Chapter 5
Chapter Five
It’s like he controls my thoughts. My actions. He encourages me … a little too much.
—Lorinne Leroux’s private journal.
It was a picturesque twilight—the dark sky was star-filled. Cool air nipped at her skin, and all was quiet, except for her chattering teeth. If Winter owned any coats, she would’ve packed them. Stopping to adjust her silk scarf, she recovered her mouth and nose.
The street sign reading Caldwell Way stared back at her. She arched an eyebrow. In this time period, Magdalene thought she was coming to help protect the archives, not develop an invulnerable system by way of memorization and reorganization, then implement it across centuries.
Winter might be the so-called founder of CATS, a training program, but that didn’t make her the owner of the archives themselves. The portraits lining the walls depicted famous scholars, historians, and philosophers in the mage community. Never him. This begged the question, who was Sir Caldwell?
Winter’s head began to pound. In fact, whenever she thought about how any of this was possible, her skull did a pulsing thing. She’d gone over the possibilities several times.
Her first theory was that time traveling forced information to recycle the same way an archaic tape recorder would—erasing old data and replacing it with new data.
Her second theory was that she was inside a matrix with some god-like person behind a screen, deleting and adding things into existence as they saw fit.
Her third theory dove into the idea of some sick curse designed to torture her for her sins.
And her fourth theory, the most ridiculous, was that this was all some unknown prophecy predetermined by fate.
When she arrived at the archives, she was surprised to see an Unwelcome Committee. Two horse-sized wolves flanked the double doors. Their brindle fur was embellished with thick plates of armor, covering their chests and flanks.
Barking in the sky sounded, drawing her attention up the brick facade. Her head tipped back and her mouth fell open.
Holy Hell and Tartarus.
There were gargoyles—no, werewolves … on the roof.
Some were in their human forms, but most were furry. Winter swallowed her concern and approached the double doors. Like moving statues, the two wolves turned sideways, blocking the entrance.
Seriously?
For some reason, she was only treated like a wolf when she was actively bleeding. Winter rolled her sleeve up and showed off her untended wound. After she waved it around a few times, both wolves turned towards her. One snout lifted, sniffing. Then the next.
“Better,” she purred.
Canines, it turned out, were more curious than cats.
“There’s really no time to waste.” Magdalene rushed through the atrium, tossing her hat and scarf on the front desk.
Winter hurried along with her, still yawning from her early morning nap.
There’d been a few hours to spare before Magdalene had arrived for her shift.
“I was hoping you’d come back. And look …
” She eyed Winter up and down, “You arrived in one piece.”
Winter half-smiled.
They moved through the hall, taking a hard right into Division II. Wolves scattered when they saw Magdalene. She would have laughed, but all the book spines weren’t staring back at her. There was so much to do and they hadn’t even begun.
Magdalene dragged her spindly finger along a row. “Here. We’ve lost three from this shelf since you’ve left.”
Winter’s head was hurting again.
Magdalene, back in the future, had said something similar. It confirmed any books stolen from this time period had disappeared like they’d never even existed.
Fuck.
Winter should’ve enjoyed a few less steam showers and chai lattes, she supposed. She scanned the shelves. “What books were here? I’m not used to this organization method.”
“It’s by author and genre, it’s not that complicated.”
“Then out with it!”
“Forbidden spell books.”
Winter started tipping spines to get a better look at covers. “What kind of spells are we talking about?”
Magdalene shook her head. “Torture Spells, Love Spells, Possession Spells, Invisibility Spells, Memory Spells, Wisdom Spells, curses. All the forbidden stuff.”
Winter pressed her palm to her face. The queen didn’t need any more evil tricks in her toolbox. She was already well-versed in torture and curses—turning Felix into Shisoba had been proof of that. “This has to be the Witch Queen.”
“That’s what the shifters say.”
Winter slid her hand down, gripping the shelf. “The queen told me herself—she’s trying to get back to the Immortal Realm. She won’t stop sending her vampires in until she finds the spell that will get her there.”
Magdalene studied Winter like a book. “But we replenish the garlic. How is this even possible?”
“Because she’s related to a time traveler!” Winter’s hatred for the queen and Kaden spewed from her tongue. “She figured out vampires are immune to garlic in the future, so she infused their blood supply with it, disrupting fate.”
“Preposterous.” Magdalene began pacing up and down the aisle.
Winter sighed, letting her fuss. It was preposterous.
With spells like these, the queen’s cruelty could escape the confines of her palace and infest the entire Mortal Realm. An Invisibility Spell was untraceable, and somehow that was the most innocent one.
Fuck.
Winter needed to start reorganizing. Aside from her five-phase plan, she had an extensive to-do list. Fixing these shelves was her top priority. “Mags, I’m sorry, I know this is a lot to process, but we need to get started.”
Magdalene stopped in her tracks and twitched. “Mags? Like … rags?”
“Yes.”
Magdalene scrunched her face.
Winter elaborated. “You know those cloths with holes in them? The ones that are actually so soft and useful, a few imperfections are easily overlooked?”
The gray-eyed witch pursed her lips, inspecting Winter. “Is this supposed to be an analogy?”
Winter grinned. “Maybe. So, if you’re ready, I’d like to give you your first lesson. Gather as much ink as you can, quills too, and we can work in the back room.” She couldn’t believe she’d forgotten to pack a pen.
Magdalene paused, glaring like she was trying to see through Winter.
“Just get the stuff! I’ll meet you back there.” Winter stormed down the aisle and out of Division II. At the end of the hall, there was a single door with an intricately carved willow tree and a brass door knocker. She let herself in.
A silver fluffball bum-rushed her ankles.
“Shisoba!” she screeched, shutting them inside.
“Guess what?” When the green-eyed familiar didn’t say anything, she crouched down and scratched his head.
“You don’t exist in the future anymore.” Winter moved to itch behind his ears.
“Trust me, I searched everywhere. You’re gone and future Magdalene said she hardly remembered a familiar. ”
Shisoba meowed.
“I know what you’re thinking, and no, I don’t think you died.
I think it means we’re going to reverse this spell!
” Winter still felt horrible. She needed to help Felix get out of Shisoba.
“One way or another, I promise I'll help you fix this.” Werewolves didn’t make promises that they couldn’t keep, apparently, so she added, “I mean it.”
He stretched his front legs and scurried across the room.
Everything was so different back here. Gone were the flimsy round tables and mediocre fridge, replaced by a grand mahogany slab, long enough to seat a dozen guests.
Shelves still lined the room, but instead of holding paperwork like tax documents, work contracts, and benefit information, there were old books, maps, photography albums, newspapers, and even mage orbs—the kind that belonged in museums, locked inside glass boxes.
The door creaked open as Magdalene stepped inside. She moved to the table and unloaded a bunch of supplies. “I’m not sure what you plan to write, but I’m guessing you’ll need parchment.”
“Smart, Mags.” Winter winked.
Magdalene sat down and interlaced her fingers. “Well, enlighten me. How can ink help us with vampires?”
Winter stroked her chin, deep in thought. Verbalizing the process was strictly forbidden—according to her job contract. Speaking the organizational method out loud would result in her spontaneous combustion. She wasn’t sure if it would work across time periods, but she wasn’t about to find out.
“I can’t tell you,” she said, “but I can show you.” She took a quill and twirled it between her fingers. “These are kind of nice.”
Magdalene’s eyebrow rose.
Winter dipped her old-fashioned pen into an ink bottle, scraped off the excess, slid a piece of paper towards herself, and began.
Knowing she would need to write a lot, she drew vertical lines down the page to keep herself organized.
The columns on the left would hold numbers; the ones on the right would be the corresponding book titles.
Starting with a familiar text as an example, she inked 372-42-3115 on one side and The Gilded Chronicles on the other. She spun the page to face Magdalene and said, “These two things go together. That’s all I can really say about that. Stay with me.”
Winter took out another piece of paper, writing the same numbers, but much larger.
She used more ink to draw a line down from the three and wrote Division III.
In a similar fashion, she wrote Aisle VII under the seven and Section II under the two.
Beneath the forty-two she put four shelves north and two shelves south, and next to that she wrote equals two shelves north.
For the last four numbers, she left another equation: thirty-one books east minus fifteen books west equals sixteen books east.