"Since midnight."
"And the choreographed book attacks?"
Hazel blinked. "How did you?—"
"Because I've been waiting for this particular mess for about three years." Zelda pulled a chair from the nearest reading tableand sat like she was settling in for a board meeting. "This isn't random magical discharge. The grimoire is seeking its paired practitioner."
Behind them, the front doors opened a third time. Nate walked in carrying a black case of containment equipment, his jaw tight. His eyes found the destruction, then found Hazel, and something in his expression shifted from professional to personal before he locked it back down.
"I got the emergency call. What happened?"
"Take a number." Fabio swept his tricorn toward the chaos. "The line for explanations starts behind me."
Mrs. Shufflewick materialized from between the stacks. Gone were the velvet robes—she'd cycled into something crisp and military: a pressed intelligence officer's uniform complete with insignia that didn't belong to any branch Hazel recognized. A clipboard had appeared in her hands, dense with charts.
"The magical resonance data clearly indicates synchronized bio-rhythmic patterns between subjects." She thrust the clipboard toward Zelda. "I've been documenting ambient magical frequencies since the initial incident. When Investigator Holloway touched the Codex alongside Miss Pembroke last night, the harmonic output tripled.Tripled."
Zelda scanned the charts. One auburn eyebrow rose.
"Well. That settles that."
"Settleswhat?" Hazel and Nate said simultaneously, then looked at each other with matching expressions of irritation.
Mac set down the containment equipment and started unpacking ward stones, arranging them in a precise grid around the main desk. His hands moved with quiet efficiency while his sapphire eyes tracked every corner.
"Hazel, dear." Zelda set down the clipboard. "You're only half of the equation that's been building since this town was founded."
"That's not an explanation. That's a fortune cookie."
"Acorrectfortune cookie." Zelda's smile carried no apology. "Mrs. Shufflewick's data confirms what the Codex already knows. You two—" She pointed between Hazel and Nate. "—are a resonance pair. Guardian and Enforcer. The artifact chose you both."
Nate's hand stilled on a ward stone. "I'm not naturally gifted. Paired practitioner dynamics require?—"
"They require complementary magic and emotional synchronization. Not a pedigree." Zelda stood. "Congratulations. You're partners. Officially. As of now."
Mac finished the last ward stone. The grid hummed to life, and the pressure in the room dropped. He caught Hazel's eye and offered the smallest nod—it's solid.
Hazel looked at Nate. Nate looked at Hazel. The Codex pulsed once, warm and golden, against her chest.
"I hate fortune cookies," she muttered.
The ward grid'shum settled into background noise, and Hazel drifted toward the stacks to reshelf a pile of wayward encyclopedias. The Codex rested in its bag on the main desk, still warm but quiet now—a sleeping thing instead of a screaming one.
Between the tall cedar shelves of the history section, green eyes caught the light.
Raven sat on a high shelf, her sleek black form perfectly still except for the tip of her tail, which twitched with the controlled irritation of a metronome set tofurious.
Below her, arranged in a semicircle around a gap in the bottom shelf, three cats stared at the space where Jinxie hadbeen sitting thirty seconds ago. Delilah's three-legged calico had vanished—typical Jinxie—but her audience hadn't moved.
Fat Bastard, gray with his white tummy pressed against the hardwood, let out a long sigh that rippled his considerable belly.
"The three-legged goddess speaks wisdom to we's mere mortals."
"She didn'tsayanything." Raven's voice cut through the stacks like a letter opener. "She sat on a heating vent and licked her paw."
"Poetry." Jango Fett's calico face wore the dopey expression of a creature who'd been hit with a charm spell, except no spell was responsible. His double chin wobbled. "Pure poetry, that's what it was."
Boba Fett, white with gray splotches, nodded slowly. "She's got that thing, you's know? That thing where she looks at you's and you's forget you's own name."
