answered my question. “You actually stock frog tongues?”
“Spells, enchanted items, charms - ”
“Whatever your wandering, wayfaring wizard may need, I know,” she finished, nodding along dramatically. “But frog tongues?”
“If you heard all of the ingredients that go into those bottles” - I nudged my chin towards the liquid courage - “it’d make your hair curl. Not that it needs the help.”
Natalie smacked me with her clipboard before jutting her hand out for some help up.
I had been working alongside Natalie for a few months now, but there were still areas of the store that I hadn’t acquainted her with. Some wizards would’ve scrunched up their noses at my more repellent products, so I was not keen to show them off to an unprepared Typic.
Most potion ingredients sat in a medicine cabinet towards the front of the store, but it could hardly fit everything. The rest was tucked away into a side room - a pantry, really - hiding in the back corner. Pulling my keyring from my pocket, I shuffled through several before I landed on the right one.
Dust had collected on most of the shelves in the pantry. I had no excuse for its state; there simply wasn’t enough of a reason to come back here unless someone requested it. A single, flickering lightbulb hanging from the ceiling dimly lit the small space.
I turned away from Natalie to fetch the jar labeled ‘tongue of frog’. After I’d snatched it up, I looked back to see her curiously scanning the shelves. Before I could say anything, her hand darted out and grabbed something.
Holding it out to me, I could barely make out its label: newt eyes.
“Other friends of yours?” she joked.
I brushed past her as she replaced the jar on the shelf. “Of yours, actually.”
Carrying the jar back to the front, I watched as Mike perused some of the inventory up front with vague amusement. Charon was whispering something in his ear. Evidently it was something rude; Mike reprimanded the bird harshly in Russian.
“One tongue of frog,” I announced as I stepped behind the counter.
“You have new merchandise, Ms. Kim,” Mike pointed out as he dug through his pockets. “I didn’t even know there were spells for maintaining battery life.”
“Yeah, well, some companies intentionally provide weak batteries to make you replace your phone after a couple years. This cheat seems the lesser of the two evils.” I rested my elbows on the top of the register as I watched Mike stack the contents of his pocket onto the countertop. Books, empty potion bottles, a pair of gloves. After withdrawing a black notebook with an engraved monogram and a full-sized human skull, he finally pulled out his wallet.
I had to ask him what spell he used to get that kind of pocket space.
“Working another case?” I nodded at the notebook as I rang up his order. “I thought you’d retired, Mike.”
“I owed an old colleague a favor,” Mike admitted gruffly. “The police asked him for assistance on a case, and he referred them to me.”
He sounded none too happy about it.
Mike passed me cash, and I opened the register. As soon as the drawer sprung open, I realized with a jolt that the change was missing again. Surely, nobody could’ve snatched it up without being seen. I could’ve trusted Mike with the entire store while I was in the back, and Natalie had been with me the entire time.
“Is there a problem?” Mike asked, straightening up to peer over the counter.
I unlocked the cupboard with extra change and fished out a roll of loonies. “No problem, just ran out of change.”
I handed over his change and the jar without a bag, knowing he wouldn’t need one. When he’d taken both from me, he simply slid them into his pockets. With a quick nod and a small lift of his cap, Mike stepped back out into the cold.
Only after Mike had left did I notice Natalie crouching by the first row of shelves. She clutched her clipboard to her chest, staring in horror at the door the old man had just left through.
“Was that man carrying a human skull?”
I dismissed her concern with a wave of my hand. “Mike’s a necromancer. That’s pretty normal for him.”
My reassurance might’ve eased Natalie’s nerves, but they simply shifted from fear into disgust. “Aren’t those people supposed to raise the dead and all that? Gross.”
“It’s a little more delicate than that. There’s a whole structure of ethical guidelines in that field. Full revival is prohibited, so usually it’s just gathering details on how the person died. I don’t know the ins and outs of it, though. I’ve never had the stomach for that stuff.”
“So you’re telling me there’s a whole slew of magical careers out there, and I got stuck working for the shopkeep?”
I rolled my eyes as I walked away, leaving Natalie laughing on the floor.
Saturday morning, I arrived extra early at the store. I told myself it was to make up for the fact that Natalie only worked weekdays and I would be running everything myself. But really, the first thing I did when I arrived was beeline for the cash register.
Everything had been in place the night before. After Mike’s incident, nothing had gone missing, and the rest of the day ran smoothly. I was secretly hoping that the problem would go away on its own if I just refused to acknowledge it. But I could only lose so many more rolls before making another trip to the bank, and I’m pretty sure the teller I always ran into was a vampire. Either that or there was some other reason he always stared at my neck when I was making deposits.
Either way, not an experience I was eager to have again.
My key slid into the lock for the register, and I made a silent wish as I twisted it open.
The coin wells were empty.
I let out a frustrated shout as I tore the key out of the lock. This couldn’t keep happening. My store did well - my spot in downtown Trelis earned me good foot traffic, and our regulars were loyal - but I couldn’t afford the constant losses.
There was only one answer. I would have to investigate. If I kept a careful eye on the full register, the thief would have to reveal themselves eventually.
To refill the coins, I opened up the cupboard, only to find that it, too, had been ransacked. Every roll of coins had been torn to shreds, with scraps of paper left littering the cabinet.
I felt bad for texting Natalie on her day off, but I had no other choice. I couldn’t both look into a robbery and ring up transactions. So, whipping out my phone, I shot her a text asking if she’d be able to make it down the store, preferably before it opened.
Fifteen minutes later, Natalie was at the front door, rapping against the glass. I unlocked it for her.
“More was taken?” she asked, pulling her mittens from her hands.
“Both the register and the cupboard are empty.” I groaned, draping myself over the front counter. “I’m at a loss.”
What kind of thief was this, who would ignore the higher-value bills and waste time tearing through paper to get at the coins? Who could somehow get around the store without being seen? Were we dealing with an advanced invisibility spell? Some pocket portal that could reach directly into the register? A clever magpie?
I dragged myself over the counter, nearly hitting my head against the back cabinet as I clambered ungracefully down. Landing in a heap on the ground, I found myself staring closeup at a pencil shaving. I frowned; the only pencils we kept in the front were mechanical.
Sitting up, I pinched the tiny shaving from the ground and ran it between my fingers. It was then that I realized my mistake. The scrap wasn’t a pencil shaving, it was one of the shreds of torn paper from the cabinet.
Natalie yelped as I threw myself back to the ground, eyes close to the floor. A moment passed in silence as I scanned for more shreds of paper. Though Natalie kept quiet, I could feel her piecing together what I’d found.
She found the next scrap, pointing to it with her foot. As we began to follow a small trail of torn paper, I scurried along at a crawl. Less inclined to make a fool of herself, Natalie chose to walk.
The paper led to the back of the store, into a small hole in the wall that I’d never noticed, half-hidden behind a shelf. I didn’t dare reach into it, but shining the flashlight from my phone revealed only a long tunnel. Something glinted from a distance, but it was too far to make anything out. Whatever was back there was hidden somewhere in the wall of the potion pantry.
It took a minute to find the key for the pantry, and another several to scan along the wall. But I finally found what I was looking for. Really, I shouldn’t take the credit. Natalie found it, helping me push aside a cabinet to reveal the door to a crawl space I’d never seen before.
It was easy to overlook, a tiny door tucked away into the back corner of a room I rarely entered. But I immediately recognized with some satisfaction that its lock seemed to match a key on my keyring. The only key I’d never found a use for. It had always been there, since my father had wielded the ring, but I’d never thought to ask him what it was for.
Now, with certainty, I tugged the key loose and shoved it into the lock.
Sure enough, the key turned, and, with Natalie flashing her phone towards the crawl space, I tugged the door open.
Sitting inside, on a veritable mountain of spare change, was a dragon the size of a coffee mug.
I froze, not exactly sure how to react. Behind me, Natalie dropped her phone, and the dim lighting in the room was only enough to catch a glimpse of its sleek scales. After a second to recover from the shock, I began to move.
I’ve faced my fair share of house pests, and this was no different. Throwing my arm behind me, I latched onto the handle of a broom that had collected more dust sitting in its corner than it had ever swept in its life. Keeping my eyes trained on the dragon, I brought it forwards and prodded lightly at the small reptile.
The dragon snapped at the broom, as I’d expected. Natalie was apparently less prepared; I could hear the jars clinking lightly as she backed into a cabinet. As the little pest’s jaw clenched down, I carefully lifted it from its hoard.
“Get me an empty jar,” I whispered over my shoulder.
Natalie fetched one, and hurried out of the room as soon as I’d taken it. The jug was large enough to fit the dragon snugly, but it would hold the thing until I could find a place to let it loose.
Out in the light of the store, I inspected the little pest. He had dark, reddish-brown scales and golden eyes that shone with what I could’ve mistaken for intelligence. As I studied him, he seemed to be sizing me up as well.
Natalie, having overcome her shock and seeing that the dragon was contained, ran over. With wide eyes, she reached out and tapped a finger against the glass. The dragon turned to her, staring up with what I swear was feigned innocence.
“We should keep him!”
It was just about the last thing I expected to come out of her mouth.
“You want to keep a dragon?” I needed to get my hearing checked. Wasn’t this the woman that had nearly screamed on spotting the little guy only a minute ago?
“He’s adorable!” she insisted, reaching out to take the jar from me. “I’ve never seen a real dragon before. I was always told they don’t exist.”
What else didn’t Typics know existed? Did they think pigeons were fake, too?
“We could keep him in the shop, and he could help guard the door!” Natalie suggested, beaming like she was holding a newborn puppy. She was already tenderly cradling the jar. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.
“Guard us from what?” I demanded. “The only thief I’ve had since I took over this store is him.”
But I knew from Natalie’s enraptured expression that she wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
I had heard of dragons being domesticated before. They were said to make excellent pets, given proper care. But there was no telling which breed this one was. Knowing my luck, he’d grow into a five-meter beast that’d fill up a whole aisle.
“I’m calling him Midas,” Natalie announced.
And I knew any arguing was hopeless.
We now had a guard dragon.