“I’m losing it,” she said to herself, taking another step forward, careful not to fall over. “Talking to myself and imagining the objects talking back.”
“Who said anything about an object, lost girl?”
Persephone banged her shin into the chest to her right and spun around. “Okay, that’s it. Come out, Dorian.”
Persephone heard a soft laugh, and turned again. The laugh wasn’t Dorian’s. It was female.
The light in the center of the room pulsed red and she narrowed her eyes at it. Stepping high and fast, Persephone cut across the room to where the light was still hidden beneath the remaining sheet.
“I don’t have time for this.” Persephone wasn’t going to let an inanimate object, no matter how magical, mock her. She reached down, plucked the sheet up and threw it back.
Persephone’s hand flew to her neck, as she stared in shock. Beneath the blanket, blazing as red as any pulsing heart, was the hourglass she wore. It was draped over a golden telescope.
“How?” Persephone stepped forward to grab it, and the light around her neck blazed from green to gold.
“Wrong question, Persephone.”
Persephone stared down at the light shining from her chest. Golden white, brilliant and true. She looked back at the telescope. She had seen it before, looked through it. In the Library for the Lost.
What did it mean?
Persephone was careful to retrace her steps back to the front of the galley, where she peered down into the case of stones. There, nestled back in the corner, was a rose quartz. She pulled out the stone she’d tucked into the pocket of the pants Dorian lent her out. Persephone held it up. Twin stones, like the twin lockets.
Persephone gave her head a shake. She was staring at a portion of the belongings she had seen on the shelves at the Library for the Lost. Why was the library showing her this, what did it mean?
She turned and hurried back up the corridor and stairs as the boat lurched forward again. Persephone stumbled up the last of the stairs, and took one step out before her feet were swept from beneath her. It took her precious seconds to realize the boat was going down, and by the time she’d put it all together, Persephone was overboard.
* * *
PERSEPHONE SHOOK OFF the spray of chilled water and realized she was on the shore of a beach. It could be Wile Isle—long dock, white sands, storybook trees—aside from the mist blanketing it. Thick as smoke, vaguely gray in color with a hint of yellow, this mist was a menace.
Dorian, sopping wet and half drowned, lay beside Persephone. Persephone looked around for the boat as she crawled to check his pulse. She knew this wasn’t real, he’d said as much, but her stomach lurched at the sight of his face so pale. Before Persephone could reach him, he rolled onto his side and coughed up a gallon of water. Then Dorian staggered up to his feet, not seeing Persephone beside him, looking only ahead to something in the fog.
“Mr. Moskito,” a soft female voice called out from somewhere beyond the gray. “You have made it to Three Daughters, but you seem to have lost your ship.”
“It’s swimming in the depths of Davy Jones’s locker, Mayfair,” Dorian rasped, pushing his hair from his face, wringing out the edge of his shirt. “You didn’t tell me these waters were of a mind of their own. The storm took everything down.”
“The kijker?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know what that is?”
“The looking portal. Made of gold.”
“It’s all gone,” he growled out.
“And yet you managed to escape the fate of our treasures.”
He shifted his weight, wrinkled his brow even as a sneer pursed his lips. “You blame me for keeping my life?”
“I blame you for not living up to your promise.”
The woman stepped out. She was short, barely coming to Dorian’s shoulders in height, with hair the color of the new moon and posture as perfect as any company ballerina.
“A promise is not a bargain, Mayfair,” Dorian said. “I’m a private ship captain, and I privately captained my ship to my near demise bringing you treasures that the renegade Watchman in your homeland agreed don’t belong to you. I lost fifteen men before we set sail off the coast of Orkney. This voyage has cost me everything, and you’ve a mind to argue against me saving myself?”
Lady Mayfair did not move so much as an eyelash.
“What do you want me to do?” he said, his tone exasperated.
“Do?” Now Lady Mayfair smiled, and it was as sharp as a barracuda’s. “Why, Mr. Moskito, there is nothing for you to do. You have failed, and in your failure, you have cost us more than you can know. It is now in the hands of the Goddess, who controls the natural order. Yours is a debt you will have to settle with her.”
The woman turned and walked back into the fog. Dorian took a step to follow, and the ground shook. The waves from low tide surged forward, the water choppy and swirling. Like an octopus rising and releasing its tentacles, tendrils of water cascaded toward an unsuspecting Dorian. Persephone cried out, but it was no use. Persephone wasn’t really there.
The water reached like a claw for his legs, swirling around and pulling him down. Dorian tried to kick free, and the water responded by rising to his shoulders. It wrapped around his head, and tugged him off the shore and deep, down, into the inky black sea.
Persephone tried to follow after him, but she was frozen in place. Glued to the sand, paused in time.
The debt must be paid in full.
Persephone heard the voice from the boat. She saw the words it spoke written along the sand, scrawled by an invisible hand.
What you give comes back to you three times three.
Persephone watched the words wash away as new ones were written.
Until we are all freed, none shall be.
The laugh started low, a giggle of a child. It morphed into a throaty chuckle that spawned into a cackle. Persephone covered her ears as the voice went from one to two to twenty to a hundred. The voices rose and rose, laughing Persephone out of her mind.
* * *
WHEN PERSEPHONE COULD next draw a breath, she inhaled pine. Dorian’s hand was once again gripped in hers. They sat side by side on the couch in the Library for the Lost as though no time had passed.
Persephone rasped in a second, deeper breath, squeezing his hand hard. “What the hell was that?”
Dorian’s face was whiter than freshly fallen snow. His lips trembled as he struggled to find his breath. Persephone reached over and smacked him hard on the back. He coughed a handful of water onto the floor, and Persephone rubbed his shoulder until he was able to properly breathe.
The water stank of the sea. “That was real?”
Dorian released her hand and wiped his mouth. “As real as it could be.” He gave her a pained look. “Magic always takes its price.”
“And you paid for both of us.” Persephone shook her head. “You idiot. You could have just told me that you were a pirate, and not a very good one, who sunk magical items belonging to the islands. That’s what happened, isn’t it? And the island took your…”
Dorian waited for her mind to catch up to her brain. “Life,” Persephone finished. “You were drowned. You’re dead.”
The very air Persephone had been breathing caught in her lungs. It cycled up and down as she held it in, trying to make sense of the senseless.
“You’re dead and some of the items housed in the library are from your boat.” Persephone rubbed hard at her brow. “Items that sank, including the telescope you had me look through? If I’ve got that right?”
“I failed on delivering in a bargain I made.”
“With my ancestors? I’m assuming that’s who that scary woman was.”
He made noise. “Scary is one word for Marela Mayfair. I was hired to deliver magical items buried in Scotland. The Goddess needed them to place her roots, and the telescope was a gift to Marela from her lover. The Mayfairs could not bring their bounty over when they fled. I didn’t real
ize there was life magic in them.”
“Life magic?”
“It’s how the Goddess stays connected to the souls she ferrets.”
“I don’t understand.”
“When the witches were cast out of Scotland, they had to take the core of magic with them. The way to tether magic and spread it. The Goddess stores her magic in various ways. I lost the ones she needed.”
“Couldn’t she just pull the objects you lost from the sea?”
He smiled. “I asked the same question. The answer was no.” He hesitated. “Maybe she never wanted to.”
Persephone didn’t know what to say to that. If there was a grand design to all things, or if magic like life was accidental—she did not know.
“It wasn’t your fault. I saw it, the storm prevented you from making it to the island.”
“That was no storm.” Dorian sighed. “It was a curse.”
“A curse?”
“I … wasn’t going to deliver the items,” Dorian said, with a shrug. “The magic knew, that damn storm was retribution from the Goddess. This is a Library for the Lost. As I was lost to the sea, so was my bounty. The Goddess created her library to house lost or forgotten magical items, so here they came.”
“So you’re what? Cursed to be their keeper?”
Dorian lifted a shoulder, let it drop. “You could say that.”
She leveled him a look. “Worst librarian job ever.”
Persephone stood. She had to move, had to walk. The first man she really cared for was a dead man. In a library. A library lost in, what, time? Space?
She stopped pacing, turned around. “You said the library is a person.”
“A being.”
“I heard someone on the boat.” Persephone reached up and tugged at her hourglass necklace. She thought of the laughing voices. “Or many someones? I don’t know.”
Dorian winced, shifted his arms overhead as he stretched. “The library is legion.”
“It’s not biblical,” Persephone said, practically spitting the words at him, tempted to stamp a foot his direction. “How are you so calm? You just told me you’re a dead captive in a magical library lost in space.”
“I’ve been all of those things for some time.”
Persephone resumed her pacing, waving a hand at his blasé attitude. “What keeps you here in the library? The Goddess?” She squinted up at the ceiling. “Is that why I couldn’t draw you out?”
“You do love to ask your questions.”
The look she cut him had him crossing his legs.
“I can’t give you all the answers you seek.” Dorian sighed, his color returning to his cheeks as he shifted his chin onto his palm. “I’m here until my debt is paid, but I wouldn’t say I’m a prisoner. I was given a choice, and I chose this.”
“When did you make that call? Before or after the ocean swallowed you whole like the whale swallowed Pinocchio?”
“You’re comparing me to a puppet?”
“Should I have gone with Jonah?”
“I’m not biblical,” Dorian said with a shake of his head. “I’m no hero. I made my choice after the sea reclaimed me.” He stood up and limped to the closest stack, ran a hand along the sea of spines.
She studied his leg with the limp, and looked over to the fireplace. “Dorian?”
He didn’t answer right away.
She cleared her throat. “I don’t know about you, but I could use a cup of your spiced chocolate. Is that possible?”
He looked over his shoulder, surprise crossing his face. “Yes,” he nodded. “I think so.”
Dorian waved a hand, and two mugs appeared on the table closest to him. He picked them up and brought them over. His limp was even more pronounced.
He stood waiting, and Persephone blew out a small sigh before she sat. Only then did he hand her a cup and sit as well.
They drank in silence for a few minutes, absorbing the heat of the cocoa and the kick of the caffeine. Persephone tucked a leg under her and turned to him. “Do you miss it? Your old life?”
Dorian stretched his legs out in front of him. “I miss … certain aspects of that life, yes.”
“The ocean?” When he looked over, she smiled. “You looked fierce facing it, but also like, I don’t know, thrilled at the fight? Even though the ship was going down.”
“I didn’t know we would go down,” he said. “A relationship with the sea is unpredictable at best, that’s part of the draw. She’s a great seductress.”
“The ocean is female, too, like the library?”
“For me she is,” he said.
“Why did you do it? Steal all of those things. Was your job also seductive?”
“No. My job was a means to an end.” He gave a small shake of his head. “The end it brought was not the one I intended.”
“So why then?”
“Steal?”
She nodded.
“I wasn’t born noble, so I made my own way. I was good at making a plan, organizing the way to get what was needed, and doing so without being noticed.”
“You have to be bright to be a thief,” Persephone said, unable to resist the urge to lean into him.
Dorian exhaled at the brush of her shoulder. “And terribly stupid. Tempting the Goddess was a fool’s errand and I played the fool.”
She nudged him with her elbow. “Is this all really so bad?”
“There is still so much you don’t see. So much you can’t.”
“What am I missing?”
“For starters? The library,” Dorian said, rapping a knuckle against the shelf, “is not made of time.”
“So how am I here?” Persephone studied the stacks beside her, ran her fingers through where the books appeared and disappeared. “Magic?” Persephone studied the back of her hand. “I can walk through worlds, so I can enter into this one?”
“Yes.”
“And what exactly is this world?”
Dorian cleared his throat. “It is a world for the lost.”
Persephone’s shoulders drooped. “The real reason I can be here is because I am lost.”
“Are you?” He slid a hand over hers. “You haven’t asked the most important question yet.”
“How dead am I?”
“Not as dead as me.”
“Funny.”
He removed his hand. “I believe you are here because the library allows you.”
“She wants me to be here?”
“I wonder why.”
Persephone studied him, and Dorian gave a small wave at the room.
“You think the library is trying to help me?”
Dorian treated her to a rare half smile.
“Why?”
“Perhaps you’re the right witch at the right time.”
“I don’t have a use for magical items from your sunken boat, Dorian.”
He waved an arm and the corridor off the east end of the room reappeared. “The library is endless. It makes and remakes itself as it sees fit, and it stores a countless collection. Some items I know and catalogue, others are hidden even from me.”
Persephone studied the way his eyes traced the lines of her face, like he was trying to nudge her on. She thought of how she would like to free him, how she wished she could protect her cousins, free them all.
Free them. From the curse. Oh.
“Dorian, is there something specific here I need to break the curse?”
He quirked a brow, shifted his hands in front of him like he was balancing scales.
“Terrific.” More vagueness for answers. “How do I find it?”
Dorian studied the floating candles, burning in a lazy manner. He snapped his fingers and the flames flared high and bright. The room glowed so fiercely Persephone wanted to shade her eyes. Dorian grinned and the candlelight doused itself out.
“As you step out onto the way,” he said, his voice soft, “the way appears. Only you can access what you need.”
Persephone huffed, preparing to respond, and t
here was a tug in her core. She didn’t question it. Persephone reached out, and said a single word.
Meum.
Mine.
The light returned, and Persephone found herself in an unfamiliar room with a tall podium in the center. The podium was cut in the shape of a crescent moon. On it sat an aging leather-bound book with an ash tree and moon on its cover. Its pages were worn, and the color of sand. Four metal latches, rusting at the hinges, crisscrossed over its cover.
Persephone moved to it, and peered down at the inscription of a single word scrawled across the tome.
MAYFAIR
The air tasted of honey and copper, of cinnamon and nutmeg. Persephone held a hand over the book and the soft light of spirit awakened. It glowed as a soft white orb spread out into the room, illuminating the yellow of the pages.
Suddenly the book changed. The spine rotted away. On a gasp, Persephone reached out, trying to catch the pages, and they crumbled to ash.
The form shifted once more. In the place of the book sat a binder full of mismatched sheets. A stack of documents, all depicting words in various languages. Persephone’s breath caught in her chest as she tried to find a word she understood.
Then, like liquid flowing down a drain, the words swirled and the pages morphed into a newly bound book with a cover of forest green and sheets as crisp as the first leaves to fall in autumn.
“How?” she asked, and her voice trailed off into an echo.
The book rose, hovered in the air.
Pages fluttered, turning rapidly one to the next. The sound amplified into the room, and Persephone covered her ears.
When the last page settled, the book shuddered. Persephone had only a moment to react before it dropped into her hands.
The weight was substantial. She shifted and the book adjusted so that it felt no heavier than a paperback.
Persephone took a deep breath, ran a shaky finger over the front cover. She tapped one finger over the refurbished iron latches … and they glowed green. Persephone held on tighter, and the clasp unclasped.
Someone clapped from behind her, and Persephone spun around, holding the book tightly to her chest.
“Transfiguration,” Dorian said. “You are constantly full of surprises.”
The Orphan Witch Page 21