He shot her a playful frown. “For real?”
She shrugged and glanced around the lobby. Had she really just assumed it would be this easy?
“Oh. Okay. Hold on just a sec.” Danny turned slowly away from the desk, eyeing her up and down one more time before a woman emerged from a door behind the front desk to join them. “Hey, Meryl. Got someone up here asking for a manager.”
Meryl turned with raised eyebrows and instantly locked eyes with Jessica. The hint of a smile she’d prepared to flash on a new library visitor disappeared instantly.
Crap. Jessica hadn’t even stopped to consider the fact that the hedge witch still managed this library. Especially after last time.
Chapter Eight
Now Jessica regretted her mission to explore the bank’s secrets at the damn public library. Too bad she didn’t have a computer with access to the dark web instead. Or a working knowledge of how to find this stuff on her own without stoking old feuds she’d completely forgotten about.
She nodded at Meryl and tried not to look disappointed when she smiled. “Hey.”
Raising both hands to readjust the bright-yellow headband holding back her dark auburn hair, Meryl blinked quickly, then nodded. “I’m happy to speak with her, Danny. Why don’t you go into the back and finish up the inventory from yesterday’s returns?”
Danny stepped away and looked back and forth between the women, the tension palpable on both sides of the front desk.
“Danny!”
He jumped. “Right. Yeah. I’ll go… You sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. Please go into the back.” Meryl’s façade of customer-service-oriented calm disappeared completely. She glared at Jessica as her employee stepped haltingly toward the room she’d just come from, casting wary glances over his shoulder. The second the door shut behind him, Meryl lunged toward the counter, slapped both hands down on the surface, and hissed, “I thought I told you never to come back here.”
Jessica blinked against the woman’s ferocity but didn’t move. “That was a long time ago, Meryl.”
The woman blinked furiously again and leaned away. “How do you know my name?”
“Um… Well, you’re not wearing someone else’s nametag.” Jessica pointed at the door where Danny had retreated. “And he said it anyway—”
“I don’t care what he said.” Meryl swiped a hand over the top of her head and the headband again. She took a deep breath and nodded at a tall, thin man stepping through the security gate inside the front doors. When he disappeared into the next room, her grimace returned with full force. “Get out.”
“After I get into the magic section, sure.”
“No.”
Jessica sighed. “Come on. Last time was a mistake, and I’m sorry. Again. Honestly, I didn’t think this would be an issue.”
“You didn’t think—” The woman glanced cautiously around the lobby again and lowered her voice. “You didn’t think it would be an issue? Do you have any idea how much you almost cost this library after all the damage you and your thug friends did to that section?”
“Like I said, it was a long time ago.”
“And you just wiped it conveniently out of your memory, huh?”
Wow. Hell of an ironic thing to say, if only the hedge witch knew what Jessica was dealing with today.
Jessica dipped her head in concession. “A lot’s happened to me since then. Wasn’t really at the front of my mind.”
“Obviously. But I certainly haven’t forgotten, and you’re still banned from the library.” Meryl thrust a finger toward the front doors, though she immediately retracted her hand so as not to cause any more of a scene. “I said get out.”
“Meryl.” Jessica stepped toward the desk, and the librarian practically shoved herself away to keep a safe amount of space between them. “I’m sorry about what happened the last time. It’s been…what? Almost three years? Look, I’m in a different place. And I’m here alone, just looking for a little help and direction, okay? Please. Just give me an hour.”
The woman’s nostrils flared. “Why should I trust you?”
Yeah, that was the million-dollar question, wasn’t it? A little flattery couldn’t hurt.
Jessica stepped away from the desk and removed her hands from her pockets to lift them in surrender. “I don’t really have a good answer for that.”
Meryl scoffed.
“But I came here because I know this library has the best reference collection in the whole state. Probably even the whole Midwest, honestly. And I’ve been around.”
“Well I definitely believe that.”
Jessica pressed her lips together and fought back a smartass retort. Sure, this hedge witch couldn’t put up nearly enough magic to really keep Jessica out of the magic section. She could barely cast a real spell compared to Jessica and the rest of magical society; hedge witches lived in both worlds, humans practicing what little magic they could get their hands on. But they still knew about the magical world, and they acted as gatekeepers in a way.
Like Jessica. Excluding the fact that Winthrop & Dirledge was a sentient bank doubling as a trading post for magicals and that it held one of the most valuable and sought-after artifacts in the upstairs hallway, then yeah. She and Meryl pretty much had the same job. And Jessica couldn’t just muscle her way past this guardian, even if she’d wanted to do so. She wouldn’t.
She took a deep breath and cocked her head, holding the librarian’s gaze. “Please. I’m in a bind, and—”
“Your personal problems are not my responsibility.”
“I know that. I just really need to get into that section. Please.” Jessica puffed out a sigh and shrugged. “Look, I’ll swear a binding right here and now. If I cause any trouble, you can literally lock me in that room, call the cops, and I won’t be able to leave until they get here. How’s that?”
Meryl stared at her with wide eyes, then slowly shook her head. “No. I don’t want any more trouble from you than you’ve given me already.”
“Seriously, I have no problem swearing the binding. Right now. Just give me a piece of paper and…” Jessica bit her lip and studied the counter. She’d stopped carrying a ritual knife on her a long time ago—for others’ safety, mostly. A little for her own. “I don’t know. Just a letter opener or a push-pin or something.”
Without taking her eyes off Jessica, the librarian reached for the keyring attached by a clip to her belt. “Forget the binding.”
“What?” Jessica glanced at the jingling keys in the woman’s hands.
“You wouldn’t have offered it if you didn’t mean it. Not that I enjoy your honesty, but I can tell that much, at least.” Meryl shot her a cautious sidelong glance as she headed down the desk toward the narrow exit between the counter and the wall. “I think we’re done talking.”
Stepping back, Jessica watched her and waited. Whatever the librarian was planning, at the very least, she could prepare for it. So now it looked like her options were to either leave on her own or be escorted by whatever security Meryl had drummed up to keep troublesome magicals out of the restricted section the rest of the world didn’t even know existed.
Meryl made it six feet into Schlessman Hall running the length of the library, then looked over her shoulder and raised her eyebrows again. “Don’t just stand there. Let’s go.”
“Oh.” Jessica grinned and immediately wiped it off her face when the librarian rolled her eyes and kept walking. She glanced around the lobby one more time, then hurried to catch up with the woman who apparently believed her.
Okay. Score one point for Jessica. And another for the hedge witch who’d taken her at her word.
She followed Meryl through the massive main hall, past the entrance to newspapers and magazines, the collection of computers used for library internet access. No one paid the two witches any attention, but why would they? This was just another library patron being escorted by a friendly, knowledgeable librarian tasked with the responsibility of helping those who
sought knowledge to find it exactly where it belonged.
Yeah, right.
When Meryl disappeared around the corner toward the elevators, Jessica glanced around the room and caught the gaze of an older man in a tweed sweater sitting in one of the cushy new armchairs arranged in the open seating area. A tiny smile lifted the corner of his wrinkled mouth, and he nodded at her.
Jessica tried to return the gesture but couldn’t help feeling like something was off here. People didn’t normally nod like they knew each other in a library unless they actually did. Magicals didn’t either, for that matter.
Meryl cleared her throat from around the corner, and Jessica hurried after her, shaking her head.
She was being paranoid. Libraries were one of the safest places in the world. Except for when a few criminals got their hands on the wrong book in the magical section and let out something that wasn’t supposed to be let out.
No. She, Mel, and Rufus had put everything back together almost exactly the way it was supposed to be the last time they’d visited this particular restricted section. Only a few minor damages incurred, but that wasn’t the point. That was years ago.
Jessica followed Meryl into the narrow hallway with yet another pair of unisex and handicap-friendly bathrooms. The woman stopped at the blank wall at the end of the hall and turned around, peering past Jessica to make sure the coast was clear. Then she grabbed the key on her keyring—the only one without some sort of color-coded cover around the handle—and raised it to her lips.
Only the soft whisper of her incantation was audible. The words of the actual spell cast by magicals and given to the hedge witches to use as they saw fit were unclear, and that was just as well. Jessica wasn’t trying to figure out how to break in to the section. All she wanted was to sift through what was behind that wall.
The key in Meryl’s hand glowed with a soft white light, then she tapped the metal against the wall. A barely visible doorway appeared on the paint, shimmering with the same light like a mirage within the climate-controlled library. Then the librarian stepped away and gestured toward the doorway. “One hour.”
“Thank you.” Jessica approached the back wall and paused to smile at the woman. “Seriously. I really appreciate it.”
Meryl returned the keyring to the clip on her belt, muttering another minor spell to dampen the loud jingle. Lifting her chin, she turned away from Jessica and scanned the opening to the bathroom hallway. “Don’t make me regret it. Whoever you are.”
“Jessica.” She extended her hand, but the hedge witch was already walking away down the hall.
Fair enough. After what they’d done to this room the last time, she couldn’t blame the woman for not giving a crap about Jessica’s name or who she was or what she did beyond following the rules this time. No, once again, Jessica blamed Mickey for the fallout. He was the one who’d told the three of them to find the Clavisortrum.
And she had to stop thinking of that goddamn bottom-feeder of an illusionist.
Jessica stepped toward the shimmering wall, holding her breath against the tingle that raced across her entire body when she stepped through it and into the restricted magical section of the Denver Public Library. It reminded her a little of the cold shock that raced through her on all of three occasions the bank had taken over her body. Honestly, she preferred that to this—if she wasn’t counting the part where she had no control over herself once the bank got behind the wheel.
The magical section was set up like a Victorian retiring room or a massive study—dark, paneled wood glistening with an oiled finish; floor-to-ceiling shelves stuffed to the brim with old and incomprehensibly valuable tomes. Most of them were bound in leather and clearly displayed their titles in shimmering gold filigree or stark black ink. Some of them didn’t even have titles but would be recognizable to those looking for them by whatever symbols were embossed on the front covers. Two tall, sturdy wing-back armchairs with corded embroidery in maroon, gold, and rich brown were arranged against the left and right walls. Two more sat in front of the hearth on the far side of the massive room, where a purple-tinted fire crackled, enchanted to burn endlessly on its own without smoke or ash.
In the center of the room was a long, tall mahogany dining table with enough room to seat fourteen chairs that completed the set. Those chairs took a bit of climbing to get into, but that was probably the point. This wasn’t just another library room where people came to sit down and flip through a few pages for fun. If someone was in here, they meant to get down to serious business.
Jessica brushed her fingers along the edge of the bookshelf right beside her and stepped slowly across the room. Now the only thing she had to do was find the right section within this section that held anything remotely related to the bank.
A creak of springs and old wood rose from the two wing-back chairs facing the hearth. She jumped when a small bald head popped out from behind the back of one chair. The gnome sitting there blinked quickly at her, his eyes ridiculously enlarged by the thick glasses settled over his nose and making him look like a cartoon character.
She shot him a thin smile before turning away to scan the shelves. The last thing she wanted was for someone else to catch on to what she was trying to find here. And she wasn’t exactly a fan of small talk.
Much like Tabitha. Though Jessica tended to make a lot more sense than ninety percent of what had come out of the scryer’s mouth. Chalk it up to a scryer’s ability to see the future. That would muddle anyone’s thoughts.
“Boris,” the gnome whispered harshly, trying to slap the armrest of the other chair beside him despite it being out of reach for his short, stubby arms. “Boris, look. Look who it is!”
Jessica glanced over her shoulder to find the gnome still staring at her, though an excited smile now broke through his surprise.
She’d never seen the guy before, even as a client in the bank. The best thing was just to ignore it.
“What are you going on about this time?” The voice from the second armchair came out as a low growl. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”
“Oh, yes, yes. You’re always so very busy.” The gnome tittered softly, though it still carried with full effect across the room. “But I highly recommend you put your oh-so-important studies aside for this one.”
“It can wait.”
“No, Boris. I really don’t think it can.”
Chapter Nine
Jessica kept moving slowly down the bookshelf, scanning the titles. She had no idea what she was looking for, but now she couldn’t even pay attention to half the words stamped onto the leather spines.
Because the second armchair creaked and groaned beneath far more weight than its neighbor occupied by the googly-eyed gnome. She felt a second gaze on her back, tingling up her spine, and tried to ignore it.
“Well, now,” the growling voice added, followed by a dark chuckle. “What do we have here?”
She couldn’t get involved in anyone else’s crap in this room. Not now. Not when she’d promised Meryl she wouldn’t start any trouble and only had an hour to find something useful. Specifically what the hell was wrong with the bank and what she had to do to fix it. An explanation of the Gateway and why it was so damn important was just the cherry on top at this point.
“Pardon the intrusion, ma’am,” the low voice added. “May we have a moment of your time?”
Jessica froze and clenched her eyes shut. She was literally the only other magical in here with these two. No way to avoid it now.
Slowly, she turned to face the hearth and found the gnome’s face still peeking out from behind the back of his chair. He grinned at her, his pudgy hands tightly gripping the armrest to keep him at that twisted angle. And the magical in the second armchair was a dryad.
The stranger’s face looked like a twisted, gnarled old tree trunk into which someone else had carved two beady, bright-green eyes, a sharply hooked nose, and a mouth. More creaking rose as the dryad met her gaze and grinned.
She clea
red her throat. “I’m just here to look for a few things.”
The gnome chuckled. “That is what this room is for, after all.”
The dryad’s mossy eyebrows rose with another creak. “Be quiet for a moment, Reynaldo. You realize whose presence we’ve been graced with this afternoon.”
“Of course I do.” Reynaldo scowled at his friend. “I’m the one who found her.”
“Or she found us.”
Jessica huffed out a wry chuckle. “Sorry, guys. I think you have me confused with someone else.”
“Highly unlikely, my dear.” Boris reached out over the edge of the armchair, his whole body groaning and creaking with the chair’s frame itself as he extended one long, bark-like arm and pointed at her. His fingers ended in sharp points like small twigs, and three pale green leaves sprouted from his skin at the wrist. “We know exactly who you are.”
“Um…” Jessica glanced around the room. “Look, I’ve never seen you before. But I—”
“She’s never seen us, Boris.” Reynaldo cackled so fiercely, his glasses slipped down the bridge of his nose, and he quickly readjusted them. “This is fantastic.”
Boris chuckled again. His armchair trembled with the force of it, and now it was impossible to tell which made more noise—the dryad or the creaking chair beneath him. “We’ve been speculating on the trajectory of your path over the last few weeks, my dear. Though I must say, I haven’t had the fortune of coming to pay you a visit myself during that time. Old bones being what they are.”
“He means roots,” Reynaldo added, nodding vigorously. “They don’t move like they used to. He’s not a sapling anymore, which I’m sure you’ve noticed.”
Boris swung his tree-like arm toward his friend. The leaves sprouting from his skin fluttered with the movement. “That’s quite enough out of you. She has eyes.”
“So do I. That doesn’t mean they always work perfectly.”
“Hush.”
The Cursed Fae (Accessory to Magic Book 2) Page 8
