Chapter 17 #2
No one disagrees as we make our way through the familiar halls to the dining room, where Ezra immediately begins arranging the rescued grimoires on the long mahogany table with the same careful attention he brings to everything else.
The manor’s magic continues to work around us, and we don’t waste time before settling down to the meal it’s provided.
The chicken and dumplings are exactly what we need, rich, warming comfort food that seeps into our chilled bones and reminds us that we’re safe, at least for now.
The buttermilk biscuits are perfect, flaky and buttery, and I find myself grateful once again for whatever magic runs through this house that always seems to know exactly what we need.
We eat with the efficient hunger of people who’ve spent too much energy battling the cold, relentless weather beyond the wards, conversation minimal as we focus on restoring our strength for whatever comes next.
When the last crumb has been cleared away, a task that all three men insist on helping with despite my protests, we finally settle in for the real work of the evening.
The grimoires spread across the dining room table like a scattered map of everything I’m desperately trying to understand, their worn leather covers and brittle yellowed pages hold secrets that feel just out of reach.
My grandmother’s journal sits at the center of it all, open and waiting, as if it expects me to know exactly what to do and how to solve our mounting problems through sheer osmosis.
The weight of expectation presses down on my shoulders like a physical thing.
I take my seat at the head of the table, the chair that’s clearly meant for the Thorne family matriarch, though I still feel like I’m playing dress-up in a role too big for me.
Ezra settles to my right, pulling his chair close enough that our knees brush beneath the table, his focus narrowing immediately as he returns to the page he’d marked earlier back at the shop.
His systematic approach to research is both comforting and slightly intimidating, where I tend to flip through pages hoping something will jump out at me, he reads with the methodical precision of someone who understands that magic follows rules, even when those rules seem impossible to grasp.
Maceo drops into the chair on my left with his usual casual confidence, one muscled arm draped across the back of my seat like he’s already decided exactly where he belongs in this strange new configuration of my life.
His presence is warm and solid, grounding me when the weight of all these ancient books threatens to overwhelm my already frazzled mind.
Lucien doesn’t sit immediately. Instead, he’s drawn back to the window like a moth to flame, his Fae instincts clearly picking up on something in the storm that the rest of us can’t sense.
Sir materializes from wherever he’d been sulking, jumping lightly onto the polished table surface and settling near the edge of an open book with typical feline entitlement. His tail curls neatly around his paws as he surveys our little research party.
For what feels like hours, the only sounds in the room are the whisper-soft turning of ancient pages, the gentle shift of chairs as we adjust positions, and the low, comforting crackle of the fire in the adjacent sitting room.
Outside, the impossible storm presses harder against the windows, the wind rattling the glass just enough to remind us that whatever magical catastrophe is building out there shows no signs of stopping.
Our search feels increasingly futile as time drags on.
We’re looking for anything that resembles what Ezra described, any reference to binding spells, suppression magic, or the kind of reversal techniques that might undo whatever Lenora worked on me as an infant.
We search for hints, for fragments, for anything that might point us toward understanding how she managed to lock away my magic so completely that it took thirty-five years and a return to Ruby Springs to even begin breaking free.
The more pages we turn, the more frustrated I become.
There’s nothing. Not even a trace or a mention of this type of prohibited magic in any of my ancestors’ carefully preserved books.
Not even in the grimoire where I can clearly see that pages have been torn out, leaving only ragged edges as evidence of what was once there.
The only thing I know for certain is that whatever Lenora did, it was forbidden for good reason.
Frustration builds slowly in my chest, tightening across my shoulders like a band of iron, pressing heavier with every page I turn that yields nothing useful.
The elegant script of my ancestors begins to blur together, symbols and sigils repeating without offering any meaningful insight, patterns that refuse to form into anything helpful no matter how long I stare at them until my eyes water.
My head is starting to pound from squinting at faded ink and trying to decipher handwriting that varies wildly depending on which generation of Thorne women wrote it.
“There has to be something,” I say quietly, more to myself than to anyone else, my fingers pressing harder into the delicate page than they should.
The paper crackles ominously under the pressure, and I force myself to ease up before I damage something irreplaceable.
“She had to have gotten the spell from one of these books, right? She didn’t just make this up from scratch and leave no trace behind. ”
“She didn’t,” Ezra replies, his voice maintaining that calm, measured tone that I’ve come to associate with his logical approach to almost everything.
Even frustrated, he sounds like a professor working through a particularly challenging theorem.
“But she also would not have been careless enough to leave it somewhere obvious. Lenora is many things, but sloppy isn’t one of them. ”
“That’s convenient,” I mutter, sliding another heavy grimoire away from me with more force than necessary. The leather binding makes a soft thump as it hits the table.
Maceo lets out a soft exhale beside me, the sound heavier than usual, weighted with his own mounting frustration. “Convenient for her. A nightmare for us.” His eyes are tired when they meet mine, and I can see the same helplessness I’m feeling reflected back at me.
“We’ve been through how many of these?” I ask, my voice rising slightly as I gesture at the scattered books surrounding us like silent sentinels. “Dozens? At some point, we have to admit that whatever we’re looking for isn’t here.”
Maceo shifts forward, bracing his forearms on the table, his muscles tense. “Ki—”
“I know,” I cut in, sharper than I mean to be, the words coming out with an edge that makes me immediately regret my tone. I drag in a deep breath, forcing myself to calm my chaotic thoughts. “I know we’re doing everything we can. I know that. We’re trying.”
My hands come up automatically, pressing briefly against my chest, right over that familiar ache that has taken up permanent residence, before dropping back to my lap in defeat.
“But what if it’s not enough?” I ask, my voice quieter now, but somehow the words hit harder for their softness. “What if we don’t find the answer in time? What if I can’t figure this out before Founder’s Day? It’s days away.”
“We will,” Ezra says with quiet conviction.
At the window, Lucien finally moves, closing the grimoire he’d been studying with careful precision.
He stares out at the storm for a moment longer, tracking something in the swirling snow that none of us can see, then steps back.
When he turns to face us, there’s something heavier behind his expression now, a weight of concern that only heightens my anxiety.
“The wards are deteriorating faster than they should be,” he says, his tone carefully.
“Small fluctuations in magical energy are one thing, considering Lenora isn’t the true Anchor.
This. . .” He gestures slightly toward the window where snow continues to accumulate at an impossible rate.
“This level of instability is something else entirely. Something far more dangerous.”
I swallow hard, my grip tightening on the polished edge of the table until my knuckles go white.
“Is it Lenora’s?” I ask, though I suspect I already know the answer.
Lucien’s elegant features shift, one eyebrow raising in that way that suggests he’s considering multiple possibilities simultaneously.
“She’s losing control of what little influence she managed to maintain,” he says carefully.
“That much is becoming increasingly clear. Whether that loss of control is due to your arrival or simply the inevitable result of her lack of magical strength. . . that remains to be seen.”
I stare down at the open pages in front of me, ink swimming before my eyes as my thoughts move too fast, circling the same terrifying conclusion over and over again like a drain I can’t avoid being sucked into.
“It still comes back to me,” I say quietly, the words tasting bitter on my tongue.
“All of this, everything that’s going wrong, it’s because I can’t access my magic properly.
If I don’t figure this out, if I can’t break whatever she did to me—” I stop, shaking my head as the full implications crash over me like a wave.
“Founder’s Day is the biggest celebration Ruby Springs has, right?
If the wards fail completely with the entire town out in the open, celebrating. . .”
I can’t even finish the thought. The images my mind conjures are too terrible. Supernatural beings exposed to the outside world, the careful secrecy that’s protected Ruby Springs for centuries shattered in a single catastrophic moment.