Emily wasn’t out of shape, but she wasn’t exactly an athlete. The only sport she really played was a bit of badminton with her mom and a few older women at an indoor court every week, and sometimes she would use her dad’s little gym setup at home to burn off some excess anxiety. It kept her slim. That, and the way she lost all appetite when stressed, which was always.

Still, by the time they had made it three blocks over, Emily was regretting wearing a sweater and a thick skirt. She would need a shower the moment she returned home, or the sweatiness would bother her to no end.

What if someone noticed and thought she was a slob? What if the mysterious person in the Dark Cup noticed?

Emily’s worries grew into a grand crescendo that reached their climax when she stood before a little coffee shop and bistro set between a tanning house and a store that sold clothes for construction workers.

The old label at the front looked like it belonged in the seventies. Big mom-and-pop-style lettering that read the dark cup across a little awning over the front door.

She could barely see within, but the vague shapes through the frosted glass hinted at chairs and tables and people moving within.

Emily swallowed a gulp of air. “Here goes,” she said.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Shady Dealings

The Dark Cup smelled like a coffee shop. Emily wasn’t sure why that surprised her so much. It wasn’t advertising itself as a den of moral dubiousness or anything like that. The signs, the decor, it all said “family-owned shop” without needing to spell it out.

But Emily had grown up watching cartoons about her favorite Heroes, and she’d seen the movies with the occasional Mask acting—poorly—as themselves. In those, the bad guys always hid in warehouses and places that were dark and dingy and that looked the way the Villains acted.

The Dark Cup didn’t match any of that, and for some reason that set Emily on edge more than if she’d walked in to find posters endorsing the punting of puppies and the stealing of candy from babies.

“Can I help you, love?” the woman behind the counter asked. She was a midtwenties girl with her hair caught up in a net and an apron over otherwise ordinary clothes.

“Um,” Emily opened her conversation as she did all others. “I-I, uh. Yes.”

The waitress looked up from her notepad, one eyebrow rising. “You can sit anywhere,” she said.

Emily shook her head and took a small step closer, tugging Teddy after her as she did. “No. I’m . . . looking for someone. A, uh . . . they call themselves a Mysterious Stranger?”

Confusion, then understanding flashed in the waitress’s eyes. She looked Emily up and down, then did the same to Teddy. “Right. Okay. Follow me.”