The Orphan Witch

by Paige Crutcher

  Persephone leaned forward. “Am I making you uncomfortable?”

  “You keep showing up like a bad penny, so yeah. I’d say that’s a word for it.”

  “But you’re still staring at me.”

  “Are we in a contest? Because if so, I’ll have you know I mean to win. I’m frightfully good at winning.” He quirked up a corner of his full lips. “Except when I lose, but even then I do so spectacularly.”

  Persephone’s eyes drifted to his slightly crooked, chipped tooth and a blush crept up her chest. She dropped her gaze to the fire.

  “Looks like I’m the one making you uncomfortable now,” he said.

  Persephone gave her head a small shake and crossed to the bookshelf nearest to her. It was filled with old journals, row after row of them. He might not be a witch, but he was something. He could see her, and the way he looked at her sent need licking along her spine.

  “Why can’t I speak about you?”

  “You can’t speak about the library. I’m in it.”

  She considered that, and him. “You called me a walker. Why?”

  “You’re here uninvited, so a walker you are, Persephone May.”

  Persephone reached out for a thick-paged journal in front of her, her hand brushing air. She tried again but grasped at nothing. Persephone stared at the shelf in disbelief. The books were there, on the shelf, inches away. “The library is magic,” she said, narrowing her eyes. She reached again, but it was like trying to grab a puff of smoke. “Wait.” She looked at him. Walker.

  Time walker. The prophecy. “How do you know I’m a … walker?”

  He raised his brow in response. “People don’t just come here, Persephone. Not even witches.”

  “I am a witch and I’m here.”

  Dorian stood and strolled across the room, his limp less pronounced than it had been earlier. He turned and as he did, the room turned with him. Persephone’s head spun, but only for a moment. A hallway appeared to the left, and Dorian started down it. Persephone hurried after him, and crossed through an open door, then another, and another, and another. Dorian ambled ahead of her, and something in how he leaned forward made her think he was laughing at her.

  Persephone picked up the pace, and still he stayed the same distance ahead. He went through one more door and turned down a hall with floor-to-ceiling books of various shapes, sizes, and preservation. One tome was so thin, Persephone thought if she were able to touch it, its spine would collapse in on itself.

  The hallway was a heady mixture of pine and sea, the scents nothing like a library and everything like a forest at the edge of an ocean. Dorian turned once more, and they entered a room with high ceilings. It looked to be three times bigger than the exterior of the library.

  She blinked at the long navy sofa, the only piece of furniture in the entire room. It rested on top of a threadbare oriental rug that may have once been turquoise but had faded to a dull, inviting blue. Beside it was a thin telescope pointed at the far wall. The wall featured a painted mural of a jungle set in a much more exotic landscape. She couldn’t be sure, but as she stepped closer, Persephone thought one of the banana trees in the painting swayed.

  She peered nearer, and a small creature scurried from limb to limb. Startled, Persephone fell back, directly into Dorian.

  Five

  DORIAN’S CHEST WAS LIKE a delicious pine-scented wall. Persephone fell into it and his hands clamped down under her elbows, catching her. For a moment, Persephone leaned into the feel of him, before he spun her around to face him.

  They stood inches apart. She was so close she could see the honey and amber mixed with the deeper shade of green in his eyes.

  “You say you’re a witch, but you walk through worlds,” he said, his hands warm against her forearms.

  She suppressed a shiver. “I didn’t mean to.”

  “That, Persephone May, doesn’t change what you’re doing.” His palms remained on her arms, and when he finally removed them, Persephone was tempted to put her hand over the spot to try and keep the warmth trapped there.

  “I haven’t been in this room in a very long time,” he said, looking around.

  “So why bring me here?”

  “I didn’t.” His brows lifted.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Dorian ran a hand over his hair, tugging at where it was knotted at the nape of his neck. “You brought us here. The magic in you, it’s how you’re moving through the library. You are the first walker in a hundred years.”

  Persephone shook her head and looked around the room, still not understanding.

  “Have you never experienced anything like this before?” he asked. “You shouldn’t be here, and yet you are. Have you never walked through a world before?”

  Persephone met his eyes.

  “How about this? Have you ever felt time move around you, control events within it?”

  Persephone had a flash of Larkin, of telling him to release.

  “Yes,” she said, understanding clicking over.

  Dorian gave her a slow, complicated smile. “Magic’s a bit like this library. It has its own rules.”

  “Which are?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Gee, way to be a jerk.”

  “It’s the truth, walker.”

  Dorian’s lips thinned, and Persephone’s temper flared. Who cared that the man made her toes curl when he looked into her eyes, he was an ass. “Fine. If you’ll just show me the door, I’ll be happy to go.”

  He waved a hand around the room. “I didn’t bring us here. You did. I’m sure you can take yourself anywhere else.”

  Persephone raised a brow. “Would it leave you trapped here? For all eternity, perhaps?”

  He snorted at the hope in her voice. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  “I can’t say I wouldn’t mind it.”

  He glared at her, and the urge to hit him coursed through her so strongly Persephone had to grip her hands together.

  “You’ll break your bones if you squeeze any harder,” Dorian said, flicking his eyes to her hands and back to her face. “So much power, so barely contained. Why are you here, walker, and what is it you really want?”

  “Right now? I would like to get the hell out of this place.”

  Something flashed in his eyes. A spark of interest that burnt bright before he doused it out. “What made you choose this door? To come here of all places?”

  Persephone looked back to the hall they’d entered from. “I … followed you through the opened doors and we ended up here.”

  He considered, and turned and walked to the telescope pointed at the mural that wasn’t a mural. He peered deep into it, to the jungle.

  A moment later he looked up and back to her. “Care to have a look?” There was an edge to his voice, a challenge.

  Persephone rolled back her shoulders. She stepped over and grabbed the handle, pulled the scope down an inch and looked.

  A shadow moved from behind the banana trees.

  Persephone took a step back. She looked at Dorian and he cocked his head. She looked at the mural, and nothing had changed.

  Persephone reached out again, and looked once more into the telescope. The shadow crept in, like a fog riding on a sunrise as it came closer into view. The blood in Persephone’s hands chilled, ice moving into her arteries.

  This time she took three steps back before knocking into a side table.

  Dorian turned as slowly as a yawn. “You don’t know what or where that is, do you?”

  “It’s bad.” Persephone stepped again, around the little table. “I know enough to know that.”

  He didn’t speak, but waved a hand and the mural of a wall that was or wasn’t a window into another land shifted into a labyrinth of shelves leading from the floor up into the ceiling. Only the telescope remained behind.

  “What was it?” she asked. “That … thing?”

  “That is not for me to say.” He held up a hand. “Before
you protest, I don’t have permission to tell you. I can say you shouldn’t be able to see it, but you can.” He paused, appeared to struggle with his words. “Only walkers can access beyond the veil.”

  Persephone gulped. She wanted to ask him about the prophecy, to ask more about the veil, but in the next moment the ground shook. Persephone reached over to steady herself and shelves shifted forward into the room. A new wall rotated up into the library and before them stood a never-ending wall of manuscripts, journals, books, and maps.

  “I didn’t do that,” she said. “Did I?”

  “No. The library has a mind of its own,” Dorian replied, crossing his arms.

  Persephone squinted and saw that across the room, those shelves were full of various items and objects of all shapes, lengths, and sizes. A collection her fingers itched to touch.

  “Be our guest,” he said, watching her, speaking once again as though he were issuing a challenge. “If you can.”

  Persephone studied the books, bit down on her irritation with the attractive, bad-mannered librarian, and pulled her intention to her center.

  I need a way, she thought. To find my family, to get answers.

  Nothing happened.

  She took a breath. As I will, so mote it be.

  An unseen whisper brushed against Persephone’s cheek.

  A low rumbling knocked its way along the endless shelves.

  Dorian’s brows arched.

  Persephone took a step closer to the wall, took another breath, and reached.

  Her fingers pressed against the wooden edge. Persephone slid them up toward the closest journal and they brushed through it as though it wasn’t there.

  Persephone bit back a frustrated groan, and returned to the wooden portion of the shelf. The vibration pulsed beneath her fingers and she trailed them along the edge. The tremor grew, building until Persephone’s whole hand was shaking, the vibrato climbing up her arm. She had to grip into the threshold to keep her focus.

  Sweat beaded along her brow and dripped down her back. Persephone took another steadying breath, and her vision grayed at the edges.

  Persephone’s fingers crawled along the shelf until she stood in front of a photograph. She reached out, hesitated, and hovered her fingers over it.

  “Hmm. There’s a surprise,” Dorian said, his low voice carrying in the great echoing room. “Know if you pick it up, you agree to the library’s terms.”

  “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me what those terms are,” Persephone said, trying to keep her voice light and finding it as breathless as the rest of her. Using her magic to penetrate the boundary took all of her effort.

  “I don’t suppose I will.”

  Persephone gave a quick nod, imagined sticking her tongue out at him, and dropped her hand onto the image. She scooped the photo up, and her legs gave out like a newborn colt taking its tremulous first step.

  Persephone stumbled back, raw, aching, and drenched with sweat. She felt as if she had spent six days cramming for the exam of her life without bothering to sleep or eat. Her hands shook as the image on the picture began to shift into focus.

  She flipped it over and read the words on the back.

  May you ever find your way.

  Persephone turned it over and stared. “It’s a photograph,” she said, brushing a finger across the face captured there. “Of a woman … who looks like me.”

  Dorian moved closer to her, far enough away not to be touching, near enough to offer some form of comfort. And it was comforting to have someone there, even if that someone was the surly librarian who made her palms sweat.

  Persephone stared at the photo for so long her eyes watered and her mouth grew dry. This picture was the first real evidence that Persephone belonged to someone. Someone who had the same nose as she did, the same eyes.

  Dorian leaned over her shoulder, his piney scent intoxicating. “I’ve never seen that particular image before.”

  She studied him. “Do you know who it is? Who I am?”

  His tawny eyes searched hers. “I can’t tell you who you aren’t,” he said, tapping the edge of the photo. “Or who you come from. The library may have answers, but I do not.”

  Persephone had to force her gaze from the fullness of his lower lip. “You and this library are a right pain in the ass.”

  “Says the pot to the kettle.”

  Persephone glared at him for a moment, before turning her gaze back to the picture.

  Dorian let out a loud, infuriating sigh. “The library holds all manner of magic, of answers and truths. It is a keeper of time and memories. I don’t know who this is, but if I’m guessing, I’d say from the era and the fact that you have bits of her face in yours, it’s your grandmother.”

  “Yes.” She sighed. “Viola. I wish I knew more about her.”

  Dorian made a noncommittal noise.

  “Can you ask the library and tell me?”

  “That’s not how this works.”

  “You’re not a very helpful librarian.” She rolled out her neck. “So how does it work?”

  “You can ask, and the library will help or it won’t.”

  Persephone ran a finger across her brow, pressing at the headache trying to form. “How do I know that you aren’t lying about everything you have already told me?”

  “You don’t.”

  Persephone looked over and he shrugged.

  “And I’m supposed to trust you?”

  “You aren’t supposed to do anything. You keep showing up and getting your way, though, so I suspect that’s what you’ll keep trying to do.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Were you born this big of an ass or is that a secret, too?”

  He bit off part of a laugh, and she swallowed. Dorian was stunning when he smiled.

  “You said this is the Library for the Lost,” Persephone said after a rather long silence and staring game neither of them won. “My family is lost.”

  He blinked, a slow and methodical movement. “That is not quite the right question to ask.”

  Persephone straightened and stretched. “What is? Never mind. I know what you’ll say.” She attempted to mimic his deeper voice. “I cannot tell you the right questions to ask.” Persephone took a breath, searched the room, and returned her gaze to his. “Are all the items in here like this? Are they all magic or under a spell?”

  “Yes.” He nudged her with his shoulder. “Keep going.”

  She held very still, fighting the shiver that rose up at brush of his arm. “The … library won’t let me tell my cousins about you or it?”

  He gave a slow nod.

  Persephone tapped her finger along the photo’s edge. “Is … is the library the most powerful place in existence?”

  He cocked his head, and Persephone knew she was close to something. “It is one of them. It holds all magic that has been imagined. Some real, some fictional.”

  “Fictional?”

  “The library has a sense of humor. If something has been written as magic, be it in a story or in reality, it can exist here.”

  “And it’s not the most powerful place in existence?” Persephone asked, thinking of all the magical novels and non-fiction books on power she’d read in her life.

  Dorian thought for a moment, and cocked his head. “It’s no Menagerie of Magic, but it’s powerful in a different way.” His eyes cut to hers.

  “The Menagerie of Magic?” Persephone said. “You know of it?”

  Dorian closed his eyes for a moment, tried to work his lips, but only ended up shaking his head. When he blinked his eyes open there was something like concern, or pain, there. “I can’t say anything further.”

  Hmm. Maybe even the librarian could be bound by silence on certain subjects. “You do know of it, so you must know of Amara and True Mayfair,” Persephone said.

  He hesitated, nodded. “Lost witches.”

  “Lost, like the library?”

  His lips curved infinitesimally but he did not speak.

  Persephone
sighed. “I’m so tired of all the things I don’t know. You clearly have answers, but can’t tell me.”

  “Does it help that I wish I could?”

  She smiled, her heart giving a painful thump at the way his eyes roamed over her face. Craving unfurled in her belly, a strong tug of wanting. “A little.”

  “The library has answers. It gave you that one.” He nodded at the photograph in her hand.

  “I don’t know anything about her, or what happened to her or my mother.”

  “You will.”

  “What makes you so sure of that?”

  “Just a hunch.”

  He smiled then, a flash of crooked teeth, and Persephone’s bones hummed in response. She brushed at her bangs and looked away. “I should go. I’ve got some walking to do, and magic to sort.”

  She could feel him staring at her, feel the blush flood into her cheeks. Dorian stood slowly, and started for the door. His limp growing more pronounced with every step. He waited for her to unwind herself from the floor, and when Persephone crossed to him, he held out his arm. “I’d rather go the short way than the long,” he said. “So I’ll need you to let me lead.”

  “Fine by me, Dorian. Lead on.” Persephone tucked her arm through his, trying her best not to get lost in the heady scent of him. Within a few short steps, they walked through the doorway, and out into the main room. Persephone blinked, her head reeling for one long second as the floor rolled beneath her feet. She blinked again and the discombobulation righted itself out of her. “How in the world—?”

  Dorian shifted beside her. “Things don’t always follow the natural order here,” he said, his touch gentle as he unspooled his arm from hers.

  “Here?” His meaning sunk in. “Because this is another world?”

  He hesitated. “Because this is not your island.”

  Persephone searched his eyes, the cinnamon color brighter in the firelight than it had been before.

  “Is it unsafe to be here?”

  “It is if you arrive uninvited.” He smiled, and this time it reached his eyes. She wanted to run her finger along its seams.