The Orphan Witch

by Paige Crutcher

  Dorian thought of a child in the night, waking from a terrible dream and clutching a teddy bear. He thought of what her actions cost, how his soul had been splintered from his body and re-sewn into him again and again, until time no longer existed for him. She lifted her lashes, and he swallowed the truth. He couldn’t tell her what she’d done, at least not yet when there was so much she didn’t understand.

  “You tried to pull me from the Library for the Lost, but I cannot move through worlds. Time moves with me, but only as the natural order wills it.”

  “There is nothing natural about the order of this place, or the island.”

  “Not as you understand it.” Dorian reached for her hand, turned it over, and tucked it into his. It was a small gesture, but this was the first time Dorian had reached for someone to steady him, rather than the other way around. “I need to gather a few things,” he said. “See if I can find you something dry to wear. I’ll be back in a few minutes. Stay close to the fire, and don’t try to touch anything until I return.”

  Persephone gave him a sad upturn of one corner of her mouth but nodded her agreement.

  Dorian rose on shaky legs, and limped from the inner library to the outer hall. He turned down the corridor, noting how it had changed yet again. He wound through a small labyrinth, and found himself, after an odd number of right turns, on the other side of his quarters.

  His room did not hold a bed or a chair, but two well-placed hammocks and the softest rug he’d ever walked across. He was quick to grab a spare change of clothing from his wardrobe, one of only five outfits he owned. He returned to the outer sanctum and found Persephone curled up on the sofa, sound asleep.

  She was beautiful. She looked like something he would have dreamed up, if he still allowed himself to believe in dreams. Setting the clothing beside her feet, he walked to the front door of the library and looked up at the hanging chandelier. The small orbs of her element, of aether, glimmered and shined.

  Dorian closed his eyes and let his mind wander.

  It came over him as it always did. A steady thrum of energy. It was the cacophony of a thousand hearts beating as one. A thousand souls locked in this place he kept watch over.

  He listened to the soothing rhythm they took when they moved together. He saw the number eight repeated over and over along the grooves of the library, built into the walls and ceiling, across the floor, down into the fibers of the joist and foundation. He made the symbol with his hands. Two circles, brought together. Like the two islands that once interconnected with Wile Isle.

  He turned to face the sofa, and saw the sleeping eight. Infinity. It was Persephone’s symbol. Yin and yang, good and evil. There were always two sides, and what she didn’t yet understand was that the duality would be how she would break the Curse of Nightmares if she was to succeed. In order to take, she would also have to give.

  The library whispered in his mind. Words from many varied tongues, rolling together into a knowing he welcomed. Dorian cared for the woman slumbering on his couch. He was afraid his care could grow into more.

  But it was no matter.

  He was guardian for the Library for the Lost, and Persephone had broken through the wards. The library was willed by the Goddess, it was tethered to the three islands, and housed their magical energy.

  As the library was the point place for all magic that flowed to and from the islands, Dorian had no choice but to listen and do as he was tasked. If he did not, the library was not shy about what it would do in return.

  The cost of failing the library wasn’t death, not for Dorian. The cost of failure was to exist for all eternity and wish you were dead.

  The library whispered again, and Dorian nodded. Yes, he would do as it asked. He would hold the library’s test for the mystifying creature slumbering on the sofa—whether he wanted to or not.

  Dorian opened his eyes and crossed back to Persephone. The library was pleased he’d agreed, and as he stepped the sharp pain in his hip ebbed. He reached her and, with ease, squatted down in front of her.

  Persephone’s lips were two perfect rose petals, and he was tempted to press his thumb against them, to try and memorize the way they sculpted against his skin.

  He would do as the library asked, true. He would also do everything in his power to help Persephone.

  Dorian watched her sleep for another long moment before he pressed his palm to her shoulder and gently shook her awake.

  “If a good must exist,” he said as her eyes fluttered open to meet his. “Then a complete evil must exist as well. Your Wile Isle is the gray, but we are in the black. I owe a debt, one that must be paid. You do not owe my debt, but maybe I can help lessen the load of yours.” Dorian took a breath. “It is time to tell you the story of the Library for the Lost, and then you can decide what you wish to risk for this being of a place, should it decide to help you.”

  Nine

  WHEN PERSEPHONE AWOKE, THERE were candles suspended above them. Persephone did not know how he did it, but Dorian had lit the entire main room of the library in floating, glistening light. He stared at her with such urgency as he told her he would tell her the story of the library, and yet his eyes crinkled at the edges as her own lit in wonder.

  “It’s like something out of Hogwarts,” she said, focusing on the library rather than his distracting face.

  “Harry Potter,” Dorian said, with a small nod. “His story is on these shelves.”

  Persephone smiled in response. She stretched, stood, and agreed to hear Dorian’s story before she slid behind a recessed stack to change into the clothes he had brought her.

  She felt an overwhelming urge to lift the clothing to her face and inhale the scent of him. It was so overwhelming, she had to bite the inside of her cheek to steady her focus.

  “I secretly kind of hated those books,” she called to him, before tugging the shirt over her head in one swift motion. She slipped on the strange pajama-like pants and turned to study the rows before her. Line after line of books without titles visible to her. Something about how the light shimmered over the aged spines made her wonder if they weren’t simply hidden from her sight. “I was jealous of how Harry, Ron, and Hermione found family in each other, though I very much admired how they didn’t give up on the light even when darkness seemed like it would prevail.” She rolled up the long sleeves of the billowy shirt, cuffed up the pants, and sighed. The candles illuminated the stacks of books that encircled the room. The stacks seemed to go on and on, endlessly.

  Persephone walked out from the alcove. “How did you do all this, if you aren’t magical?”

  “I never said I wasn’t magical, only that I wasn’t a witch.” He ran a hand over the books, and sparks flew up from them. “All magic exists in the library from the worlds of Three Daughters—Elusia, Olympia, and Wile. The islands aren’t like other islands, and what they harnessed and harness has different limits. That includes being able to pull from magic written in stories. I ask the library for favors. Some she grants, others she does not.”

  Persephone ran her fingers through the tangles of her hair. “I think the island may be pissed at me.”

  Dorian raised a brow.

  “I tried to leave.”

  He shifted his weight and slowly tipped his chin down to look at her in a way that had her shivering. “You tried to leave.”

  It wasn’t a question. Dorian said it with an edge of amusement … and anger.

  “I can’t do what anyone needs me to do.” She clasped her hands together, squeezed them so tight the skin whitened, then dropped them to her sides. “I had a vision. If I break the curse, I will kill my cousins.”

  Dorian didn’t move a muscle. “What happens if you don’t break it?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Visions are like prophecies, Persephone. Two sides, differing angles. They’re also only one piece of a picture, a scene in a chapter if you will.”

  She gave her head a slow shake. “I don’t know. I’ve never had this t
ype of a vision before.”

  He ran a hand across his stubbled cheek. “You can’t know anything for certain from a vision.”

  Persephone sighed. “You said the library grants favors. You called her a she?”

  Dorian looked over his shoulder. “Our library is a mistress of deception when it suits her, but for the most part she is forthright and honest.”

  “You think the library is a being. And female.”

  He looked back at her. “It’s not a thought, Persephone. It’s reality.”

  Persephone pressed her toes into the rug. If she had learned anything these past many weeks on Wile Isle, it was that there were many realities when it came to the world of magic.

  Not all of them were wise.

  “Does she have a name?”

  Something flickered across his face. “There aren’t enough words to name her.”

  “Good or bad ones?”

  The corner of Dorian’s mouth twitched, but he only shook his head.

  “You don’t call her something in your mind?”

  “I call her Library for the Lost. I’m literal that way.”

  Persephone’s lips betrayed her by curving. “And you said the library might help me?”

  He nodded. “She has the power to do so, if she deems it, but you’ll have to prove your intent is true.”

  “Does the library know about visions?”

  Dorian winced. It was so quick, the pinch of skin around his eyes and mouth, that Persephone wasn’t entirely certain she hadn’t imagined it.

  “She knows many things.”

  Persephone sighed, and ran a hand threw the tangled ends of her hair. “And the library wants to give me a test?”

  “Something like that.”

  She crossed her arms. “I hate to point it out, but that sounds pretty stereotypical of a library.”

  He gave a low chuckle that made her stomach flip in the most delicious way. “Bet you wish you’d studied.”

  Persephone gave her head a shake, and rubbed her hands against her crossed arms, letting her fingertips linger on the worn fabric of the oversized shirt Dorian had lent her. It was once linen or something equally stiff and abrasive, but time and the contours of his body had worn it velvety soft. She wondered what his smile would feel like if she held it in her hands.

  Persephone realized she was staring at him, possibly revealing too much of the longing on her face, and quickly jumped to the next question. “So the story of the library?”

  “I’m waiting for you to get the nervous energy out of your limbs.” Now he did give her a rare slash of an almost smile. “You keep tugging on the shirt and tapping your feet on the rug. I thought perhaps it best to make certain you wouldn’t dance out of here once I start.”

  Persephone dropped her hands, which had in fact been fidgeting against the fabric of the opposite sleeves. “Funny.” She leveled her gaze. “I’m here, listening, as still as tepid water.”

  Dorian’s eyebrows were dark slashes against the copper tone of his face, his eyes an indeterminate shade. Persephone wished she had years to spend studying the way the green and gray and brown flecked together. He reached out one hand to the closest shelf, and said, “Water is precisely where our tale begins.”

  Dorian lugged a book over that was the size of a small table. He opened it and Persephone blinked in surprise. It was like looking into the pool of water she’d seen during the storm. She reached forward to touch it and found the surface, which held the image of a roaring sea in motion, as solid and cold as a sheet of glass.

  “What is this?”

  “This is the story of what was. It’s the Shanachie and it may show you what has come to pass. Not quite a vision, but more of as a visual history, so to speak.”

  “What do you mean may show me?”

  Dorian didn’t look over. “I mean, just as you don’t show all sides of your person to everyone you meet the minute you meet them, a story doesn’t show all truths to each reader who reads it. You’ll find what is most prevalent to your course here.”

  “I feel like you’re having an existential argument with me over a magical tome.”

  “I’m not arguing at all, I’m explaining. You’re trying to reject my explanation.”

  Dorian’s voice had dropped an octave. It went deeper when he was irritated, and learning that thrilled Persephone. She wanted to needle him further, but then he looked over at her, and she caught the slight dimple in his cheek from where he was suppressing a smile. Her heart thunked loudly in her chest, and she forgot entirely what she had planned next to say.

  “How about I make you a deal,” he said, when she did nothing more but stare. “If I believe you haven’t been shown something important, I will tell you the parts of the story you are missing.”

  Persephone held out a hand. “Deal.”

  * * *

  DORIAN TOOK HER hand, but did not release it. Persephone savored the way her palm tingled against his.

  He cleared his throat. “This tale begins like all great tales. Once, many moons ago, the world was a simpler and more complex place.”

  As Dorian spoke, the first page of the Shanachie—if you could call it a page—rippled and shifted. Persephone went from staring at the images, to standing inside of the story. There was no shift in the fabric of worlds, no notice of going from here to there. One minute Persephone sat on the sofa, the next she stood inside a new storied world.

  Persephone caught her breath and looked down, and found her hand was still connected to Dorian’s. Dorian stood beside her, but he was a younger and rougher version of the man she’d been sitting beside only moments before. He squeezed her hand and let go.

  Dorian stepped further into the story. Persephone decided it was like watching a video game from the inside, as if a player was called in and came on screen to take his turn. Persephone was still off screen, and yet very much inside the action.

  The sea surrounding them was dark and grim. White foam tossed over deep angry water as the surface churned over and over. Dorian manned the large vessel they had boarded, a black flag flying at the mast. The upper deck of the boat smelled of fish and salt water, and Persephone plugged her nose until she lost her footing. The boat rose and fell, fighting and losing the battle against steel-armed waves. Dorian was nonplussed, focused solely on fighting for control of the current.

  “Of course he’s a pirate,” Persephone said to herself, eyeing the tattoos running along his forearms. It was the first time she’d seen Dorian without sleeves to his wrists, and she marveled at the strength in the cords of muscle as well as the extensive ink. A compass tattoo was nestled against his chest where his shirt was undone, and he looked as dangerous as the water as he called out orders to the men who rushed past.

  Suddenly a swell of a wave collapsed over the side of the boat, brushing men, casks, and ropes into the sea. Dorian didn’t pause.

  “Avast ye,” he yelled, taking to the main sails. “Pull!”

  The crew responded, all men on deck, scurrying in his wake, pulling and pushing, tugging and freeing ropes and pulleys as Dorian commanded. He called orders as he navigated the waters, taking control of the wheel. His men were left to fight the depths as the boat sailed on.

  Dorian was ruthless in his approach, and it both chilled and excited her. Persephone started to cross to him, when she heard the steady thump thump, thump thump, from beneath the floorboards. Persephone had to remind herself that she was here to see what had happened. This, presumably, was the ship showing her the way. Listening intently, she turned and walked in the direction of the stairs, away from a struggling but arrogantly determined Dorian. Down she went into the belly of the boat, seeking the steady thump thump.

  Persephone navigated the final step only to stumble her way down a narrow and shaky corridor. In the last quarters, at the very end of the hall, a red door waited. She hesitated, but opened it, the rough seas throwing her forward as it swung wide.

  Cursing as she tumbled headfirst ins
ide, Persephone fell onto the cluttered planked floor. The door swung shut behind her and the rocking of the boat ceased.

  There was a hush in the room, and Persephone swallowed as she took stock of the objects before her. Piled along the floor, and covered by tattered oilcloths, was a sea of bric-a-brac. In the center of the assorted items, like a lighthouse beacon, a light blinked on.

  Thump thump, thump thump.

  Persephone dusted herself off and stood. She was careful to navigate the edges of the room, but even so her arm caught on a cloth as the boat rocked side to side, and she unraveled a section. As the dusty covering fell away, her mouth ran dry.

  Gemstones of smooth and rough surfaces, large and small sizes lay before her. Behind them were musical instruments, books of various sizes, potions in a crate, masks that had her backing up a step, and a collection of weapons, chalices, and what looked to be decorative swords drawing her nearer.

  Her palms itched with power. “It’s a magical treasure trove,” Persephone said, spying a waterlogged crate in one corner. Beyond it, she estimated there were ten casks or so more. There were tridents and knives so aged and worn they looked like they’d been stolen from a mermaid’s palace. Persephone tiptoed through the array of jewels, barely able to resist the urge to scoop them up and place them in her shirt.

  Maybe she could. Perhaps that meant they were free to take.

  “And perhaps they can keep you here.”

  Persephone stopped moving, and looked around. “Dorian?”

  There was no reply.

  Persephone took a light step forward, waited, but no one spoke. Instead sound rushed back into the room, the boat rocked again, and she braced her feet.