Izzy pressed her tongue against her lip, carefully writing out the address on the envelope. Gnome Garden—
The golden bell over the door dinged, and she swiveled around, dropping her pen on the floor. Her wings bumped into a pile of boxes. “Hello?”
The wizard took off his hat, hesitating in the entrance.
Izzy’s cheeks warmed, and she flicked fairy dust at the pen to maneuver it back to the counter. “Um, what can I do for you? It’s a bit. . . unorganized, but the Prophecy Post Office always delivers everything on time.” She frowned. “Except when—”
The dwarf in the back room coughed.
Izzy shook her head. “Never mind. Do you have a letter to send, or. . .?”
The wizard scanned the room, and Izzy took advantage of his silence to examine him. Wizards rarely came to the post office—they generally muttered something about inefficient fairies and handled things themselves.
Finally, his eyes rested on her. They were a surprising shade of blue-green, much less detached than the average wizard’s. “I’m actually here to pick up a package.”
Izzy’s eyebrows rose, and she reached for the nearby clipboard, knocking the pen onto the ground again and wincing at the dull clang.
The wizard smiled faintly. “Still getting the hang of longer wings?”
“Mum says I’ll get used to them soon,” Izzy mumbled, flipping through pages of the clipboard, “but today I don’t believe her.” She looked back up at him and squinted. “You aren’t a sprite pretending to be a wizard, are you? Because we’ve got a package for a sprite.”
He shook his head. “Just a wizard.”
She glanced at the clipboard again. “Well, I don’t have anything for a wizard today.”
The wizard’s fingers tightened on his hat. It was dark gray, with flecks of green that matched his eyes. “Ah.”
“Are you. . . waiting for something?”
The wizard snapped his fingers, and her pen appeared back on the counter. “Hoping more than waiting.”
Izzy murmured her thanks. “Well, is there anything I can help with?”
One corner of the wizard’s mouth twitched, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Not unless you can convince the Abundance of Wizards to be uncharacteristically forgiving.”
Izzy mouthed the word uncharacteristically, letting it roll over her tongue like a spikefruit. “I can try, I guess?”
Again, that smile that didn’t touch his eyes. “Allow an old wizard a sense of humor.” He put his hat back on and pulled his cloak tighter, despite the sunshine outside. “Good day.”
“Bye,” Izzy murmured. The bell dinged as he opened the door, and she caught a brief glance of sun-soaked cobblestones and the whiz of magical creatures, then the door swung shut.
She picked up the pen and tried to finish addressing the envelope in front of her, but a heavy sigh, followed by plodding footsteps from the back room, made her look up.
“So he left, did he?” The dwarf hoisted himself onto a stool behind the counter.
Izzy nodded. “Do you know him?”
The owner of Prophecy Post Office raised his bushy eyebrows at her. “You don’t? His name’s been all over Godmother’s Gazette for months.”
Izzy made a face. “Mum only subscribes to the Nymph News.”
The dwarf huffed and muttered something about how the Nymph News only cared about angsty chosen ones. “Well, last time the Abundance of Wizards gathered, that one—his name’s. . . something or other—”
Izzy giggled. “Weren’t you just saying his name was all over—”
The dwarf glared. “As I was saying, he did a wizard-y something wrong and a building collapsed.”
Izzy’s eyes widened. “Was anyone hurt?”
He shook his head. “A troll caught the roof in time for all the elves to scramble out, and the phoenixes were turning anyway, so they were fine. But the Abundance was pretty worked up about it.”
“So he’s hoping for a package that means they like him again?”
The dwarf nodded, absent-mindedly running his stubby fingers through his beard.
Izzy reached for the clipboard, her wings ramming into the shelf behind her and sending stationary fluttering to the ground. She winced. “I’ll clean that up, I promise—I just need to make a note for when a package comes for a wizard—”
But the dwarf shook his head. “Don’t bother.”
She frowned, still holding the clipboard in mid-air. “Why not?”
He shrugged and began braiding part of his beard. “They want him to come to them, not the other way around. The critics in the Troll Times think everything’ll be fine if he actually talks to them; he just has to realize that they don’t hate him for the occasional mistake.”
Izzy set the clipboard on the counter and hopped up, her wings snagging the edge of the overflowing cupboard and almost tripping her. “Then I’ll go tell him to talk to them!”
“Are you sure you can be giving that advice?”
One hand on the doorknob, Izzy pressed her lips together and turned to look at him. “What do you mean?”
He grunted, finishing the tiny braid and starting another one. “You know what I mean. Now that your wings are longer and bump into everything, you’ve been hiding in here every afternoon.”
Izzy’s cheeks flushed. “That’s different—”
He raised an eyebrow. “Hypocrites don’t make good advisors.”
Izzy lowered her head and chewed on her bottom lip. “But—I just keep knocking into things,” she mumbled. “And I send papers flying everywhere and my wings keep getting in the way and—”
“If they hate you for a mistake, they probably never liked you in the first place.” He let go of his beard and crossed his arms. “Go talk to them.”
Izzy swallowed, then nodded. “After I talk to the wizard.”
He nodded. “Good enough. Now get out of here before an author comes by and decides I’m enough like a mentor to warrant a death sentence.”
She giggled. “All right.”
And with a cheerful ding from the golden bell, Izzy skipped out the door.