Suddenly, the gray man turns around and seems to stare directly at Sophie.But she's a bit preoccupied with snooping, so she tells Elle she'll call her back in a bit. (Or maybe Elle just wants to talk to Josh-wink, wink.) Her interest piqued, Elle eagerly asks if Sophie's twin brother, Josh, still works at the bookshop.This is all very suspect, if we may say.Oh, and he just walked into the bookshop. He's a small well-dressed man in a gray tailored suit. Continuing her play-by-play of the goings on across the street, Sophie tells Elle that a fourth person has stepped out of the car.Sophie catches sight of his pale gray-white skin. As the friends continue to chat over the phone, another man (even larger than the first two) emerges.It's eighty-one degrees outside-that's way too hot for overcoats. Not so, says Sophie, after checking her thermometer.Hey, Elle suggests, maybe they're just cold.Sophie wonders aloud who the people might be, and what they are doing outside of The Small Book Shop.Apparently, there are two people across the street wearing overcoats. Sophie asks her friend why anyone would want to wear an overcoat in San Francisco in the middle of summer.

Oh, and she's currently hanging out in a coffee shop.Who's that, you say? Well, we don't know exactly who Sophie is yet, but we know she's talking on the phone to her friend, Elle, so that'll have to do for now.It's Thursday, the thirty-first of May.

The Alchemyst by Michael Scott