“I- explain please?” Ixia held aloft the tiny tree shaped air freshener smelling of pine, face caught somewhere between curiosity and disgust.

Cormac scratched at the back of his head, clearing his throat as he struggled to think of a way to explain this in the least upsetting way. “So, people do love the smell of trees. Pine trees especially! So we try and put that scent in more compact forms! It’s not- okay it’s not *intentionally* mocking trees! It just *looks* like it! Wow what else are we accidentally being offensive with? Are little green men and the greys like...racist caricatures for aliens?”

“I don’t know what those are, but...thank you. At least humanity’s heart seems to be in the right place.” Ixia held the small ‘tree’ in only two fingers and placed it down with a grimace.

Cormac failed to suppress a bitter laugh, soon having to answer to Ixia looking confused once more. “Okay, remember that list of things I said it’s perfectly okay to hate humanity for but let’s do that at a more convenient later date?”

“That list is getting troublingly long…” Ixia frowned as she resumed her wanderings through the ‘home improvement’ store as Cormac called it, sometimes staring off at the high ceilings or at some new modern thing that remained a wonder to her.

Cormac pushed their shopping cart already bearing an air purifier onward, unable to disagree with her. “You know, I feel like my luck means at least a few of the things on that list are going to turn out to involve scary magic things.”

“That would be preferable. I can deal with ‘scary magic things’.” She teased him with a wink as he just shrugged. “Human things? Well that is mostly up to you.”

The human’s green eyes shot wide open as he blinked a few times as he confirmed he was not dreaming. “...me?”

“It is a matter of power. If we of the Veiled World are not careful, not subtle in our actions, it invites others to do the same. And every wicked thing with visions of power would rise to the occasion of ruling over as much of humanity as they could. Your people would be as expendable to them as most ants are to a queen.” The low tone Ixia kept as she made sure there were no others around to overhear her warning was surprisingly effective in conveying this dire scenario.

“Keep things extremely subtle in the world of man, got it.” Cormac shook his head, focusing on wheeling the pair over to the garden section. The List of Worries actually held both reasons to hate humanity and supernatural horrors that Cormac promised to save all questions for later unless they were currently trying to eat him. After a short walk, the pair arrived at a vibrant yellow display holding hundreds of packets of seeds. “Here we are, go wild!”

Ixia’s eyes turned to wide lilac pools as she picked up several packets at random, carefully inspecting the pictures on them and shaking them to get a sense for how many seeds were contained within, and then started grabbing handfuls of packets to throw in the cart.

“Not that wild!” Cormac reached out to pull her back by the shoulder as she had gone into something of a feeding frenzy. “Remember what I said about money?”

Ixia slumped her shoulders with a small nod and smaller frown. “That you have little of it…”

Cormac groaned, seeing her looking so down was working against his better judgment. “And we still have a lot to buy...alright fine. Four more handfuls.”

The dryad’s bright smile returned as she perked up, circling the seed display like a shark, looking over every available option and picking out a wide ranging mixture of all manner of fruits, vegetables, herbs, and purple colored flowers. She gathered them up into a large stack as thick as a dictionary and looked to Cormac for confirmation. The human simply nodded, reminding himself this was also for home defense. Somehow. At the very least he was likely to be getting a good amount of fresh produce for ‘free’ after an initial investment.

Ixia was a bit more reserved on the already grown plants, opting for a selection of cacti and larger plants. Which was now begging a question even more important than money.

“You know my apartment isn’t that big right? Also doesn’t get a ton of sun? And probably only so many grow lights I can put in there...wait no!”

“Grow lights?” Ixia stopped dead in her tracks, whipping around on the spot to face him with a raised green eyebrow. “What are...grow lights?”

Cormac felt a single bead of sweat run down his forehead in economic agony. “They...they help plants grow. Like the sun.” He gulped. “But you can have them on all the time. But they are also expensive.”

“Oh. No we will not need those.” Ixia quickly returned to picking out as many plants as she could fit in the cart as Cormac was left to wonder how it was she was going to make all this work. Surely even a dryad would need some sunlight?

He counted his monetary blessings for now as she added a final cactus combo platter. “This should be good enough.”

“And you can’t just make all this pop out of the ground like the tree, right?” Cormac asked.

Ixia nodded with a slight chuckle. “Of course not I-” She stopped as she remembered that the definition of what was obvious had changed since her slumber. “Trees are one thing, I need a sample for other plants.”

“Alright, well I really can’t afford much after this. Still going to need to buy an obsidian dagger and that just won’t be cheap.” Cormac started running a worryingly large mental tally of everything in the carts as he stood back to look at it all.

Ixia gave him a warm smile. “I promise I won’t need much, and this will be worth it.”

Cormac stopped counting as he realized they lacked two very important components. “No dirt? Or pots?”

“They will not be needed.” Ixia said as though that somehow explained everything, but she quickly picked up on Cormac’s ensuing confusion. “I have my ways.”

The human started to protest before giving up without a fight. “Dryad, got it.”

They passed by the gardening tools section, which at this point Cormac assumed even suggesting them would be an insult. Instead it was Ixia who stopped as she looked over a few the wide array of modern gardening implements all hung on the shelf and looking quite fierce.

“Perhaps we could get you this axe? Or this sword?” She pointed at a machete. “So you have more to work with than a shovel.”

“There are few places I could carry one of those around in public and not be arrested.” Cormac looked over the assortment of machetes, axes, and sledgehammers while wishing that it was socially acceptable to do as Ixia suggested. He patted his pocket as he moved on from the display. “I’ll have to make do with my pocket knife for now. Not the best option by a long shot but at least no one will see it coming.”

Ixia could appreciate the need for subtlety, though this world was still strange to her in what was and was not allowed. She hurried after him, though speed in flip flops was still a trial for her.

Check out was not kind to Cormac’s wallet, and he stopped looking at things being rung up after it hit 100 dollars with far too much left to scan. All that was left was the endless string of beeps from the scanner, each one louder and louder in Cormac’s ears until it was deafening.

“How will you be paying, sir?”

“Painfully.” Cormac said running on automatic.

“Uh…”

Ixia’s worried look brought him back down to reality as he finally turned to face the confused cashier. “Sorry, didn’t mean to make your job harder. I know that life, I work retail too.”

“I uh, okay.” The young blonde man who was probably not old enough to buy alcohol was looking more and more lost. “And how will you be paying for all this? I could...I could take some things off your order or-”

“Credit.” Cormac cut him off, postponing the real monetary hurt for later.

After loading up his truck, and just before he put the keys in the ignition, it hit Cormac that it was him causing a scene and not the green haired, green lipped, lilac eyed woman gazing around a big box store like it was a thing of wonders. He rested his forehead against the steering wheel and closed his eyes. Just as Ixia was tapping on his shoulder did he mutter out “I’ll be fine.”

“You’re sure?” She asked, clearly worried.

“Yeah.” He sat back up, staring ahead and blinking a few times to clear his sight. “Yeah just me being a weirdo...huh…”

Cormac squinted out ahead to the far end of the strip mall the home improvement store stood at the center of. “Ixia, tell me what you see over there. Between the Bread Boutique and the Candle Emporium.”

The Dryad followed his line of sight, scanning the signs readable only thanks to a shared mental link, and stopped at what Cormac was looking at. She tensed up. “I believe a better question would be, can you read that?”

“I can. Which I’m guessing is another problem?” He didn’t take his eyes off the store wedged in between two innocuous specialty stores that were still probably fronts. Instead his attention was focused on a store painted black in stark contrast to all others in the strip mall, with opaque windows emitting an amber glow in the fading light of dusk.

“It is, would you like to tell me the problems as you see it?” Ixia’s tone was even yet measured.

Cormac’s mouth ran dry as he nodded. “Well, for starters whenever I’ve come here I look at those two stores and think man, those have to be fronts for crimes. Who even needs a specialty bread bakery anymore? Or just candles? No way they get enough business to pay rent.” He dryly chuckled. “So, I’d joke to myself every time I see them that they’re a front. They’re hiding something. But every time I see them, it’s a candle place and bread place right next to each other. Not with spooky place in between. Colors also don’t fit everything else here, which I’m pretty sure they regulate.”

“I see, that is indeed troubling.” Ixia leaned forward in her seat. “You are aware of how I can understand whatever languages you speak and read, and in turn you are granted the same gifts of whatever I speak and read?”

“Yeah?”

“Would I be reasonable to assume you do not speak _____?” The final word was one that if not for Ixia he could not even be certain was a word instead of ambient noise.

“No I do not, and it did not get translated.” He clicked his tongue, mentally preparing himself already.

“Proper nouns do not translate.”

“That makes sense kinda.” Cormac nodded, biting his lip. “So…’The Silent Equinox’...are we going in?”

Ixia slowly turned to Cormac, an amused grin growing as she did. “Really?”

Cormac turned, eyebrow raised. “What?”

“You want to go into a place like that? ‘Spooky place’?” She rested an elbow on the dashboard to prop up her head while her grin grew.

“*It’s a little shop that wasn’t there yesterday*. That shows up even in sci-fi!” Cormac crossed his arms as he went on the defensive. “Is it probably filled with evil? Absolutely! Which means we should probably assess the situation sooner rather than later because this is like fifteen minutes away from my place and I’d like to know about any sources of evil and or magic within such a short distance.”

Ixia chuckled, leaning even further against the dashboard for added effect. “And you are not scared?”

“Absolutely terrified.” Cormac held up a finger to wag at her. “But it’s either investigate possible evil or we have to leave-and-promise-to-come-back with my house too. And we already had to do that for you so…”

The Dryad’s amused smile faded into a self-conscious frown as what she assumed to be a bout of possibly over excited curiosity was founded in grim practicality and sympathy. She reached over to take his hand in hers, tracing her thumb along the lines of his palm as he bemusedly stared down at this action. “Let none say you are not brave. Let us go.”

She released his hand before opening the passenger door.

Cormac wordlessly nodded, still in a slight haze as he climbed out and looked over everything stored in the truck bed. He reasoned that thieves were unlikely to want a random assortment of plants as he walked with Ixia to the strange shop across the parking lot.

The more Cormac looked at it, the more he felt a sort of mental unravelling taking place. He looked to either end of the line of shops, and saw that by all rights it should still be the same strip mall he had seen a hundred times. Every shop *should* fit in nice and neat. And they did. And also they didn’t. Which was where things started to unravel. The Silent Equinox looked as though it had always been there, save for its mismatched color scheme. But as Cormac got closer he saw the edges of...something.

The line between where the paint scheme of one perfectly normal shop that was still likely a front and the shop that was magical in nature was blurred, for lack of a better word. Like looking through the wrong prescription of glasses, it hurt the more you look at it.

“Does it hurt for you to look there where spooky shop ends and normal shop begins?” Cormac asked as he rubbed at his temple.

Ixia’s eye twitched as she looked to where her Guardian pointed. “It does...did you notice that amber light isn’t shining where it should?”

Cormac grit his teeth as he noticed that, cursing himself lightly as he all too late recalled a similar effect from back at the motel. “Magic light doesn’t play nice with the mundane?”

“Why would it? All that is Veiled cannot be observed by that which is not.” Ixia confirmed.

“....okay I didn’t expect the name to be that appropriate.” Cormac conceded, tilting his head from side to side as he rolled the thought about in his head now that it made complete sense.

They came to a stop at the edge of the sidewalk, also a different shade of gray from its surroundings. The cool air of the end of dusk finally fading fully into night contrasted the warm amber glow of the windows and sign bathing the pair in its light. Cormac craned his head up, staring at the sign that was written in a language he could only understand through sheer force of magic.

“Does ‘The Silent Equinox’ mean anything special to you?” Cormac asked, still staring.

Ixia attempted her own stare through the windows, finding them glowing far too much to reveal anything within. “It does not. What about you?”

“If it did, I think I’d be more worried.” He said under his breath.

“....that is a worryingly good point.” Ixia noted as she read over smaller text painted onto the gray metal door reading ‘ALWAYS open’.

Cormac let out a final sigh as he shook the jitters from his hands. “I should have brought the shovel.”