Page 25 of Tall, Dark and Haunted

The guys look ready to run, but she shakes her gray head. “Look, dears, none of us want to turn you back into ghosts. We all feel really bad about this. I just don’t think anyone has a choice. If the town isn’t returned to New York, and soon, humans will take notice. They’ll figure out supes exist. They’ll panic. It could lead to wars. Or worse.”

“We don’t want to keep the town here… we just want to find a way to keep living.”

“If there’s a way, the coven will find it.”

“We can’t just rely on some coven,” Davy cries. “We have to do something.”

“Please keep your voice down. This is a library,” Violet tells him. “And I do understand. I’ll help you find whatever books you’re looking for.”

“And you won’t turn us in?” I ask hopefully.

She shakes her head. “My mate, Liam—he’s a cop on the force—said that—”

“Liam’s your mate?” I gape at her. The old lady is mated to a twenty-something year old? “Or is there an older Liam—”

“Nope, that’s the one.” She starts to laugh and shifts—into the young curly-haired woman we saw earlier. Her voice is a lot younger and higher pitched as she adds, “Sometimes I like to look older at work. Helps people take me more seriously.”

“You’re a chameleon?” I ask.

She nods. “Anyway, Liam said Deputy Dragon—I mean the deputy mayor—called off the search for you guys.”

“She did?” I perk up.

She sighs. “The coven informed her that it doesn’t matter where you are when the spell is cast. You’ll get sucked back to the castle from wherever you are and still become ghosts.”

My heart squeezes into my chest, but Topher straightens his shoulders. “Then we better start looking through every book there is. Because if there’s one thing I’m not doing, it’s returning to being a ghost, especially not when I just found my mate.”

He wraps his arm around me, and Davy quickly rushes to my other side and tries to pull me away.

Red coughs. “At this rate, we’re not going to find those books. We’ll just end up spending an eternity arguing.”

He’s right, so we get to work with Violet’s help.

Most of the afternoon passes in a blur as we look through every book she recommends. We keep at it until our backs ache, our eyes blur, and our stomachs hurt from hunger. And our hearts hurt. Because there’s no way we’ll be able to stay alive.