“But I’m fine. It’s just…you’re hurt. Abbi. And Lawrence is… It’s nothing I can’t handle.”
“Breathe,” I said. “We have time.”
She glanced over at the unit, then closed her golden eyes. She inhaled, exhaled, both slowly. After a few breaths, her shoulders softened, and she nodded. “I’m okay.” She opened her eyes, and the sun rose in them. “Let’s get the item, the illusion, and get out of here.”
The fire was down to the occasional flame, ceiling sprinklers having drowned out the worst of it. The stink of wet charred wood and metal and other fried material was overwhelming. I had to take shallow breaths through my mouth to keep from choking on it.
“I don’t know what kind of illusion is gonna hide this mess,” I said.
Lu squinted at the darkness. Something inside fell and landed with a wet plop. “I think we have the wool carder and spindle in there.”
“Not sure we have time to weave a rug.”
She gave a quick shake of her head. “We should be able to pull a thread or two over the doorway and make it seem like nothing happened.”
“Literally pulling the wool over their eyes? How is that even a real spell?”
Her smile was small, but real. “All the old sayings and rhymes were about magic. You know that.”
I did know that, but it was good to make her smile.
She poked a finger into my chest. “Stay out here. This will only take me a few seconds.”
“No.”
“Brogan. Your head. Your lungs. Your ankle.”
“All of them good enough for me to not let my wife go alone into a dangerous, burned storage room filled with powerful, and possibly damaged or compromised magical items.”
“Faster,” she jerked a thumb toward her chest. “Breathe less, better night vision.”
A helicopter’s blades thumped through the sky. Maybe coming this way, maybe not. But it put a point on us getting on with it.
“How about if I just come in a short distance? Just inside the doorway.”
“If I’d known how bullheaded a man you were…” Lu started.
“You’d have married me sooner,” I finished.
“Yes,” she said, because this was a truth we never took for granted. “I would have.”
I followed. The stink was ten times worse inside the unit.
I put my arm over my mouth, and Lu pointed to the back left corner of the building. “That’s where it used to be. I’ll go that way and be right back.”
She disappeared into the shadows and gloom. I waited a heartbeat, right inside the doorway as I’d promised, then I started off to the right. There were some very valuable things on this side of the unit. And one particular thing I wanted to see for myself.
It was dark, but my vision adjusted so long as I kept blinking to clear tears. The thump and scratching sounds of Lu dragging finds around, maybe even digging out the wool carder and spindle, filtered over the clicking and dripping of combustibles shedding ash and water.
I stepped over a burned out box of clothing, turned my shoulders sideways, and squeezed through the space between two shelves that had toppled in toward each other. I found what I wanted on the other side of those shelves. Books.
Lu had boxes and totes of books. Each book had been wrapped carefully in paper, cloth, or that plastic bubble wrap. Not every book was magic. Some were rare editions, or oddities that she’d bought on a whim.
But most of the books contained spells, diagrams, and other arcane knowledge.
The intruder, because now I could say without a doubt there had been one—
—sharp teeth and cardboard eyes, delight amidst the chaos—
