Phantom of the Library - Lidiya Foxglove Page 0,61

the Ethereal Library in London and he’s been finding the covenants that bound familiars to their masters. Based on what you told me, I think he will reconfigure the spells and force every familiar back to their master, cutting off your allies. Then he will come for you and this spell of yours. But in my opinion, it is unacceptable for my daughter to lose to a cousin. You need to stop him before he comes to you.”

“He already had one of the covenants. He forced his own familiar back to his side. Remember Chester?”

“The sugar glider?” Mom laughed.

“Mom, don’t laugh. Jeez, it’s no wonder Piers became a psychopath when everyone made fun of his familiar. You’re all part of the problem.”

“Oh, please, a real man can handle a little teasing,” Mom said.

I rest my case, I thought, but I wasn’t going to argue with her. At least she was willing to tell me what was going on in the wizard world. “So he’s at the Ethereal Library in London?”

“Yes,” she said. “You won’t be welcome there, so be careful. I always told you children to finish what you start.”

That was definitely what I liked about my mother. She didn’t tell me not to go. She didn’t even ask me if I was going. She just assumed that I would follow through.

The only problem: did I want to drop this project, fly to London, and meet Piers on his own turf? Was that even a good idea whatsoever?

If I don’t stop him, all those poor familiars will have to go back to their masters…

But if I do go, I’m putting us in way more danger than if we just stayed here under the shelter of a protection spell…and no one is up for that sort of fight except Byron. I can’t even tell Jake, Jasper and Graham. I would have to go to London without even saying goodbye.

And there was a good chance I might never come home.

“Damnit…” I knew what a brave, honorable heroine would do, but I never asked to be that brave or that honorable. I just wanted to put in a good day’s work. It wasn’t fair that I had to die just because other wizards were cruel to their familiars.

“You okay, Hel?” Billie called, walking up the sidewalk at a leisurely pace behind me. “Are you off the phone?”

“Yeah.”

“Is everything good with your ‘mother’?”

“It’s…fine, I guess. I just want some lunch and then I’ll get back to the, uh, closet hardware I was installing.” But it also sounded so meaningless right now that I could hardly remember what I was doing.

Damnit, damnit, damnit.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Bevan

“This is how I make the poultice. We separate the roots from the leaves. The roots are boiled. The leaves get pulverized raw.” I dumped a handful in a mortar and pestle as Jenny watched my every move.

She sniffed the pulp. “They smell so nice.”

“You think so? They’re pretty bitter.”

“I just like how fresh green things smell.”

“You are a garden toad,” I said.

“And you’re a sky creature. That must be so fun.”

“It’s extremely fun. Maybe you could fly with me if you trust me to hold you in my toes.”

She shook her head quickly. “I don’t think I do.”

“Ah, well. Your loss, then.”

“No one wants to see a splatted toad!”

“I wouldn’t splat you. Do I look like a man who would let something happen to my passenger?”

She studied my face like she was seriously considering it and then shook her head. “But still…no.”

I liked the way her hair was messy and always falling in her eyes. I liked her long lashes. And was it even right for a toad to have such clear skin in human form? She was just too pale. I think she might have had naturally olive-hued coloring, prone to a tan in the garden sunshine, but instead she looked like she had never seen the sun in her life. When she’s well enough to move, I’ll get her out as much as possible.

“Next, I add some aloe. It’s especially good for burns, as you probably know. But I really like how soothing it is in any healing balm.”

“It looks very spiky.”

“Jenny, really. Don’t tell me you’ve never seen aloe before?” I trimmed off the spiny edges and sliced the leaf open, revealing the wet, jelly-like inner leaf.

“Ohhh. No. I don’t think I have ever seen the inside like that.”

“Your wizard must have had a garden, and you are the perfect garden familiar. It’s criminal that you don’t know