Page 92 of The Spellreader and the Phoenix

Unfortunately, it was a possibility that they had to be prepared for. The Spell might smooth away the time from them getting upstairs until now. They had to interact all the time with normal people who didn’t know anything about them. Max had managed it just fine with the group up to this point. But it felt all kinds of weird now.

The dancing ash started to glow, so softly that Max wasn’t certain at first, but now it was bright enough that there was no mistaking it. The ash was giving off its own light. It felt warm, not physically, but like it was trying to reassure Max that everything was fine.

Max had clearly lost the plot a while back.

He looked at the group still clustered around him, marveling at the fact that so many of them were in the know about magic. If only they’d all been aware of the truth, they could have supported one another all this time. Instead, only David had known their statuses, and he’d carefully hidden everything because he was busy investigating people and then trying to pretend it had never happened.

Ugh. This was a total mess.

Sam hurried after Tom, and David stared out the door with bleak and desperate eyes, like he wanted nothing more than to chase after her.

“How much longer will the bad guy be unconscious?” Max wanted to know.

David sighed, his gaze moving from the door to the assailant. “I hit them with a professional-grade stunning spell. They’ll stay unconscious unless I lift the spell. The failsafe is twenty-four hours.”

Wow. Yeah, that was a strong spell. Well, at least they didn’t have to worry about the person waking up in the middle of this. That was really the only thing that could make this more ridiculous.

Being dressed as characters from D&D really added to the experience.

The ash was getting bright faster and faster now, until it flared so brilliant a white that Max was forced to close his eyes and cover them with his hands. When the glow finally died away, Max opened his eyes.

He sucked in a sharp breath, blinking a few times, his eyes filling with tears—because the ashes were gone, and in their place was a small bird. Unlike the cardinal, this bird was small because it was a baby. It was covered in pale orange fluff that officially made it the cutest thing Max had ever seen.

“Rory?” Max whispered.

The bird chirped happily. Stella whispered, “Oh, my god,” and someone sniffled.

Max held out his hands, and the bird hopped into them, flapping his definitely-pre-flight stubby little wings a few times. Max brought the bird up to his face—where it practically fell out of Max’s cupped hands as it eagerly leaned into his neck and cuddled against him.

Max blew out an unsteady breath, adjusting his grip so that the bird—Rory—could snuggle up against him just the way he usually did. The bird was warmer than normal, but given everything that they’d just witnessed, Max was going to assume that was normal. It was impossible to explain how that small, warm body pressed against him made him feel like everything was right with the world once more.

Max leveled each of the people around him with a glare. “Until Rory has a human mouth again and we know what he wants to do about all of us knowing about this, this absolutely did not happen.” He snared David’s gaze especially and promised, “You tell the Council about this, and you will find out about all the dangerous spells I lock away.”

David huffed out a breath. “I’m a consultant, remember? And I’m not on a job right now. As far as I’m concerned, we had a very lively D&D session that got interrupted by an attempted robbery. Right?”

He looked around at everyone else, who exchanged glances and then nodded.

Stella already had her phone in her hand. (Where did she keep it in that outfit?)

“I’m texting Sam to let her know. She’ll let Tom know.”

“What are we going to do about the attacker?” David asked. He headed over and tugged the ski mask off.

“Let me see if I recognize them,” Max requested.

Stella and Edward helped him stand up, since he was still holding Rory and wasn’t totally sure if his feet would hold him. It was… good, really. He didn’t feel bad at all, but it did seem a tiny bit like he and the world were out of sync somehow. Everything was slightly strange.

Edward helped him rearrange the cloak so that it was like a skirt wrapped around him. Entering the bookshop, he peered at the man.

He was white, scruffy, and pretty nondescript. Max shrugged. Not ringing any bells.

After a moment, Alex ventured, “I think he might have been in the shop a couple times. He drank some of the coffee and ate a couple cookies.”

“Rude,” Stella drawled.

They all laughed, maybe a bit more loudly than was really called for.

“Probably casing the joint,” Max said, frowning down at him. “But even a cursory look would show that we don’t have that many expensive books here. And we take very little cash. What was the point of breaking in?”