Wren rubbed her thumb over a curl in the design of the scepter-sized staff she held. “Up until now, stars. But the other night, I let go of it in the dark of night, like my…” She cleared her throat and took a moment to realign her train of thought. “I was never fully comfortable with the star alignment, but I was expected to excel at it with a family name likeStarsurge. I would like a change, to experiment with the moon and her four faces. Let’s try the alignment ritual with you and Ben. You’re clearly the sun, and he can try the stars with his fancy staff.”
“It would be highly dangerous,” Leona interjected.
“Ben hasn’t had an ancestor give him magic,” I added, wishing the head librarian wasn’t here to dissuade us. It sounded like something worth a try during this desperate time. “I only have so much access to celestial magic because I’m the sole inheritor of an entire family line.”
Wren flashed a hint of a wicked smile. “There’s a trick he can use to ask.” Her blue eyes darted toward Leona for a moment, and she seemed to bite back on further comment. But I shared that glimmer of excitement she had—we would try the alignment ritual later, when we weren’t under the watchful eye of an older, disapproving witch.
Maybe this would lead to the kind of power boost I could leverage to save Phaeron.
11
BEN
Cress shook me awake in the dead of night. I’d slipped into rest without her, waiting until my eyelids grew too heavy. She explained where she’d been and handed me a tightly knotted bag that smelled of an old-fashioned apothecary.
“Since when were you and the queen bee in cahoots?” I asked groggily once she finished talking.
Turned out, the bagwasfrom an old-fashioned apothecary. Wren had slipped out of the library again without anyone’s permission and left another probably worthless credit card behind to pay for the several bundles of herbs she’d lifted, along with a stockpile of verdant witch potions and tonics.
“Since the audience chamber fight, I think,” she answered. “Well? Will you give it a try?”
Her suggestion was something I’d wanted to do eventually, to get in contact with my Evenstar ancestors and ask for access to my magical inheritance. I got tired of her standing over me and wringing her hands about the reaction she feared I’d have.I dragged her, giggling, overtop me, and we ended up entangled with the covers and each other.
“As long as you’re in this bed with me,” I said, kissing the end of her nose.
She melted into me with a tired sigh. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”
I recognized the look she wore and bundled her close until she fell asleep, fully clothed and all. With a dismissive glance at the bag of herbs, I stuffed it under my pillow before pulling away from Cress to untie her shoes and drape the sheets over her properly. Once I turned the bedside lamp off and got comfortable, I closed my eyes and tried not to notice how strongly the herbs smelled.
It was supposed to be a soothing blend, I guess. Lavender and valerian couldn’t completely cover up something foreign and spicy mixed in with them. The scent was supposed to influence my dreams and open my mind to a visit from a deceased family member. My chest ached when I imagined my one memory of Marie Evenstar when I’d met her on Samhain night. My kind, doomed mother.
Cress would’ve liked her. In another life, they’d be close, and Cress and I would’ve chosen to become celestial witches. While she seemed a solid enough librarian witch, I wore the blood affinity I’d been forced to take like an ill-fitting shirt. If it were truly possible to draw forward some of the magic I wassupposedto have, well, I’d do it even if it meant I had to accept Wren’s help. I’d drag my aunt Jordan into the mix too for some more solid advice.
Despite me drifting off with my mother on my mind, I slept through what remained of the night without as much as a hint of a supernatural visit. Cress and Wren hid their disappointment quickly over breakfast, stealing glances over at Leona when shetook too much of an interest in what we were discussing from her place at the head of the table.
“Today, we continue purging the lesser creatures,” the head librarian announced.
Jonah, the male librarian never too far from her side, remarked, “When presented with the conundrum of one horse-sized duck or a hundred duck-sized horses, the boss chooses the big one for last.”
Leona frowned over at him. “We will clear the whole library.”
He nodded slowly. “If there’s time.”
I ate the last of my cereal without relish. We were having it dry with sides of protein bars.Mm-mm. The library’s share of the rations didn’t include anything perishable.
My appetite left me swiftly when I was reminded of what was at stake. When Myuna turned her attention on the library, anything we didn’t kill would return to her side. With that in mind, we split into two groups, considering the “lesser” creatures posed less of a threat overall, but there were a lot of them.
Once powered back up from a visit to the powercore, Cress shone like a prism. She was an asset in cutting down unnaturals for the rest of the time we spent in the bowels of the library. Leona pushed us harder and harder still to get our grim task completed. I felt like I barely slept a wink during this time…not the most ideal situation for a potential visit from an ancestor to fish for magic Imightbe able to combine with my existing affinity, if I was anything like Cress.
I would be the first person to tell you I wasn’t anything like Cress, though. In the evenings, she disappeared with Leona, Wren, and soon Jordan as well to continue practicing what they were starting to call her hybrid magic, testing the bounds of what within her was librarian, or celestial, orboth. She returnedlate each night with an exhausted smile and the occasional superficial burn on her arms or face.
In the meantime, I put off thoughts of reclaiming my family’s celestial magic for a one-sided rivalry with Bianca, who gleefully slayed monsters with the zeal of someone searching out a true challenge.
Eight days later, once all the lesser creatures were killed, we prepared for the kind of epic encounter that had Bianca salivating. We all gathered around a table where Leona had laid out articles and small artifacts depicting artist renditions of a strange aquatic creature. “When I was a young woman, this unnatural animal washed ashore just north of Myrtle Beach. It took out two SPDI combat teams before Cerris City Library was contacted to contain it. We called it the Jellywalker.”
I couldn’t help a poorly muffled snort.
She shot me an unimpressed look. “Laugh if you like, but I watched it tear apart two senior librarians and maim a third in the time it took to cast a stasis spell. Myuna would salivate to have it under her control, and it is the one with the lowest power level of the eleven greater creatures that remain in the library. Best case scenario…it is already dead within the dry containment room we stuffed it in.