Page 34 of Potions and Proposals
“Oh, I wasn’t aware. Can we try? I’ve got a suspicion I’ll be fine.” He smiled sheepishly.
Lucy frowned, wondering what he wasn’t saying, and Rosie looked suspicious.
“I should warn you, if you fail to pass the warding you’ll get what feels a bit like an electric shock. It won’t kill you, but it’s said to hurt something awful.” Lucy thought of the poor magless who’d tried to break in a few years back. She’d found the intruders passed out by the gargoyles within the secret entrance.
“I think I’ll survive.” He sounded far more confident than before.
“I love your optimism.” She wasn’t sure if he was arrogant, but least if he was knocked out for a few hours, it’d buy her some time with the grimoire uninterrupted. “Rosie, can you please grab me a blanket?”
“A blanket?” Emerson gave her a puzzled look, following her down the main staircase to the reception desk. The main entrance to the vault lay at their feet; the secret entrance on the second floor was for coven eyes only. In case of a raid, they’d be able to escape fast. The main entrance was a much longer and more winding path. Rosie pulled out a multicoloured blanket from beneath the desk and handed it to him.
“In case you pass out. I wouldn’t want you to get cold lying on the stone floor.” Lucy moved aside the chairs to expose the entrance concealed beneath the tiles.
“The tunnels are awfully draughty,” Rosie added with a smile.
“Open it up.” Lucy motioned for Emerson to stand on the tiled owl beside her.
Rosie twisted the neck of the brass owl on the desk. With a clunk and clash, they were lowered beneath the library until the stone ceiling replaced itself above them.
“Impressive,” he muttered, admiring the domed roof.
“You’ve seen nothing yet,” Lucy told him.
The platform hit the ground, and the tunnel before them lit as soon as her foot hit the stone. It was on instinct; she hadn’t even tried to summon Benedict’s fire.Maybe my blood isn’t rejecting the fire as much as I thought it would. Having his element might actually come in handy.Usually, she would’ve hit the fire symbol at the start of the first tunnel to light them.
“It looks like…” Emerson started, noting the arched holes in the walls.
“A crypt?” she finished for him. “You’d be right. When witches were persecuted, we hid the burial grounds of our loved ones here to stop the church from getting to their bones, or anything they might have been buried with.”
“And now?” he asked, stepping off the platform.
“The last of the coffins were moved above ground to the cemetery behind the town hall. There’s been no need to hide in Foxford for the last few hundred years.”
He didn’t respond to that. He already knew their history, of course, but Lucy understood first-hand what it was like to read about something and then actually witness the evidence.
At the entrance of the tunnel, eyeing the gargoyles on either side of the tunnel, she waited. Though she worried about showing him the entrance, it was the easiest and fastest way to test him.
“Even with the torches, it’s freezing down here,” he said, rubbing his hands together and walking past.
Lucy frowned as the gargoyles failed to act, but she followed, not wanting him to know he had passed the first test. Shestudied his hands and neck; he wore no anti-warding amulets that she could see.
“It’s worse in the summer – like a sauna,” she remarked. His passing the first test might be because he held no ill will or intent, since the gargoyles’ main purpose was to protect against thievery first and foremost. She was already breaking the rules by not bringing him before the High Priestess once he’d made his presence known to her. If the coven got wind that she’d brought a member of the Order beneath the library without their approval, they might not need a vote after all– she could just hand her inheritance to Benedict – but the warding was the fastest way to figure out if he was a threat.
Emerson followed her through the tunnel with no concern about where he was being led. Lucy couldn’t believe how trusting he was. Many in his position would have been as suspicious of her as she was of him.
“Where are you staying in town?” she asked, looking over her shoulder at him. “You’ve no bags with you, so I take it I wasn’t your first stop?” She wondered if one of the professors from the university had put him up. Hopefully there was at least one person in town to not only vouch for him, but to guide him.
“At the Manor – I checked in first thing. I’ve never stayed in such a well-maintained manor. They must’ve spent a fortune restoring it.”
Lucy rolled her eyes. Benedict would justlovebeing praised by a member of the Order. In fact, she wanted to make sure she was there if and when he discovered someone sent from the very Order that had sentenced his father to death was staying under his roof.
“They did, so it’ll be expensive if you’re staying indefinitely,” she warned, wanting to stay off the topic of the Mathersons. Even the brief mention made her palms sweat, as though Benedict’s element was trying to remind her of him.
“The order is covering the cost until my room is ready at the university.”
Relief cooled Lucy’s element – with any luck, he’d leave the manor sooner rather than later – as he continued. “Your work here is important, so they deem it a worthy expense, and it will only be for a short time.”
Slowing her pace as they reached the armoured knights through the next archway, she tried to stifle a smile, sure he wouldn’t pass the next phase.
