The door was pushed open from outside.
The bell on the door gave a clear jingle.
Pops raised his head and looked toward the entrance.
Jade's ears pricked up, and she sprang from beside the counter like a spring.
"They're here!"
"Someone's here!"
She dropped the rag and rushed toward the door, her face brimming with the excitement of "finally!"
Pops came out from behind the counter at an unhurried pace, but his eyes stayed fixed on the entrance.
Jade stopped three steps from the door.
She got a clear look at the visitor.
Then she froze in place as if someone had pressed pause.
A man stood in the doorway.
No, a humanoid figure would have been more accurate.
He was tall, his skin an unnatural white tinged with pale blue.
Long silver-gray hair spilled over his shoulders, almost reaching his waist.
He wore a dark gray robe whose hem did not touch the ground, but was held up by a ring of silvery-white light.
The ring spread outward from beneath his feet, about a foot wide, like a full moon laid flat on the floor, spinning silently.
But his eyes were his most striking feature.
They were purple, yet not purely purple.
A silver full moon lay in his left eye, and a black full moon in his right. The two lunar phases existed at once, slowly rotating like two stars orbiting each other.
Jade's first reaction was: He's not human.
Her second reaction was: He's so... handsome?
Her mind couldn't quite keep up.
Handsome didn't seem quite right, because that face was too cold, so cold he didn't look alive.
But his contours, his features, the way he stood-there was something about them that made it impossible not to steal another look.
Like a lone pine on