“I should say no more,” the lion snapped.
Anger flared up inside of me, and I was worried for a moment that my temper might snap, and I’d do something I regretted. But the DA in me knew to remain calm, and just keep asking my questions.
“Why?” I queried gently. “What’s wrong?”
Charles, though, was no common criminal. He knew exactly what I was doing and seemed to have absolutely no patience for it. “Take the portal or don’t,” he snapped. “But do not stand here and bug me any longer.”
With that, he turned his head up and seemed to go back to stone. Before I could even blink, the podium started to slide back into place, and I could see my chance to take the portal grow smaller and smaller by the second.
So, without another thought, I leaped.
6
Bright colors twisted and bent all around me, sucking me farther and farther down. The pressure increased like a vacuum had suddenly come to suck all of the oxygen out of the air and compress my entire body until it was nothing more than a tiny little square box.
Suddenly, it all stopped, and I landed flat on my face on a hard, cold surface. It took me a few seconds to get control of my breathing again, and by the time I looked up, more than a few concerned faces were staring down at me.
“It’s her first time,” Mom explained to a circle of women who looked completely normal.
Except one of them had a wand in her hand, and the other was floating.
“You hit the floor pretty hard, dear,” the floating one said. She had dark, coal-black eyes and bright-purple hair spiked up like some punk rocker.
“I’m okay,” I assured her, though the sound came out tight and strangled thanks to the fact that my lungs were still desperately lacking oxygen.
I stood up, brushing imaginary dust off of my jeans, and looked around.
For what felt like the millionth time that day, my jaw dropped open as I stared wide-eyed around the magical library.
Floating shelves and a ton of witches surrounded me. There was a spiral staircase in the far-right corner that weaved up three more floors, and I seemed to be standing smack in the center of this library. Above me, the skylight was bright, revealing a sky so blue it bordered on green.
And there was an electricity in the air. It was vibrant and buzzing all around me. The place just felt like magic.
“What is this place?” I breathed, looking to Mom and Grams.
“Welcome to the magical world, kiddo,” Mom grinned. “Now, come on, let’s get started.”
Just like that, she and Grams were off, passing witches and all sorts of other creatures.
I don’t know why, but when I pictured the magical world, I figured there were just two kinds of people: fae and witches. But the library was filled with all sorts of other creatures. I saw a trio of dwarves stomping through the shelves, ignoring the witch behind them, who kept asking them to be quiet, for the love of all that was good and holy.
I had just turned a corner when I nearly ran smack into a centaur. He had a massive, wide, hairy chest with washboard abs, a long, blond beard, and piercing, gray eyes. But his bottom half was that of a pure-white horse.
“My apologies,” he murmured, dropping into a low bow before he continued.
I didn’t have much time to stop and gape at him because Grams shrill voice carried through the stacks.
“Shannon, don’t dilly dally, please.”
I hurried to catch up, but I kept my eyes wide open, watching as I passed other creatures that I couldn’t even identify yet. There was a young girl with goat hooves instead of feet, and a tall, beautiful woman whose skin seemed to be made out of thousands of tiny, glittering fish scales.
“Are we in the fae world?” I murmured when I caught up to Mom and Grams.
“Oh, God, no!” Mom guffawed. “Let me give ya the rundown.” She continued to talk as we followed Grams, who was weaving through the books and shelves in clear search of something. “So, the fae are basically like your immortal beings. Humans think they’re just mischief-makers, but most of the time, they’re not the greatest people. They’re from another world, one that’s attached to ours. But they’re not actually from here.”
“How’s it attached?” I asked.
“Let’s save that for another time,” she replied quickly. “It’s a long story. Anyhow, the fae are fairies, elves, goblins, nymphs, and spirits. Powerful, magical beings. But our world—the world of witches and humans—is full of mermaids, fauns, centaurs, dwarves, and a litany of monsters that you really don’t want to encounter.”
“What, like Bigfoot?” I laughed.
The look Mom gave me was so deadpanned and serious that my amusement quickly died in my throat. “Bigfoot’s real,” she replied. “So’s the Loch Ness Monster, and the Kraken, and Dracula, though he isn’t nearly as terrible as people like to think. The man generally feeds on serial killers and rapists.”
“Can’t argue with that,” I replied, at the exact same time that Grams stopped and gasped. “Ah! Here we are!”
“Here” was a shelf full of what looked like ordinary books. The kind I’d find in a regular American library. They had black and brown spines with gold lettering.
What was not so regular about them, though, was the names—The BlackBeard Diaries, and How to Train a Sphinx in Four Easy Steps.
I highly doubted one could train a sphinx in four steps, but what did I know?
“Where is here, exactly?” I asked.
“When I was a teenager and Mama told me about our, uh, unusual heritage, I came here searching for any mention of halflings that I could find,” Mom explained, picking out a book. “I spent the whole summer here, scouring every single book I possibly could. And this one was the only book that even mentioned a… you know what.”
Mom’s eyes slid over to where a pretty young witch with coal-black hair was passing our aisle. Clearly, even in this world, what we were was unconventional.
“Turn to page 302,” Grams announced.
The book was old and heavy. The title on the front simply read Diaries of Number Four Hundred and Nineteen.
I didn’t even pretend to know what that meant. Instead, I flipped through the pages until I landed on the one that Grams had mentioned.
A messy black scrawl written in ink filled it. The page was yellowed and shriveled with age, and the date at the very top read: Fourth of June, Seventeen Hundred and Eight.
My eyes were already trying to bug out of my head, but I forced myself to keep reading.
To Whomever May Be Reading My Words,
At this point, I can only hope that this journal has made it out of the Council’s hands and onto the shelves of someone with a much more stable ethical standard.
I have now been imprisoned for twenty-seven days. Each one seems ever longer than the last, and I am afraid my only respite from this dark cell comes when I close my eyes. I can still picture her face perfectly, with those piercing, golden eyes and rosy cheeks. I still see her smile, and the way she gazed at everyone with such irrevocable trust.
I can only pray that Alessandra has made it out alive and found the fae world. She may have been born of both, but I believe the fae are the only ones who will protect her now. I know in my soul that the witches and the Council will not rest until they have eradicated the halfling.
If you have been reading this journal, you know that I was the one meant to kill Alessandra. I believed I would be ridding the world of a great evil, a monstrous crossbreed. But of all the witches, centaurs, mermaids, dwarves, and humans that I have met, Alessandra had been the best of them all. She is pure, kind, and gentle in ways they can never hope to be.
Dear Reader, I pray to you once again. Find Alessandra and protect her.
Sincerely,
Rudolfo
Hunter #419
Everything inside of me felt like it was on the brink of collapse. The air stopped pumping through my lungs, the blood froze in my brains, and my neurons ceased firing. Al
l I could think about were those scrawled words and what they meant.
I wasn’t the first. And this council he spoke of had wanted her dead.
“Shannon, are you okay?” Grams asked worriedly. The sound of her voice brought me back down to earth—or wherever we were—and I forced a smile so she didn’t worry that something was wrong.
“Yeah, fine,” I replied.
I glanced around surreptitiously, and when I saw that no one was watching, I slipped the book into my massive purse. I’d bought it with the intention that all of the extra room would be used to sneak food into movie theaters and avoid their overly inflated prices, but I supposed it worked just as well for stealing from libraries.
“What are you doing?” Mom hissed.
“Trust me,” I whispered. “I’ve seen tons of videos of robberies. I got this. But we need to hurry.”
Grams didn’t seem nearly as shocked as my mom did and grabbed her daughter’s hand, yanking her down the aisle and back toward the center where the portal had been.
“I’ll see you soon, Adora!” The purple-haired witch grinned and waved at Grams as we stood there.
“You too, Lemon Drop,” Grams sweetly called before she stomped her foot three times on one of the smooth black tiles.
A wind whipped up all around us, and then we were yanked downward. That same compression hit me, but it felt quicker this time. Before I knew it, we were on the other side, standing in a little group in front of Charles.
“Have a good day, Charles,” Grams called to him before she ushered Mom and me off. “Shannon, I hope you know what you’re doing with that.”
I absolutely did not. It had been a purely instinctual move, but something in the deep, dark tone of Grams's voice told me that was not something I should say out loud just yet.
We were nearly to the car, with Rudolfo’s diary safely tucked into my bag, when my cell phone rang. I saw that it was Annabelle calling, so I picked it up immediately, knowing that she and Deedee were alone today.
“Shannon, thank God, I’ve been trying to reach you guys for ages!” Annabelle gasped. The panic in her voice instantly shot ice water through my veins, and my thoughts turned to the worst.
Deedee was in the hospital. She’d collapsed, had a heart attack or something, and this was it. The woman was nearly ninety, after all. I could hardly expect her and Grams to live forever, especially with how much the two of them worked.
“Annabelle, what’s wrong?” I demanded.
Mom and Grams immediately started mouthing at me, but I waved them off.
“We got robbed,” Annabelle cried. “The person who did it came in when Deedee was on her lunch break down at the soda shop. I was all alone, and they threw me in a closet. I don’t even know what they took.”
“Okay,” I replied calmly. I knew how to maintain my cool in these situations, thankfully. “Did you call the police yet?”
“Yes, they’re on their way.”
“Good,” I told her. “We’re coming now. Just hang tight.”
“Okay,” she breathed.
“Hey, Annabelle, you did good,” I reassured her before hanging up the phone.
“What happened?” Mom and Grams demanded instantly.
“Someone tried to rob us,” I told them. “We’ve got to get to the shop. Now.”
Many things go through your mind when you find out your store got robbed. When you’re a witch, with about a million and one secrets that need to stay hidden, those things become astronomically bad.
Like, for instance, if the person who robbed us had taken the spare key to our shed that Mom kept underneath the register. Or any number of spells Grams had created over the years. Or, hell, even just our address could be dangerous in the wrong hands.
And, when you’re a half breed that most magical beings would kill on the spot, those astronomically bad things become completely deadly.
We got back to Magic for Real in record time, thanks to Mom’s absolutely insane driving. Grams spent the entire car ride holding onto her seat like she was afraid she’d get ejected out of it.
There was a cop car outside, with one very bored-looking woman in the passenger seat, playing some sort of game on her phone. When we got into the shop, we could see a cop talking to a shaken Annabelle, while Deedee rubbed her shoulders and tried to get her to calm down a little.
“Annabelle, are you all right?” I demanded immediately, not even bothering to glance at the officer, who had just been about to introduce himself.
“Yes,” she nodded. “At least this can go on my college applications. It would make a pretty good essay.” Even freaked out, the kid’s dry humor remained.
“Are you the other owners?” the officer asked, turning automatically to me.
Mom snaked behind his back to look him up and down, ogling him like football players ogle cheerleaders, before mouthing “he’s cute!” over the officer’s shoulder.
I rolled my eyes and looked at him instead.
“Partly, yes,” I told him. “Was anything stolen?”
“Not that I can tell,” he shrugged. “Cash is still in the register, computers and everything are still in place. The perp tied up your clerk here and tossed her into a closet, but I can’t tell what for. Do those work?”
He pointed a pencil at the security cameras fastened to the walls behind me. I was just about to tell him that they did, though not very well, when Grams interjected.
“Not in the slightest, Officer Ruskin,” she laughed, reading his badge. “We keep them up there to try and ward off robbers, although I suppose that doesn’t work as well as we thought it did.”
I shot her a confused look, but she just shook her head a little bit before turning her attention back to the officer and forcibly charming him with her grandmotherly ways.
“Hmm,” he replied. “Well, you folks should think about getting a proper system installed. Now, if you’ll just sign this report, I can get out of your hair.”
Grams did and shot the officer a final, winning smile before he marched out the door, making sure we knew to call him if anything came up missing.
“Annabelle, is your mother coming to pick you up?” Grams asked.
“She’s outside already,” Annabelle replied, now the picture of calm. “I’ll go home then.”
We could all tell the poor kid wanted nothing more than to get the heck out of there. It might have been a little selfish of me, but I really hoped this robber scenario didn’t make her want to quit.
“I’ll call you tomorrow and check on you,” I assured her before we all watched her walk out the door to where her mom sat parked on the street.
“Okay, Adora, why on earth did you tell him that our security cameras don’t work?” Deedee demanded as soon as we were alone, rounding on Grams.
“Because,” Grams replied, terror lacing her voice, “the robber took the one thing we can’t have the cops knowing about.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
Grams pointed behind us, all the way to the very back of the store, where we could just make out the safe where the grimoire normally sat. “Our grimoire’s gone.”
7
“We have a grimoire?” The words flew out of my mouth before I could even stop them. I’d wondered what the heck was in the safe, but I figured it was a rare plant or potion, or maybe even a gun, though my family was a bunch of peaceful people.
I hadn’t even thought grimoires existed. I figured that was another piece of lore brought on by Hollywood.
“Yes, yes,” Grams nodded. “It was supposed to be lesson three if you ever got there.”
“Well, now it’s lesson zero unless we find who took it,” Mom grunted in response.
“Okay, I’m going to go check on my better half,” Auntie Deedee announced. “You three see what you can figure out, okay?”
“We’re on it,” Grams nodded.
Deedee kissed us all goodbye before she rushed off down to the soda shop. Grams, Mom, and I split up to check around
the store and make sure everything else really was still there. As we suspected, not a single other thing was gone, not even our abundance potions or the extremely rare Saint Lucia Racer Snake poison.
Whoever had robbed us really was just going straight for the safe.
“Grams, did anyone know you kept the grimoire in there?” I asked when the three of us converged back in the center of the store.
“Not a one,” she replied. “Just Deedee, your mom, and me. Certain witches might be able to sense it, though. But I haven’t met any magic suckers in years.”
“Is that the technical term?” I joked.
“Not in the slightest,” Mom sighed, but for once, she wasn’t in a joking mood. Instead, my usually carefree mother was staring at the slightly open safe, biting her lower lip, smearing the expensive lipstick I’d bought her, and twisting her hands together in a way that was most definitely the opposite of Elle McCarthy’s generally calm demeanor.
“We should take a look at the tape,” I told them. “To see if we can get a view of this robber.”
“Good idea,” Grams said, clocking, as I had, the reaction her daughter was having. “Come on, Elle.”
“Right, yes, the tapes,” Mom murmured to herself before she and Grams followed me to the break room, where the rickety old computer sat propped up on a tiny table in the corner.
I turned it on, silently reminding myself to start making sure the feed was up on the device at all times. Or, better yet, to just install an entirely new security system.
The feed came up, showing the now-empty shop, and I switched to the third camera that was placed in the back of the store, in the corner above the safe, facing it.
“Hopefully, we’ll get a good view of this person’s face,” I breathed, more to myself than anyone else.
I flipped the feed back by about an hour and a half, to the time when the robbery would have taken place.
Divorce, Divination and Destiny Page 4