Page 6 of The Spellreader and the Phoenix

Max had packed Hold Monster, but at the time, it hadn’t been so that his teammates could make asinine choices. Tom and David looked like they were expecting everything to go wrong.

“Okay,” Stella said, her grin promising all sorts of problems to them. “Here we go…”

Sunday, Max only had to work 11 to 5. It was usually the day where he did laundry and ran errands in the morning. He actually left the building… largely because Evie insisted it was important to do that.

Most annoying sibling in the entire world

You’re so pasty.

Max

Not all of us live in the land of sunshine and kale.

Most annoying sibling in the entire world

LOL You’re not wrong. But seriously, Max, it’s important to see the sun sometimes.

Max

I’m not a plant.

Most annoying sibling in the entire world

You’re not a vampire, either. Get outside before I hire a singing telegram to follow you everywhere and force you to flee outside in horror.

Max

I hate you.

Most annoying sibling in the entire world

I love you, too. [heart emoji]

Ugh. It just wasn’t reasonable that he really did love her.

Looking at Nōwē, he said, “Don’t tell anyone.”

His cat’s critical gaze made clear that as long as she was fed promptly with the expensive food, she’d probably keep his secrets.

Unless it served her needs better to betray him.

He sighed. “Yeah, fair.”

The bookshop had better windows for catching the sun than the apartment did, so Nōwē never minded when they headed downstairs, as long as Max didn’t forget that mealtimes were sacred.

He was getting an uptick in customers from the beginning of the school year, like people had remembered that books existed and it was important to read them. The day wasn’t busy, but it was occupied enough that he couldn’t slip into the back room for more than a few minutes, and he finally gave up and just sat up front behind the counter and tried to remember that scowling at customers was what Evie called “a deterrent to successful sales.” Whatever. This was just what Max’s face looked like. And if people really saw it as a deterrent to purchasing a book, then they probably didn’t really want it.

He did appreciate the number of parents that brought their children in, though. It was never too early to instill a love of reading in someone. There were a few who were there because the library and the internet had failed them on their upcoming school project, and Max delighted whenever he could find something that would help.

It might have led to a couple of rants about fact-checking and the spread of misinformation on the internet, but he’d kept it PG. It was important to be a critical reader. And no, it wasn’t unreasonable to teach that to a seven-year-old. Didn’t parents realize the cesspit their child had access to on the internet? Of course they needed to be taught from a young age to question and verify! Honestly. Why wasn’t there a test you had to take before you could become a parent?

He helped an older woman find a series that she remembered from her teen years, found four picture books about dogs for a very enthusiastic little boy who was planning to read to his new baby brother, managed to scrounge three mismatched copies of a book club read that the group insisted wouldn’t hinder them even though the page counts didn’t line up, logged three more requests for spells that he’d look into after closing given how the day was going, and hung up on a very aggressive guy who seemed to want Max to go through his deceased father’s book collection and return them to him, like he was a charity. Ugh.

He mostly ignored the texts from Evie, who had Sundays and Mondays off.

Most annoying sibling in the entire world

You know, normal people have at least one day off a week. Preferably two. In fact, multiple countries have been trialing a 3-day weekend model for the wellness of their employees.