“Yes.”
“Haven’t met him.”
“He recently came back into her life,” Lu said.
“But he’s a wizard, right?”
“Half-dryad wizard.”
“Huh.Well, I’m not inclined to believe he showed up here minutes after we did by accident,” Pamela said.
“Don’t let him in,” I said.“It might be an illusion.”
“Not even my tenth rodeo, Brogan.We have ways to see what he really is.Hold tight.”
She jogged back into the building, taking the crystal with her.
I wanted to follow her but didn’t want to leave Abbi and the book alone.
“You folks worried about leaving the book out here?”Elmer asked as he came down the stairs like he was a man in his fifties, not his eighties.
“Yes,” Lu said.
“I’m not thrilled about it either.How about we use this to take it to the safe room?”He pulled a black cloth out of his pocket and flapped it in the air.“This whole place is a vault, but that safe room doesn’t even register as a blip on this Earth.”
“Shadow cloth!”Abbi said.“I like those.Here, let me.”
Elmer gave her the cloth.She opened the tool box and retrieved the witch’s box with the book hidden inside.
She wrapped the cloth around the box, and the hissing I’d been hearing for days stopped.
I stuck a finger in my ear and jiggled it.“You hear that?”I asked Lu.
“No?”
“Neither do I.”I hadn’t realized the book had been making noise—the slightest whispering, like water over stones, or the shift of sand under foot.It had been so subtle, I hadn’t realized how constant it was.
“It makes a sound,” I said.“It’s quiet now.”
“That cloth smothers any magic it touches,” Elmer said.“Got it off an old witch who’d once hunted the Strange.”
Abbi clambered out of the truck, the box in her arms.“Maybe we should do it fast.”
“Let’s go then.”Elmer jogged up the stairs, Abbi on his heels.
Lorde jumped out of the truck and came over to Lula and me, asking for head scratches.She wasn’t frightened or on guard anymore, which was a good sign for a dog who had been around a lot of magic and knew what danger looked like.
She bounded after Abbi.
“Thoughts on the place?On Cardamom?”I asked Lu, as we climbed the stairs again.
“They haven’t let him in yet,” she said.“They’re cautious, which is good.You can really hear it?The book?”
“I could.It’s a hiss, or a whisper.Like static.But it’s silent under the shadow cloth.”
“So, they have strong magical items and the knowledge of how to use them.I like that, too.”
“Are we staying?”
