CHAPTER TWELVE
Lukendevener
“Skye!” I bark her name, worry roughening my voice.
She stands, body rigid, face locked in an expression of beatific fascination. Magic roils within her, so strong it takes my breath away. Even with her eyes closed, I can tell she’s focused on only one thing: that damned romance book.
I call her name several more times to no avail, so I grab her shoulders and turn her away from the blasted book, but she cranes her head, doing everything she can to keep it within her magical sight.
With a growl, I scoop her off the floor, pressing her face to my chest, my hand palming the back of her head so she can’t turn back toward the book. My tail curls around her legs. In three long strides, I’ve got us out of the library.
Princess Buttercup comes racing after, yowling with worry.
I sprint down the castle hallway, not stopping until I enter the sitting room.
Skye stirs as I lay her on the sofa, whispering, “Such pretty fire.”
“The romance book looks like fire?” I ask. Interesting. I wouldn’t have expected her magic to manifest in that fashion.
Her eyes flutter open, a crease of confusion denting the skin between her brows. “No, you.” She touches my chest and gives me a heart-stopping smile, her face blooming bright like the first rays of sunlight touching a flower. “You have such pretty fire.”
My heart leaps as if willing to tear itself from my body to meet her touch. She can see my fire magic? That can’t be part of her powers, can it? It makes no logical sense. Certainly, I’ve entwined my life with books and the pursuit of knowledge, but that doesn’t make me a book.
So why can her magical sight see the essence of my magic?
Her familiar jumps onto the arm of the sofa to stare down into Skye’s face, letting out a series of meows.
“I’m fine,” the witch says. “I just got caught up in the power of the spell. It’s beautiful.”
I grunt. Of course it’s beautiful—it’s Skye’s magic, after all. “Tell me exactly what happened. Spare no detail.”
Crouched beside her as she recounts becoming mesmerized by the spell, I pull out parchment and quill in order to take detailed notes.
She finishes by saying, “The effect got weaker the farther you carried me from the book until it finally disappeared, and I could think again.”
Princess Buttercup butts her head up into Skye’s hand, demanding attention—or is it assurance that the witch is okay?
Well, I want assurances, too. “You are not to use your magic in the library. I will not allow a repeat of this incident.”
“Hey, that’s not fair.” Hurt colors Skye’s voice as she pushes up to sitting. “I have to use my magic, or I’ll never figure it out.”
I growl, and my teeth grind together. She’s right, and the researcher in me longs for us to do more experiments with her magic. But I can’t bring myself to view Skye as dispassionately as I should. I’m too bothered by the thought of her getting hurt.
“I can use my magic in the stacks,” she says. “We’ve already seen that’s okay. It’s only the reading room that’s a problem.”
“You promise,” I grit out, and the cat lets out a demanding meow as well.
“I promise!” She holds up her hand with only her smallest finger raised. “Pinky promise.”
I growl, “What is this ‘pinky promise?’”
“Only the best kind of promise there is!” She locks her little finger around mine and grins. “I promise not to use my magic in the reading room. There, it’s done, and you don’t have to worry about me.”
Another growl rumbles from my throat as a realization hits me. There aren’t enough promises in the world to make me stop worrying about her.
No matter her protestations, I call a halt to today’s research. “We need to be able to accomplish whatever dancing the book will require of us,” I say. “We should practice.”
“I think I’ve got just the thing for that.” She pulls out her phone and reads several things. “Yep. I just need to— Oh.” Her smile dissolves into a small pout of worry.
“What?”
“I need to head into town, but my car’s at my cottage.”
“I’ll fly you.”
“But I need to bring things back, big things…”
A shrug lifts my shoulders, rustling my wings. “I’ll put them in my storage pocket.”
“Exactly how big is it?” She eyes me, and her fingers dip into the small pocket sewn to the front of her turquoise dress. “You keep saying ‘pocket,’ but I can barely get my phone in mine, let alone something larger.”
With an amused snort, I reach into my storage pocket and send a pulse of magic. My request is nebulous instead of specific, as I ask for something large. Cool metal smacks against my palm, and I pull out a suit of armor. “Oh, excellent. I forgot to add this to my other trophies.”
“Trophies?” Skye asks.
“There was a time when humans regularly sent knights to ‘slay the dragon.’” My voice drips with contempt. “It became so tiresome we eventually made a sport of defeating them, seeing who could collect the most trophies.”
“So all those suits of armor lining the hallway are…?”
“My trophy collection.” I shoot her a puzzled glance. “Why else would I keep them?”
“I don’t know… castle ambiance?”
“My trophies do create ambiance. They let every visitor know exactly how powerful I am in battle.”
Princess Buttercup walks over and sniffs at the armor’s metal feet. After a desultory swat at one, which does nothing more interesting than echo hollowly, she mews at me in complaint.
“She wants to know if you have anything better.”
I meet the cat’s amber gaze. “Define ‘better.’”
The little witch listens to a series of meows. Laughter dances in her eyes as she says, “Princess Buttercup demands cat toys.”
I frown down at the feline, trying to think of anything that might do.
Skye sidles close, her sweet and spicy scent teasing my nose. A hand on my shoulder pulls me down, so she can whisper, “It doesn’t have to be fancy. She actually really likes string or balls of paper.”
This time when I reach into my pocket, I send a magical request for a discarded piece of parchment. After making sure it is indeed nothing important, I ball it in my fist.
The crinkling sound makes Princess Buttercup’s ears perk up. She crouches, ready to pounce, eyes watching me avidly. When I toss it across the room, she dashes after it, and her first paw swipe sends the light ball sliding away, ready to be pounced on again.
Skye’s rosebud mouth stretches in a happy smile. “Thank you.”
“You needn’t thank me,” I grumble. “She reminds me of the playfulness of younglings.”
The little witch’s forget-me-not eyes scour my face. “You miss them.” A note of surprised realization rings in her voice.
“I do.” It’s not anything I’ve ever admitted to anyone, so I’m not quite sure why I’m telling her. It makes me uncomfortable, so I stride for the door. “Come, let’s go into town.”
Skye wraps herself in her long winter coat, and I wrap her in my arms, stoking my internal fire and warming the area around me as we fly through the crisp, cold air so that she snuggles close.
Snow glints on the forest’s pine trees but has melted from the ground. The warming effect is even greater once we reach downtown Ferndale Falls, Severin’s magic covering the town green in a blanket of warmth that makes the winter grass already show tinges of spring green.
“This won’t take long at all.” She bustles forward as soon as I set her down in front of the library. Once inside the small space, she calls out, “Bumbleboots, are you here?”
In a tingle of magic, a brownie steps out of thin air. “Head Librarian Summers.” He bobs his head. “How may I assist you?”
“I got a notification that the books I ordered arrived.”
“They did!” He scampers behind the wooden counter at the back of the room, completely hidden by its height. There’s a rustling sound, and he reappears, standing on top of the counter beside a short stack of books. Skye reaches for them, but he pulls them away. “You must check them out!”
She muffles a laugh, but I still hear it, as does the small fae. Yet she holds out a card that he scans with a contraption before scanning each book.
“Is everything okay with the library?”
“It’s been quiet. There’ve been a few calls confirming story time will happen next Saturday.” He looks at her with big brown eyes. “I said yes. I hope that was right.”
“That was perfect!” Skye beams at him, and his small face lights, a flower seeing the sun.
She spins around and hands the books to me.
I scowl down at them. “Are these going to help us learn to… you know?” There’s no way I can say the word “dance” in front of the little fae without the entire town learning about what I’m being forced to do, and that I cannot abide.
It’ll be bad enough if they learn I’m being sucked into a book—they do not need to know about the dancing.
“Nope, these are for researching my magic. We’re meeting Kayla for the… other thing.”
I slide the books into my storage pocket and gesture her towards the door. “Lead on.”
We use the sidewalk to skirt around the town green, passing the bookshop and a few other stores. Skye smiles and waves at everyone we see, calling personal hellos to several people. Why am I unsurprised that she’s well-loved? She’s so cheerful and sweet, the very opposite of me.
“Skye!” An elderly woman halts in the middle of the sidewalk in front of us, leaning on a cane. She has silver hair tinted a faint blue-purple and pale skin wrinkled with age, but a strong force of will still burns from her eyes.
“Mrs. Greely, it’s good to see you.”
“Is it? Because I keep knocking on your door, but you’re never home, young lady.”
“I’ve been working a lot,” Skye says. “What can I do for you?”
The woman jabs the end of her cane toward a flyer posted on a shop window that reads Ferndale Falls Valentine’s Day Dance in large red letters with lots of hearts surrounding it. “I wanted to confirm you’re doing the decorating again this year.”
“Of course I will, Mrs. Greely. You know how much I love the dance.”