Life's A Witch by Amelia Ash & Kim M. Watt

Author:Amelia Ash & Kim M. Watt [Ash, Amelia & Watt, Kim M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sterling & Stone
Published: 2024-09-27T00:00:00+00:00

FIFTEEN

Fancy seeing you here

“Morgan? Are you alright?” From the tone of Connall’s voice, and the way Ruiner was pointedly nudging my arm, he’d already asked me more than once.

“What? No. I mean, yes.”

“Lost you there for a moment.”

“Just thinking about the whole exile thing. That’s pretty wild.”

He shrugged, taking another biscuit. “Everything’s a bit wild in magical towns, I think.”

“Have you been to a lot?”

“Not that many. Anyhow — what’re you doing in Darrowdale if you’ve not been turfed out?”

Ruiner abandoned my arm in favour of digging his claws into my jeans again, and I breathed out slowly, still wondering about town witches. Asking specifically seemed like a good way to raise half a dozen alarm bells, though. “Just finding out where I fit, I guess. A friend of mine used to come here sometimes. Might still do.”

“Oh? Hoping to find them?”

“I’d like to.” I took my phone out and showed Jason’s photo to Connall.

He peered at it for a moment, then shook his head. “Don’t know him. But people who visit Darrowdale aren’t usually after library books. You should ask at the Crafty Cauldron. The town witch usually knows everyone who’s coming and going.”

“Good to know.” I pocketed the phone, trying to ignore the twist in my stomach. It had been a good thing the shop was shut. What if we’d just walked straight into Edith? Not that I knew she’d be town witch, of course. Presumably there had already been a town witch when she arrived, so maybe she wasn’t one at all. Maybe I was jumping to conclusions based on nothing but panic. Like coming here. I’d been silly to think I’d find Jason’s trail at a library, of all places. And if my main reason had been to be soothed by the books, that hadn’t worked so well either. “Do you like living here?”

“Sure,” he said, scraping some words that were spilling out of a dictionary off the table and trapping them back inside it. “I mean, head librarian jobs are really hard to come by, so I’m pretty lucky. But also it’s pretty cool. Where else do you have to chase books back to their sections?” He grinned at me, wide and infectious, and I found a smile somewhere in return.

“Does that cancel out the risk of being held hostage by books for the weekend?”

“Mostly.” He pointed at my mug. “Want another?”

“No thanks.” I got up, Ruiner jumping back to my shoulder with far too much familiarity. “I should go. Poke around a bit more.”

“Sure. Let me know if you need a local guide. I close up at six.”

“Thanks.”

Connall led us back through the dimly lit stacks to the main lobby, where he picked some yellow and black caution tape up off the desk and waggled it at me. “I’d better seal off those books.”

“Better do.” I pointed vaguely upwards. “Who’s singing?”

He cocked his head as if hearing it for the first time. The singer had moved on from “Faith” to “Manic Monday,” the sound faint, as if they’d drifted deeper into the building.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.