Magic is dangerous… It’s been twisted into this dark version of itself somehow.
It wasn’t that Ellory hadn’t believed Hudson when he’d told her that. She just hadn’t thought magic itself would try to kill her.
The shelves emptied until the final book clattered to the ground inches away from Ellory’s leg. Tension leaked from Hudson’s body, but Ellory was on high alert. The shelves were shaking, even with nothing on them, and fear had been her friend and protector so far. When Hudson shifted to move the podium, she grabbed his sleeve.
His eyebrows lifted curiously, but before he could speak, the shelf opposite them tilted forward.
It collapsed to the ground hard enough to make her jump, taking a desk and three podiums with it. Wood panels cracked down the center. Books spilled from beneath with torn pages and bent covers. Ellory saw silver bolts in the wall, silver bolts that should have kept these shelves standing through another World War.
Then a second shelf crashed down.
“We have to get out of here,” Hudson whispered. “Someone willcome and investigate. Worse, one of the shelves is behind the glass case, and if it shatters—”
Ellory imagined trying to pick her way through sharp wood and sharper glass—if, of course, those shards didn’t end up embedded in her body. Her hand throbbed with the phantom pain from Liam’s Christmas party. “Lead the way.”
He took her hand and kicked away the podium.
Together, they ran for the doors, sliding down the back of a broken shelf as the third worked itself loose of its bolts. The books surged from the ground and followed them anew, forcing them into a zigzag pattern to avoid being struck. Ellory’s grip tightened around Hudson’s as her free hand knocked a book off course before it could smash into the back of her head. They hit the door at a run, fumbling with the handle and tumbling into the hall.
The third shelf came down, and the glass case exploded with it.
It sounded like it was hailing indoors. Crystal pieces flew everywhere, coating the floor, pitter-pattering against the window in the door, slapping the walls as though they were trying to escape. The books the case had been protecting were covered in a thin layer of glass, and the humidifier rumbled in displeasure as pieces sank into the holes on its sides.
A shadowed figure stood in the center of the destruction, hands raised as though to protect themself from a strike. Their mouth opened wide, white teeth stark against their obsidian body, and they screamed until Ellory’s ears began to ring. That scream echoed through her head, filled her chest, made her legs shake. Only her hand in Hudson’s kept her on her feet.
“What?” he asked. “What is it?”
Ellory opened her mouth to explain, only to see that the figure—the ghost—was gone.
“Are you all right?” Hudson turned her to face him. “Are you hurt?”
“I—”
“What the hell happened down here?” A Bailey librarian emerged from the elevator, her heels clacking across the floor, her eyes alight with fury. “What did you do?”
“We didn’t do anything,” Hudson said quickly. To Ellory’s disappointment, he let go of her hand. “Didn’t you feel the earthquake? It destroyed the room with us in it. We nearly died.”
“What earthquake? We’re inConnecticut.” The librarian shooed them away from the door and then gasped. “What on—how could—oh my god.”
“Unless you’re suggesting we can unbolt shelves from the wall and shatter a glass case with just our hands,” Hudson continued, unruffled, “then I think you should take us at our word. And instead of suing for reckless endangerment, I’ll see to it that my family restores this room to its former glory.”
“I—” Her hand covered her mouth. She couldn’t drag her eyes away from the window. “That would…that would be great. Are the two of you okay?”
Ellory knew the smile she gave as an answer was the wrong side of manic, but it was all that she could manage given the circumstances. She let Hudson and the librarian discuss the tentative details of the restoration on the way back upstairs so she could wring her hands in silence. Hudson had been right. Bailey Librarywasa place of magic, but that magic had become dark and dangerous. If she had come alone…
Hudson gave the librarian an actual business card and then walked out at a leisurely pace that grew urgent as soon as they had turned the corner at the end of the block. He slid in front of her before she could go any farther, his forehead creasing.
“Seriously, are you all right, Morgan? It’s not like you to be so quiet.”
The joke fell flat. Ellory shivered, her mind replaying the attack. She wrung her hands again and paused. There was a smear of crimson near the base of her palm. “What…?”
A quick check made it clear that the blood was not hers. But that meant—
Hudson rolled up his sleeve to show her his bleeding arm. There was a deep crevasse that could have been done only by a particularly sharp glass shard and a crimson scratch like he’d caught himself on one of the broken shelves. She blinked, and the red almost looked like another sleeve, there was so much blood. She blinked again, and it was bad, but it wasn’tthatbad, but he’d still gotten injured to protect her, and she didn’t know how to feel about that.
“You’rehurt,” she said numbly. “Why didn’t you tell me you were hurt?”
“It hardly matters—”
