CHAPTER FOUR #2
I open my mouth, ready to confess, but am saved when the door opens and Violeta hurries inside.
Short and curvy like me, she never seems to feel the cold, wearing only a light jacket over a fluffy burnt-orange sweater that looks amazing against her tan skin and honey-highlighted brown hair. “Hello, hello!”
“Yo, my Witch Bitches!” Jasmine carols, following her into the store, her beautiful brown face split in a playful grin. She peels a turquoise wool pea coat from her tall, lean body, the color matching the silk wrap shaping her brown hair into a high pineapple that fountains luxurious curls.
As everyone sheds outerwear and says hello, the rest of the book club members pile inside. With Willow, Emily, Abril, Madison, Destiny, and Rachel added, we’re a loud group of cheerful chatter and warm hugs.
Then everyone gathers around me and Autumn, grabbing their favorite cereal milk cocktails and cupcakes sprinkled with matching cereal crunchies. Something in me eases as Jasmine snags her favorite type of cupcake from my tray and gives me a wink.
I’ve never belonged to such a large friend group before, too shy in high school or college to insert myself into one.
It’s one of the reasons I’ve been so excited we started the Witch Bitch Spicy Book Club—it’s given me a way to get closer to so many more people.
Even though I’m shy, I come out of my shell when talking about something I love, and there’s nothing I love more than books.
Not that we get much chance to talk about books with all the witchy shenanigans that go on in town.
We settle onto the couches, all smooshed together, and I love this too—the solidity of feeling my friends by my side.
“So what’s the news?” Violeta asks.
“Didn’t you hear?” Autumn grins and nudges me with her elbow. “Skye’s taking a vacation.”
“No.” Jasmine’s voice rings with disbelief. “How did that finally happen?”
“Yep.” Hannah pops the P and smirks at me before nibbling on the edge of her cupcake. “I flexed my mayor muscles and freaking made her.”
I take a hefty swig of my cinnamon crunch cocktail, letting the spicy sweetness coat my tongue, wishing for once that Autumn made the drinks stronger, because I need all the courage I can get, liquid or no. “So… about the vacation thingie…”
“What did you do?” Kayla narrows her eyes, giving me an assessing look, but a hint of humor dances in their depths.
“I, uh, kind of told Luke I’d catalog his library.”
“What the eff?” Autumn says.
“You mean the largest-library-in-all-of-Faerie library?” Hannah shakes her head. “How is that any kind of break?”
“Yeah.” Kayla points at me. “I don’t think the word ‘vacation’ means what you think it means.”
“How could I resist?” I throw up my hands. “The money will let me buy so many kids’ books. I’ll finally be able to start my children’s reading charity.”
“But what about you?” Autumn sets a hand on my forearm and gives me a serious look. “That’s wonderful and selfless and all the good things, but how about taking some time to take care of yourself?”
“It is taking care of me! It’s exactly what Hannah said. Luke has the biggest library in several worlds, and it’s stuffed full of books on magic. This is a dream come true!”
“Are you sure it’s his big library you’re interested in?” Naomi grins at me while waving two fingers in the air. “Not his two other assets?”
“You did say stuffed full.” Autumn elbows me again, wiggling her eyebrows.
“Double stuffed!” Hannah giggle-snorts and claps a hand over her mouth.
Heat rushes to my cheeks. What can I say? I’ve got an unfulfilled double-penetration fantasy, a stack of monsterfudger books, and a drawer full of toys. Knowing Luke has two dicks is positively panty melting.
“Kidding aside, you need time off,” Autumn says. “You need to have some fun.”
Hannah nods. “You could do those dance classes you keep talking about. Isn’t there a studio only one town over?”
“Funny you should say that…” I try to smile, but it feels more like a grimace, so I take another gulp of my drink. “I actually took a dance class this morning, only not exactly on purpose.”
“How can you do an accidental dance class?” Kayla’s face crumples in confusion, and she tosses a piece of cereal into her mouth, biting down with a crunch.
So I tell them all about Luke flying me to his library, how it reacted to me, changing the colors of the trees to match my pink dress, and how that swell of magic sparked my own.
“All the books in the room rose into the air, including the new romance book I just started reading. My magic kind of”—I set down my cupcake to make a swirling motion with my hand—“sucked us into the book. Suddenly, we were the main characters, trapped in a scene, unable to get out.”
Gasps from around the room, everyone leaning forward. “What did you do?”
I describe the way Luke tried to break us out of the dance studio. “But each time we went right back to where we first entered the scene. We were totally Groundhog Day-ed.”
“Is Groundhog Day-ed a verb?” Naomi teases, having a degree in English.
I give her a small smile. “It is now.”
“How did you get out?” Violeta asks.
“I had the idea to complete the scene like it is in the book, and it worked. We learned a really basic waltz, just like the main characters do, and bang—we were back in the real world.”
“Your power sounds amazing!” Naomi reaches over and snags an orc romance off one of the display tables. “Can you send me into this book? There’s a scene where the heroine gets to ride a unicorn that I’d love to compare to the real thing.”
“Maybe? I don’t know. But I do know that I can’t risk it.
” My mouth does that sheepish smile-grimace thing again.
“We got back to the real world, but my romance book is still floating in the air of Luke’s library, and it won’t let us touch it.
So even though we got out of the scene, we didn’t break the spell.
Luke thinks we might get sucked back into the book at any time. ”
“What will break the spell for good?” Hannah asks.
“I have this gut feeling that we’re going to have to act out the entire book.” I lick a bit of buttercream frosting off my cupcake, letting the sweet butterscotch flavor be a needed comfort.
“So it’s a fun book with a few dance lessons.” Violeta offers an encouraging smile. “No biggie, right?”
“Well…” I bite my lower lip. “It’s kind of a spicy book.”
“How spicy is spicy?” Autumn asks.
My cheeks flare with fire, offering all the answer any of them need.
“Oh, girl!” Jasmine gives a rich chuckle. “I guess that’s one way to get your dragon. You two sure have been dancing around each other long enough.”
Everyone laughs.
I shake my head. “I don’t want to force him or anything. Consent is sexy.”
“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.” Autumn sips her drink, grinning at me over the rim. “I’ve seen the way he stares at you.”
“Don’t you mean glowers?”
“Nah, Autumn’s right,” Hannah says. “You need more practice reading resting grumpy face. Luke’s got it bad.”
I hope they’re right, but I don’t feel it.
If he’s been staring at me, it must be because he’s been thinking of hiring me to catalog his library, nothing more.
No, all I feel from him now is a need to fix this.
“If this is my magic, I need a way to control it. Trapping people in novels that take place over months without being able to get them out?” A shudder ripples through me as my tummy twists. “That’s a total no-go.”
“The thing I don’t get,” Kayla says, “is if you need to act out the entire book to complete the spell, why did it let you out when the dance lesson ended?”
“I don’t know.” I shrug, suddenly hating the indecisive shoulder movement.
I’m a librarian. I’m supposed to know how to find the answers to questions.
“I still want to figure out how to break the spell. Sending people into books could be a lot of fun, but only if I can control when to pull them out.”
“I’ll get Severin to help me search the palace library,” Hannah says.
“I’ll see if there are any books I can order through library loan,” I say. When my friend opens her mouth to protest about my promise not to enter the town library, I raise my hand. “It’s online. I can do it from home.”
“I’ll ask around in Faerie,” Naomi says. “But I don’t think I’ll find much, since orcs tend to have nature magic.”
“You know the person you really need to ask,” Autumn says. “Luke.”
I nod. Even if I no longer have a job with him, Luke has the biggest magical library in all the realms. If the information exists, I can find it. I just have to convince him to let me back into his library.