CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Skye
With the library all to myself, I’m tempted to sneak into Luke’s romance collection. But I don’t have any idea when he’s going to come back, and I don’t want him to know that I know about the hidden books.
Plus, I really do need to keep working my way through the shelves of the witch collection, hoping to find anything about another witch who has my powers. We could get sucked back into Dance of Desire at any moment. The sooner I break my spell, the better.
The portal carries me to the correct part of the witch collection, and I shut my eyes and reach for my magic.
This part, at least, is getting easier with practice.
Power wells up from deep within, sparkling through my senses until the bookshelf in front of me glows with the multiple colors of all the different types of books.
The colors are so vivid it doesn’t even feel as if my eyes are closed.
Without Luke here to help, things go slower, but I’m able to pull and stack on the floor, creating little islands of organization with each pile dedicated to a specific color. When I’m done, I open my eyes… to find one book still on the bookcase.
“Huh.” I close my eyes and reach for my magic, but no matter how hard I strain, I can’t see the book with my magical sight. Does this book not have an aura, or is it so dark I can’t “see” it?
I pull the slim volume from the shelf, the honey-brown leather buttery soft to the touch. If the cover or spine ever held a title, it’s been worn away by time.
Using my magic again, I hold it right in front of my face and can finally detect a color—it’s the deepest purple, like a moonless sky on a clear night. What does the book’s aura mean? Does dark equal dark magicks? Is it safe to open?
I try to pick up on the “vibes” of the book and don’t feel anything dangerous. If anything, it feels… homey and comfortable, like standing in the kitchen while my aunts work on either side of me, chatting up a storm, the sweet scent of baking filling the air.
I crack open the book to the title page. Beautiful calligraphy fills the paper, the letters large and fanciful, even if the ink has faded to brown:
The
Trials & Triumphs
of a
Booke Wytch
An Accounting Recorded
in the Yeare of 1647
Dame Harriet Ashcroft
“Snickerdoodle! I found it!” I run back to the transportation crystal, return to the reading room, and race to the table.
My fingers tremble as I turn the pages, trying to speed read.
But the handwriting, as beautiful as it is, is more difficult to understand than print, especially when you add in the not-yet-standardized spelling.
I flip back to the beginning and make myself slow down, falling deeper into the story the longer I go.
Dame Harriet, it turns out, wasn’t royalty—she was schoolmistress of a “dame” school.
I pause to pull out my phone for a quick search, unpleasantly surprised by what I find.
Back when Harriet lived, only boys got to go to proper schools.
Instead of leaving middle-class girls completely uneducated, they were allowed to learn reading and basic arithmetic under the direction of an older woman, who was usually a spinster or widow.
After that disappointing look at history, the next part of her story is better than I expect.
There were no children’s books back in those days.
Most kids were taught to read using the bible.
So Harriet was a total boss bitch and wrote her own stories!
They were fun little tales of girls venturing into the forest to pick berries or trying to milk a cow for the first time.
Stories of village life, comforting and familiar, with some small mishap the character overcame, to show the girls it was possible.
Harriet taught for years without incident until a set of twin girls entered her class. They were bright, lively things, but no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t read. They say the letters dance on the payge. I tell them to stille their tongues, for such will get thee hanged as a wytch.
My heart pinches. Here are kids with dyslexia, made to fear for their lives instead of getting the help they needed. Not that I blame Harriet. I’m sure she was right about the danger they were in back in such an unenlightened age.
The twins, unable to read like the other children, begged for a way to enjoy the books. And something within Harriet came to life. I know notte whot I did, but the girls did disappear for some gud hours. When they came back, they told a fantastikal tayle that matched my booke.
Fudging fudge! Harriet was a book witch like me! Excitement bubbles in my chest with the joyous fizz of champagne. I’m not the only one!
I keep reading, going as quickly as I can. Over the years, whenever she had a student who couldn’t read for one reason or another, Harriet would use her magic to send them into her storybooks, so they could enjoy them as much as the other children. It was amazing and giving and sweet.
And it doesn’t help me a damn bit.
My fingers linger on the last page, and then I close her book with a sigh. Harriet never had to break one of her spells. The children went into the short stories, finished the entire plot in an hour, and returned. Harriet needed no control beyond the initial choice of who to send.
Princess Buttercup leaps onto the table and saunters past me, making sure her tail tickles my face.
I snort-laugh and swipe at my face, trying to remove the fine hairs clinging to my skin.
“You’re doing that sighing thing.” She comes back for another pass. “I don’t like the sighing thing.”
Before she can tickle me with her tail again, I scoop her into my arms and press a kiss to her forehead. “Thanks. I’m okay. I found a book about a witch like me and thought I’d finally get some answers about how to control my magic, but it was a bust.”
“But it’s still good, right?” She rubs her cheek against my chin and gives a little purr. “If you found one witch like you, there must be others.”
“You’re right. If I found Harriet’s book, I bet I can find more, and one of them will have the answer.”
Finally, I have good news for Luke. It’s felt impossible to keep working so closely with him after being intimate.
His resting grumpy face gives nothing away.
He doesn’t look like it’s bothering him at all to sit near me, while I’m over here sweating and trying not to squirm as my mind whispers an endless loop of naughty thoughts.
I grin and scratch Princess Buttercup under her chin, cuddling her close. “What would I do without you?”
“You’d be totally lost.” Her amber eyes close to pleased slits as my fingers dig into a good spot. “I’m amazing.”
Laughter, light and sweet, spills out of me as I hug her close, her purrs rumbling through my chest. “You certainly are.”
Luke finds me an hour later while I’m in the middle of emptying another bookshelf. A miniature mountain range of book stacks snakes down the center of the aisle behind me. I’ve been so focused on finding another dark-purple book that I haven’t bothered to reshelve as I go.
“Whatever are you doing to my library, little witch?” he growls.
“I found one!” I spin to face him and grab his hand, squeezing it, unable to contain my excitement. “I found a book written by a book witch!”
He squeezes back, his golden eyes intent. “Tell me everything.”
The story spills out of me: emptying a shelf, only to find one book left behind.
Reading Harriet’s account of being a book witch back when being any kind of witch was dangerous.
How she used her power anyway to help children with reading disabilities to enjoy her stories.
“She never had to break one of her spells, so there wasn’t anything on that, but it does tell me there are other witches like me, and I now know I need to look for dark-purple books.
I’m not sure why books about book magic are such a dark color, though. They’re not evil.”
“Black as evil is a human construct created due to fear of predators in the night. It has no true bearing on good or evil.” He frowns, but I’m better at reading his expressions now, so I know it’s grumpy number two, his thinking frown.
“Do you know how you get black paint? You combine all other colors in matching proportions. Therefore, black isn’t the absence of color—black is all colors combined in perfect harmony. ”
“So I see books about book magic as such a dark purple…”
“Because they hold the most color for you. It’s a visual metaphor indicating they hold the most meaning.”
“Thank you. That’s an amazing interpretation.” And super insightful. I can see why all the other dragons and fae come to him and his big brain for help.
“I have a great deal of experience interpreting magic.” His mouth kicks up on the left side, his tail slipping around my calves to tug me into motion. “Now come. We have a surprise to get to.”
He leads me through the castle. When we step through the front door, he scoops me into his arms and leaps into the air. I don’t have my coat, but it doesn’t matter, because I’m immediately surrounded in a bubble of warmth.
Instead of flying toward town, we angle north over the forest. The only thing in this direction is…
“The waterfall!” I say, as it comes into view. Sunlight strikes the frozen cascade of water, turning the overlapping icicles a pretty blue.
We land on the ground beside the frozen pond.
Snow crunches under our feet, then melts in a little circle around us due to Luke’s warming magic.
Pine trees surround us, making it feel like we’re the only two people in the world.
It’s beautiful, and I love the pond in winter.
I used to ice skate here as a kid, the aunts bundling me in so many layers of clothes that I never felt a thing when I fell down.
But the frozen pond and waterfall aren’t anything new to someone who’s lived here all her life. “What’s the surprise?”
“This.” Luke pulls a crystal from his invisible pocket.
It’s bright blue and far larger than the translation crystal on my necklace.
He flicks it with his claw, setting it ringing, and lays it on the ground by the edge of the pond.
Magic bursts through the clearing, leaving behind a melted stretch of water along the shallow side of the pond, while the rest remains frozen.
“What is this?”
“We need a place to practice the lift from your movie, and as you said, the water will keep you from being injured if we fall. Jacenrevener helped me with this spell.” Luke gestures toward the crystal.
“It contains my warming magic within a protective boundary that keeps it from harming any of the dormant plant and animal life of the pond.”
“Oh.” I press a hand to my trembling lips, everything gone a bit wavery as tears prickle my eyes. “You did all of this to keep me safe?” My voice breaks on the last word.
“Of course, I did it for you. I’m a dragon. Falling on the ground would never harm me.” His intense golden eyes scour my face, seeing me—really seeing me—in a way no one ever has before.
Oh, god, this grumpy beast of a dragon has the kindest heart of any man I’ve ever known. I can’t believe he did all of this for me. Emotion clogs my throat, and this time, I can’t stop the tears from sliding down my cheeks.
“Why are you distressed?” His tail lashes as he scowls at my tears as if they’ve personally affronted him. But I know him—it’s scowl number two, his worried one. “I just told you that you will not be harmed.”
“Happy tears,” I choke out, beaming at him.
“How illogical,” he mutters. Then he points at the pond. “We will come here in the evenings when no one else is around, and we will practice the lift.”
“Yep.” I nod and swipe at my cheeks with my palms. “Sounds perfect.”
“Shall we dance?” He extends a hand.
Mine slides into his, my heart skipping at his touch.
We kick off our shoes, and I drop my phone on top of mine.
I’m glad I’m wearing bright yellow pedal pushers—the tight-fitting capri pants won’t drag in the water.
He goes first, entering the pond with the smallest of splashes.
I follow less gracefully, that first step off the edge more of a plunge for a shortie like me.
A surprised gasp slips from me as the water covers me to mid-thigh. “It’s warm!”
“I told you I warmed it for you.” He frowns down at me.
“I thought you meant something more along the lines of ‘no longer freezing,’ but this is bathwater warm.” I want to sink down and soak in it.
Luke grunts and wades farther into the pond, turning to face me when he’s about ten feet away. He holds his hands forward and crouches, ready to catch me.
“Okay, Skye,” I whisper. “You can do this, no prob.”
I try to run through the water, but it feels more like a wallow, the liquid slowing me down. When I reach him, I lift my arms overhead and hop—
—only to bounce off his chest with a shriek of surprise. Snickerdoodle!
His hands grip my waist, and he lifts, but my momentum already carries me backward. I splash down, pulling Luke on top of me. His wings snap open, beating at the water as if it’s air and yanking him immediately upright. He hauls me up with him, and I sputter and shove wet hair out of my eyes.
“Sorry! So sorry!”
“We knew we were going to get wet.” He shrugs. Then his voice takes on that commanding tone he gets. “You, however, need to jump earlier.”
“Yes, sir!” I say, not being sarcastic at all. Okay, maybe a teensy bit, but only a smidge. Pinky promise.
Because he’s right—I jumped too late.
“Again,” Luke growls.
“Yep.” I walk back to the starting point and run at him again.
We spend an hour at the waterfall. An hour of me falling this way and that. An hour of me reliving every sport forced upon me by a public education PE program.
But it’s also an hour of laughter, as I grow tired and the falls begin to feel silly, Luke’s tiny half-smile tugging at my heart each time.
An hour of Luke’s big hands on me, his body against mine, catching me over and over, my own personal hero.