—had torn through the books like a two-bit bargain hunter at a rummage sale. Overturned totes sat on haphazard hills of books, cardboard boxes ripped open and shredded. More books had been scattered, thrown, and kicked.
Whatever the intruder wanted, they’d thought one of these books contained it. I couldn’t tell which volume might be missing, nor if any actually were. But the charred pages and spines, and the melted remains of a gasoline can, told me this was where the fire had started.
That the books were still whole showed the strength of the magic that protected them. I stepped around the pile of books, reaching for the item I was looking for.
A plain silver letter opener with an ivory hilt, that despite its mundane design, nevertheless drew the eye to the mercury bright edge that was too sharp for something as fragile as paper.
I’d always known it was something more. Something legendary. Something deadly in the right hands.
Maybe even something deadly enough to kill the creature that hunted us.
I tucked it into my back pocket and turned.
“I saw this.” Lu appeared at my side. I thought I’d have to explain why I wanted the letter opener, but her anger was aimed at the pile of books. “I don’t know what they took.”
“I’ll give you a guess what they were looking for.”
“The spell book of the gods,” she said.
“Yep.” We hadn’t had anyone break into our storage before. Not before we’d run across that book and made our deal with Cupid.
She tugged on my elbow. “Let’s go.”
“Did you get something for Headwaters?”
She patted her front pocket. “Out.”
It was hard to leave all the books in such a state, but we needed that illusion spell in place, fast. And no matter how much I tried to ignore the pain in my head and ankle, nothing had gotten better with me tromping around.
Outside, Lu handed me the carders—two square-headed wooden brushes with metal teeth that resembled dog brushes—and a bag of wool. She kept the spindle.
I positioned myself on one side of the door, and pulled out a handful of wool, brushing it in one direction through the carders.
The zing of magic coming off of the wool and carders slithered up my arm. Good.
I gave Lu the wool, and she worked it with the spindle, twisting it into fiber, whispering the words to a quirky old spell that sounded half ballad, half nursery rhyme as she walked backward toward the other side of the doorway. The string grew long between us, stretching and twisting, tiny sparks of blue and green magic snapping brightly, and winking away.
Lu was good at the mechanics and connections of spellwork. She’d always been quick to pick up languages and nuance, better than I at both. My wheelhouse was the visual side of things and the actual writing of spells. If a magic could be seen, I’d see it. If a god power could be spotted, I’d spot it. If a spell could be drawn to hold magic, I could draw it.
We’d fallen into those talents easily and never questioned it.
Lu finished the verse and gave me a nod. I placed the carder, with the wool bitten deep into in its teeth, onto the ground, then picked up the string Lu had spun, encouraging slack so I could loop it over the edge of the broken door, then down, hooking it into a ragged burr near the bottom of the door. Then I snagged the string of wool to the top edge of the frame around the open threshold.
Lu handed me the spindle, and let the thread slip between her fingers as she began the spell again. I retraced my steps, draping the wool in the places that were the most secure, a broken spider’s web, creating an imperfect warp and weft as I went. Placing the thread was like drawing a spell, only my medium was magical wool, soaked through with Lula’s words.
I tied the spindle and the carder fibers together, knotted the wool around both, and set them on the ground just inside the unit.
Lula was on the third pass of the spell. I stood behind her, my hands on her shoulders.
Her last syllable was short and high, a bird chirp that echoed back as if she had suddenly whistled in a cave.
Magic which had been sparking sleepily woke, stretched, and inched down the strings, scenting out the pattern I’d laid, and the intent Lu and I had both poured into the work.
It needed to look the same, smell the same as it did before the fire. It needed to look like all the other units around it.
It needed to draw no attention, turn away curious eyes, dampen clever ears.
Nothing happened.
