Chapter 22 #2
“Finished,” Duke echoed. “She really has a way with words. Should have been more like ‘as soon as you ruin someone else’s life, completely’.”
Rosa pressed her lips together.
Duke leaned in slightly. “When.”
“What?”
“When did you find it?”
She hesitated, searching her memory.
“Last October,” she said finally. “A few days before Halloween. I remember because I thought she was in costume.”
Duke’s brow lifted. “Costume.”
“She was wearing a long black velvet cape,” Rosa said. “Floor-length. Not exactly casual Long Island attire.”
“No,” Duke said dryly. “We tend to reserve that for PTA meetings.” October. A year ago.
“So last October. Local drop-off. Black clothing. A woman comfortable enough to walk around in full witch aesthetic without caring who saw her.”
Or confident no one would remember. Duke straightened, the pieces not fitting yet, but a little more existing than five minutes ago.
There were places on Long Island with pockets of woods. Not many, but enough. Old properties. Privacy. Places where people hid, and others didn’t ask questions because they didn’t want to know the answers. The L.A.W. mansion was one of those.
And then Rosa shared an urban legend. She’d heard about an old log cabin. Deep in the trees. Boarded up. So creepy that even curious teenagers gave it a wide berth after one look. Was it an urban legend? Or very practical real estate for a witch who liked to be left alone.
Duke exhaled slowly.
“If that’s her,” he murmured, more to himself than to Rosa, “then she’s not hiding. Not really.”
He glanced toward the window, toward the stretch of land beyond the mansion’s carefully maintained illusion of normalcy.
“She’s settled here. And confident in her safety.”
Rosa shifted nervously. “Am I in trouble?”
Duke gave her a look.
“Yes,” he said. “You’re very much in trouble.”
Then he turned, already moving, mind racing ahead to the next step.
Local meant trackable.
Goddess, let her be a year-round resident. Because eight million people are already a nightmare. Adding summer visitors? That turns the search into chaos with a beach pass.
Behind him, the mansion stood quiet for a beat—then the lights dimmed, as if it, too, knew the hunt might be impossible.
After enlisting Lioness’s remote viewing gift and his own magical intuition, Duke eventually tracked down the log cabin. It was well-worn and made of actual whole logs. Its door and window trim were covered in runes and symbols—some of which he’d never seen before.
“Now, what will happen if I try to open this door?” he muttered.
Oddly enough, the latch clicked on its own, and the door creaked open about an inch.
He waited a moment, and when nothing happened, he carefully pushed the door fully open.
He poked his head in, and still seeing nothing to worry about, he entered.
Looking around, he didn’t see any sorceress.
He was about to leave when he heard a voice coming from the shadows.
“You are looking for answers,” the voice said.
He spun around to find the sorceress standing behind him. She had long black and gray hair and dark, piercing eyes that seemed to see through him.
“I need your help. It’s about the talisman you offered to a woman at a dry-cleaning store. It was used to steal the body of my friend.”
“The talisman is incredibly powerful, and I was tasked with keeping it safe.”
“By whom?”
“Never you mind.” She cleared her throat and continued.
“About a year ago, I had sensed that others were trying to take it, so I hid it away in my dirty laundry basket. I had forgotten that my great-niece was coming to visit, and the girl thought she’d be helpful by taking her great-aunt’s clothes to a laundry service—accidentally sending the talisman away. ”
Duke opened his mouth to speak, but she held up one hand and stopped his words. Then she continued.
“To thank the laundress who’d found it, I told her what it could do and would allow her to use it, once. As soon as it had been used, I would know and would return for it.”
“So, you were afraid someone was going to steal this very powerful object, and you handed it over to a dry cleaner for a year?”
The sorceress just shrugged.
Duke sighed and thanked the sorceress for her cooperation. Then he asked her the most important question. “Can you bring my friend back to her original body?”
The sorceress looked at him sadly and shook her head. “It’s impossible to undo what was done.”
Shit. How do I tell Victoria that she may have to remain in her current form for the rest of her life?
Oddly enough, an instant later, Duke found himself standing outside of the old woman’s cabin. Apparently, he had been dismissed.
Duke reappeared in the library with all the enthusiasm of a man who’d just been handed a “no refunds, no exchanges” verdict from the universe. Not ideal.
He stood there for a moment, staring at nothing in particular, the quiet pressing in.
Victoria’s face flickered through his mind—the real one.
She was sharp, composed, unshakable, except now he could already sense the crack forming beneath that control.
He’d seen warriors take hits before. This one wouldn’t cry, but bleed inwardly.
And he couldn’t be the one to deliver the bad news. No. Absolutely not.
He dragged a hand down his face, exhaled hard, then reached for his phone before he could talk himself out of it.
The line rang once. Then Bas answered, her voice steady, alert. “Duke.”
Of course, she didn’t say hello. That would imply things were normal.
“You’re not going to like this,” he said, skipping any attempt at easing in.
“Tell me.”
He turned away from the room, as if the books might eavesdrop. “The sorceress confirmed it. The talisman did exactly what we thought. Body swap. Clean, but permanent.”
Silence on the other end, then a heavy sigh.
“She said it can’t be undone,” he added, quieter now. “Not reversed. Not broken. Not… anything.”
“Do you believe her?” she asked.
“No. I believe she didn’t tell me everything.”
“Then we proceed as if she’s lying by omission.”
Duke nodded. “Victoria’s going to hear ‘impossible’ and take it at face value.”
“She won’t,” Bas said calmly. “Not if I’m the one telling her.”
He closed his eyes briefly. “Yeah. That’s why I’m calling you.”
“I gathered.”
“I don’t think I can—” He stopped. “She deserves better than me standing there when it lands. She needs her coven.”
“She deserves the truth. And she deserves a plan to go with it.”
“I’m working on the plan.”
“I assumed you would be. Duke, we don’t abandon our own.”
“I know that.”
“Good. Then you won’t stop trying.”
A breath that almost passed for a laugh. “Noted.”
“I’ll handle Victoria. You do what you do best.”
“Dig where I’m not supposed to.”
“Exactly.”
The line clicked, ending the call. Duke lowered his phone slowly.
The library stirred as he moved. Shelves trembled, and with a reluctant groan, the entire structure slipped sideways through space.
When it settled again, they were nowhere near Long Island.
Perfect. He paced. Still, the sorceress’s words echoed.
‘Impossible to undo.’
Duke’s jaw tightened. “Yeah,” he said. “We’ll see about that.”
He pushed off the table and headed for the deeper stacks.
“Gods, Goddesses, help me fix this.”
Silence answered.
Fine. He’d do it himself.
Something about the sorceress didn’t sit right. Too smooth. Too helpful. That wasn’t closure. That was a cover.
His father had hidden things. Important things. By the time Duke took over, dementia had already erased the map.
Which meant the library still had secrets. “There’s more,” he said.
He started by pulling the book the way his mother had shown him, revealing the forbidden ones.
If the answer wasn’t here, he’d find it somewhere else. Because “impossible” was just a word people used when they ran out of better ideas.
And Duke wasn’t even close. Victoria wasn’t staying like this.
Duke tore through the shelves like a man who had officially run out of patience.
Books slid out, stacked, abandoned. Scrolls unfurled and were dismissed just as quickly. The library didn’t mind the chaos. It seemed to lean into it, shifting subtly, as if it approved of his desperation.
Good. Someone does.
He’d always been curious. Relentless, even. It was how he’d survived inheriting a magical library with more secrets than a politician’s hard drive. But this? This wasn’t curiosity anymore. This was personal.