by Kathryn Moon
We turned down the stairs hand in hand and Callum led me midway down the hall to a rosy orange room where Aiden was seated at a massive, glossy, black piano. The music was airy, skipping and trilling, and I watched his hands for a moment wondering how hands so large could play so lightly. Isaac was sitting cross legged with a sketchbook in his lap, in the middle of a long brown couch. Callum joined him, leaving a gap between them just large enough for me. They were ready as I approached, Callum twisting and reaching out to settle me against his chest and Isaac, dimples sharp in his smile, pulling my legs up to drape over his. Aiden’s playing deepened and all the nervous tension in me fled away.
I would let myself enjoy this, this impossible thing, for the evening at least.
15. Joanna
“We really shouldn’t be doing this,” I whispered. But I didn’t get up from Isaac’s lap, tucked away together in a corner of the staff library, and I didn’t pull my arms from around his neck.
The coven had found ways of keeping me company for over a week now; bumping into me on campus or appearing in the library in the evening to walk me home. Isaac was especially good at finding excuses. I was especially good at playing along with them.
“I could argue,” he said, trailing kisses up the side of my jaw before continuing, “That you shouldn’t be loitering in the library so late.”
“I’ve got a better reason than you,” I said, grinning and tapping my forehead to his.
“You had a better reason. Now you’re canoodling. Woollard hates canoodlers.” And then he kissed me, fingers digging into the short hair at the back of my neck. I swallowed my groan and wondered how easy it would be to get a massage from Isaac. Probably very.
“I caught Woollard canoodling last week,” I whispered against Isaac’s lips and he pulled away, eyes wide with surprise. “She and Bryce were having lunch together in the lounge.”
“You’re on first name terms with Gast too?” he asked eyebrows raising.
“We didn’t speak much but I had dinner with the coven a couple weeks ago.”
Isaac swallowed, leaning back, his head thunking against the wall.
“What?” I asked and bent to kiss the cord muscle at the side of his throat.
“They may as well have offered you an invitation into their coven,” he said.
I made a rude sound and rolled my eyes. “They already have a finished coven.”
“That doesn’t mean you couldn’t have a place in it if you wanted,” Isaac said. His smile quirked at the corner and his arms wrapped tighter around my back as I mulled it over. I suppose I had heard of a coven of more than four, although generally only in stories. “They’re a better offer than we are,” he said watching my face. But he didn’t look nervous as I glared down at him.
“I think Gwen was just being friendly,” I said. “They all were. Even Bryce, who terrifies me.”
“Bryce terrifies everyone but their own coven,” Isaac said. “Gwen terrifies everyone but her own coven for that matter. I’ll warn Aiden and Callum of our competition.”
“Don’t you dare,” I said, bending and nipping at his chin until he was grinning. “Aiden will take it as an excuse to come around here and start harassing Gwen…and me.”
Isaac laughed beneath me, stretching up for a smooth, pulling kiss that was sure to lead to another…
And then the library CRACKED! all around us, one enormous groan of wood and screech of glass and iron.
The lamps went out with a spitting noise and an electric burn in the air. Isaac jumped up, arms like a vice around me, and twisted us so I was behind him. He seemed to grow, shoulders broadening and back tightening and I stood on my tiptoes to see, but the library was shadowy beyond us. Isaac’s hand sought mine behind his back and I gripped it tight, holding my breath in the following silence.
“Do you want to stay-?” he started.
“With you,” I said.
The air turned muggy and warm around us as if a thick coating of mist had crawled over shelves and risen up from the floor. It was cloying and dusty in my mouth, like candy left out too long to the air and it scratched down my throat as I swallowed. Below us the library took a collective gasp, every book seeming to shudder on its shelf and a great moaning came from dozens of voices like a chorus.
“Students,” I whispered, and my heart was rattling in my chest like a wild animal.
Isaac’s hand squeezed mine and I guided him forward, through the weave of shelves to the dark stairs. We were running down the flight, just reaching the landing, when a terrorized scream whipped through the air. The sweet fog was sliced and the sound cut at my ears and Isaac stopped in his tracks, pressing me back against the wall. My free hand gripped at my skirt and I felt the chalk stick waiting in my pocket, a thought clamoring forward.
Isaac released my hand, turning, and took my face clumsily in his hold. A kiss landed high on my cheek, over the bridge of my nose, and then hard against my lips.
“Stay here, go back up stairs, climb out the window,” he rushed, the words as quiet as he could make them. “I’m going down but I need you to get out, alright? Get help, but get out safely, Joanna.”
A part of me wanted to protest but the other part was slipping my hand into my pocket, a plan racing to piece itself together.
“Be careful,” I whispered.
“Callum will be on his way,” Isaac said, as if it were a promise of rescue.
And then he let go of me and in four steps he was lost in shadow. I didn’t run. I crouched down to the ground, feeling at the floor for the edge of the stair carpeting, for the stretch of clean wooden floor boards. I pulled the chalk from my pocket and it almost glowed in my hand, clean and white. There was another scream from downstairs, another cracking groan of wood and the floor shook against my knees. I set the chalk to the wood grain, squinting to try and see in the dark.
THE LIBRARY I scratched out in blocky, jagged letters, and then the glass roof in the lobby screeched, plates grinding together, and there was a high sprinkling sound. My arms ached and the chalk slipped in my fingers and my breath was short as if writing the words cost me physical effort. IS came with my vision spinning in front of me.
“Joanna!” Callum’s voice, deeper and harsher, came ringing out from the heart of the library.
“Callum. Here, quickly!” I heard Isaac’s voice and let my eyes fall shut with relief. I forced my hand to shape the A on the wood, messy and crooked but solid. A headache like an axe split through my skull and I found myself breathing through my teeth, ignoring the shouting from downstairs.
For every letter I managed another symptom rose up, my skin breaking into a thin sweat or my stomach cramping or the walls seemed to bend forward to crush me. SAFE looked like a child who was only just learning their letters had written it. I got as far as PLA- and then I was on the floor on my side with my hand as hot as flames, fingers twitching and burning where I squeezed the chalk. I twisted out a C with tears streaking out of my eyes and the shouts from the lobby banging like the beat of drums in my ears. But with the last four scratches of chalk on the floor everything released like a great pop of pressure.
The front doors banged and the walls and floor rattled in response, shallow and harmless now. The lamps flickered back to life, dim but warm and yellow. I could hear the sobs of students downstairs as my head cleared, still throbbing but at least not feeling stabbed at every second. The floorboards rattled again, now with a clamor of steps running up the stairs, familiar voices echoing with my name in the mix.
I pushed myself up to sitting, my arms wobbling and my breath short, with the white words scribbled on the floor at my side.
THE LIBRARY IS A SAFE PLACE
Isaac and Callum came skidding and tripping around the corner of the staircase and Callum grabbed at the other man by the scruff of his neck before he crashed to the floor, right into my work.
“Don’t mar the words,” Callum barked, all the edges of his face sharpened into something ferocious and unfam
iliar to me. He looked up the steps where Isaac and I had come from, eyes narrowed as he held still for a long moment.
Isaac landed at my other side, arms pulling me in by my shoulders and tucking my face under his chin. He smelled like ash and copper.
“Witch,” he murmured into my hair, turning the word into something reverent.
Warm hands wrapped over the tops of my knees and I shifted, Isaac loosening his hold, so I could see Callum kneeling in front of me.
His gaze was sharp on my face, studying me in fast flicks of his eyes. “Are you alright?” he asked.
“It’s-” my voice scratched and I swallowed, mouth dry, before trying again. “It’s never hurt before to write. Did it…was that happening to you too?”
Isaac’s hands were soothing my hair away from my face, his nose pressed to my temple, as Callum stared back at me.
“Some,” he said, and the strain in him eased as he rested in front of me. “It would have targeted you when it felt the spell start.”
“I asked you to run,” Isaac said, tipping my chin up to see the worry digging lines across his forehead and between his eyebrows, jaw ticking with tension.
“This is big magic,” Callum more to himself than to us. “That may have contributed to strain.”
“It’s my library, and I had an idea” I said to Isaac, and then looked to Callum to ask, “Is it a ward?”
Callum shook his head, staring at the words. His fingers were tracing circles over my knees, drawing up a sweeter trembling feeling in my skin. “Wards can’t kick something out once it’s already in. Although it will act as one now as long as it isn’t erased. Can you stand?”
As soon as I moved, they were lifting me up. My legs felt shaky and weak but I was fairly sure that if Isaac took his arm from my waist I would stay standing. Not that he seemed about to.
“I can manage,” I said. “What happened downstairs? Was anyone hurt?”
Their faces were grim and Isaac looked away, swallowing and paling almost to green.
“I’m going back down to take care of it,” Callum said. “Isaac will take you home.”
He lifted his hand from my elbow up to the back of my neck, bending to kiss my cheekbone and then lingering there as I argued. “I’m staying to help, there’s going to be…sweeping. Or something. I heard glass breaking and…” I swallowed, thinking of their faces and what they hadn’t said. Someone was hurt. “I want to help,” I added, quietly.
“You’ve helped,” Isaac said. “And you’re exhausted.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re aching,” Callum said, hand sliding down to my back and leading us to the steps. “And still shaking.”
“Alright, listen-” I started. There was a hiccup in my voice but I was ready to have this fight.
But then Aiden came thundering up the steps, the whites of his eyes wide and his warm dark skin turned gray. He had me scooped up in his arms before the others had time to let go of me. And then he was pulling Callum and Isaac in by their shirts too until I was smashed between the three of them in an embrace. The knot in my throat released and tears spilled out of my eyes. I pressed them into Aiden’s shirt.
“They said a librarian had been killed,” Aiden croaked from above.
“What?” I asked, squirming. I found Isaac’s eyes, as wet as mine and still creased with worry. “…Who?”
“Cecil Pincombe,” Callum said, voice nearly muted against my hair.
My stomach turned and now I was sure my legs would not work.
“When we get downstairs, don’t look,” Callum told me. “Keep your eyes down until you get outside.”
I opened my mouth to answer but I couldn’t think of a word.
“Woollard arrived. Gast is outside, guarding,” Aiden said. “They’ve gotten the students out and to medical.”
“Gwen,” I whispered, although I wasn’t sure that anyone heard me. I was set back on my toes but I didn’t feel them beneath me and between Aiden and Isaac they had such a tight hold on me it didn’t matter. Callum stopped at the bottom of the steps.
“I’m warding the stairs until Gwen can do something to preserve your words,” he said. His hands framed my face and his head bent, filling my liquid gaze as he pressed a long kiss to the center of my forehead. “You saved us,” he whispered.
Not Cecil Pincombe, I thought. Callum’s words felt like a bad joke.
And then I saw Gwen, over Isaac’s shoulder, standing in front of the library doors and looking half lost. There was an explosion of charred books at her feet mixed with wood and glass shards. Overhead, most of winter and part of spring had been torn out of the stained glass ceiling. I tugged my way out of Isaac and Aiden’s hold and rushed across the tile to her.
I saw it out of the corner of my eye. Just a piece, unrecognizable and bloodied, near the circulation desk—now a shattered, torn thing, raw wood exposed and smoking like coals. What Callum didn’t want me seeing. Smeared like waste at the belly of the room.
I fixed my eyes to Gwen and she turned at my approach, overturned and scorched bookshelves all around us. The other two night staff were standing behind one, out of sight of the circulation desk, arms around each other as the younger woman cried.
Gwen stared at me as if she didn’t recognize me. But then she blinked and said, “I told you there’s no good in staying after your shift.”
I paused in place at that, hearing footsteps catch up to me, and Gwen covered her face with her hand and shook her head.
“Excuse me,” she whispered, and twisted herself toward me, turning away from the giant wound in the library. “I’m glad you’re safe.”
“What can I do to help?” I asked.
“Joanna, you need to rest,” Isaac said, arriving behind me.
“He’s right,” Gwen said, taking my hand to squeeze it. “I’ll need my staff tomorrow morning. Tonight I need him,” and she pointed past us all to where Callum was striding across the tile, head up and shoulders straight. He looked ready for battle and I wondered how well he knew his subject. He was too young to have served in the war but if he’d been in an army…
“I want your best wards, Pike,” Gwen growled.
“You have better now,” he said. “Joanna wrote on the floorboards. That’s why the library is still standing.”
Gwen reeled back for a moment before falling forward, small arms snaking around my shoulders. My poor bones ground together in her grip but I was grateful for the hug all the same.
“Oh, you silly girl,” she muttered in my ear. She released before I could answer, smoothing at her skirts and lifting her chin. “Hildy should be able to fix it to the building. Joanna, go home and rest. I’ve got plans for you in the morning.”
My objections faded with the exhaustion that was building like a brick wall in my body. I wobbled and Isaac was behind me.
“Walk with them to the house and then come back?” Callum asked Aiden.
“Bryce can walk them home and then fetch Hildy,” Gwen said. “I need your help now before more faculty arrives.”
No one argued with Gwen. Callum’s hand brushed at my back, leaving a tingling warmth before he was striding over to where the rest of us refused to look. Aiden pulled me into another bone crushing hug and I took a deep breath of him, and then Isaac was pulling me outside.