The Library, the Witch, and the Warder Read online

  He laughed in frustration. He’d known the rules since his first week as a cadet. Any warder not bound to a witch by the start of the arcane year was bound to serve Hecate’s Court for the next twelve months. “Six weeks,” he said bitterly, counting the time till Samhain, till Halloween. “Plenty of time to convince a registered witch to accept a disgraced warder.”

  Linda shrugged and said, “There are older ways.” He couldn’t completely silence his snort of disbelief. Nevertheless, she continued. “Hecate held sway long before we witches worked in covens. Make a direct pact with the goddess. Offer yourself to her service on Samhain.”

  “You’re serious,” David said.

  “I’d never joke about Hecate.” When he didn’t respond, Linda’s lips twisted in sorrow, or maybe something uglier. Pity. She sighed. “I’ll ask around some more. Maybe some crone has lost her long-time warder. Your father might have some ideas. Come to dinner tomorrow, and we can all talk together.”

  “I’ll try,” he lied.

  This time her frown was far more clear. She knew he wouldn’t be there. But she stood up, letting her jacket drape gracefully around her slim body. “Offer yourself to Hecate by Samhain, David. Make things right by then.”

  Right with George, she meant. Or right with some mystical witch who would accept his service outside of the Washington Coven, outside of Haylee’s sphere of influence. Or right with Hecate herself.

  He shivered at the notion of baring his soul to the goddess. At least Linda left before he had to lie again.

  Turning back to his computer and the stack of Request for Protection forms, he tried to convince himself things would go faster as he entered them the second time. He’d already built his warder’s bond with each item, storing the unique links in his astral memory. With luck, he could boost his statistics back to where they should be and still get home by dawn.

  Five hours and three court-enforced ergonomics breaks later, he reached for the last file. A ball-peen hammer tapped inside his forehead; he couldn’t say when its rhythm had started to match his breathing. His senses were muddied, filled with the scents and sounds and sensations of the court’s orphaned artifacts.

  But he’d proven his point to himself—to himself and to Norville Pitt. He wouldn’t be defeated by a random, unannounced change in the rules. Tapping his keyboard, he opened the final electronic form.

  Before he could make the last entry, a drumroll flooded his senses. He heard it—the thunder of kettledrums—but he felt it too, a simultaneous tug on his body and his mind, sudden and unexpected, like a sonic boom shattering his bones.

  He was being called by one of the artifacts he’d cataloged. Not one of the recent ones. Not part of the stack that blurred on the desk in front of him.

  This relic was older.

  More valuable.

  And its call was more urgent than anything he’d felt before.

  3

  David followed the fading echo of kettledrums onto the astral plane. A steel-grey thread drew him, shimmering in his second sight.

  As he yielded to the call, more information sparked along his connection to the summoning relic. The drumbeat was linked to wooden boards bound in leather, covering parchment pages that rippled with age. Without conscious effort, he realized the volume was the medieval Compendium Magicarum.

  He’d set the bond years ago, in one of his earliest studies as a cadet. Now the amplified drums resonated inside his head, repeating and radiating with the urgency of a Beethoven symphony.

  But the kettledrums weren’t alone. They were linked to two other entities: The heavy scent of night jasmine and a pure bar of emerald light. The Compendium had just been used by a witch—the jasmine—to awaken her familiar—the green light.

  Impossible!

  Even as David tested the triple bonds jangling inside his skull, he checked the inner calendar that every witch and warder held close. The moon was full that night.

  No familiar should ever be awakened on the night of a full moon. Any witch knew that.

  Nevertheless, tendrils of jasmine unfurled within his powers, wrapping closer around the shimmering green light. The witch was reaching out, grounding herself in the solid strength of her familiar. Beneath the twining vine of her perfume, the emerald light pulsed, growing stronger as it stretched to full awareness and locked onto the network of all other nearby familiars.

  The Compendium was the bond that joined them all together—David and the unknown witch and her just-revived familiar. The book drummed through his warder senses because it was being used to shred ancient rules.

  On the astral plane, he started to reel in the steely thread that connected him to the misused book. The guide wire pulled him to the edge of the physical world. He braced himself and emerged in a wreath of shadows, reflexively using warder’s magic to obscure himself from accidental human observation.

  But such caution was unnecessary at a quarter past three in the morning. A quick magical calibration confirmed he was still in DC, in Georgetown, not five miles from the court’s offices. His human senses told him he was in a garden, an immaculately maintained one, despite the storm winds that had ripped through earlier that night. Remnants of rain dripped from a tree limb, and he dashed water out of his eyes.

  A large stone mansion hulked at his back, its rippled glass windows dark for the night. Peabridge Library Colonial Garden read a sign beside the footpath.

  In front of him, a cottage glowed like a jack o’lantern, golden light spilling out of every window. He could sense the Compendium inside—along with the witch and her impossibly awakened familiar.

  Clutching his Hecate’s Torch inside his right pocket, David stalked to the cottage’s front door and pounded with his left fist.

  Nothing.

  What sort of rogue witch ignored one of Hecate’s Warders on her very doorstep?

  He knew the answer even as he asked the question. This was exactly the type of rule-breaking Haylee would have loved. He might as well summon the Washington Coven. Let them rein in their own wayward witch—get her under control or face Hecate’s Court in the morning.

  But who knew which Coven member was on call that night? It might actually be Haylee, and she was the last person he wanted to see. The last witch who should be in charge of disciplining a rebel like the woman inside the cottage.

  He repeated his pounding on the door.

  “I’m coming!” The woman’s voice was sharp. But her anger was nothing compared to the rage chewing away beneath his ribs.

  A deadbolt shot back. The door swung open.

  The witch looked like a refugee from a Girl Scout slumber party—if Girl Scouts accepted members in their mid-twenties. She wore flannel pajamas, a deep cobalt blue sprinkled with white sheep. Her bare feet stuck out of the cuffs, looking cold on her hardwood floor. A Polarfleece blanket draped across her shoulders.

  She stared at him as if he were the first warder she’d ever seen. That fake innocence might work on some of Hecate’s Warders, but it wouldn’t make headway with him.

  Glancing over the witch’s shoulder, he spotted the familiar. The creature presented as male, with wary hazel eyes peering above strong cheekbones. His hair was jet black and cut short enough to stand on end. David could sense enough of his aura to know he was a cat. A fitted black T-shirt emphasized the feline presence, along with dark jeans that were tight enough to be obscene. He wore sleek leather shoes.

  And he was poised to flee into the kitchen. At least one person inside the cottage understood the gravity of the situation.

  David swept over the threshold before the witch could mount a defense. “What the devil do you think you’re doing? Awakening a familiar on the night of a full moon?”

  She laughed.

  Here, in the middle of the night, with a moon-born familiar standing ten feet away, she laughed.

  David’s rage seared his throat like a habanero pepper. This witch should be falling to her knees, cowering in terror, trembling before the power
he represented—all of Hecate’s Court in its arcane glory. He might be a disgraced warder, but he was a disgraced warder bound to her Compendium, the book she’d just abused.

  “What the devil?” she repeated, closing the door behind him.

  All right. That probably wasn’t the type of curse she usually heard. But he wasn’t about to take Hecate’s name in vain. The last thing he needed was a witch running to Pitt, reporting him for violating one of his warders’ oaths. His pride pricked, he demanded, “What is your name?”

  “You’re the one pushing your way into my house,” she shot back, shifting her feet on the hardwood floor. “Don’t you think you should tell me your name first?”

  He glanced past the witch to her familiar, hoping to gain the most basic information he needed. The former cat, though, merely gave a shrug.

  Now David knew three things about the familiar: He’d just been awakened on the night of a full moon. His native form was a cat. And he’d never met the witch who’d summoned him back to life. Because any familiar with the slightest hint of self-preservation would have had the common sense to answer an obviously enraged warder, if he possibly could.

  Tightening his jaw, David returned his attention to the witch. He summoned every ounce of his hard-won warder’s dignity to say, “I am David Montrose.”

  “Jane Madison,” the witch said, extending her hand. No sane witch would offer her surname to a stranger—not without a little pressure. At least she winced after she spoke, as if she’d just realized her mistake.

  By force of habit, he shook the hand she offered.

  She seemed to gain a little confidence from completing the social exercise, and her shoulders stiffened beneath that ridiculous blanket. She pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose and demanded, “What are you doing here at three thirty in the morning?”

  Was she actually mad? She had to know someone would respond to her awakening a familiar on the night of a full moon.

  He answered very carefully, delivering each syllable as if she were certifiably insane. “I’m one of Hecate’s Warders.” She stared at him blankly. He would have questioned her understanding of English, if he hadn’t already heard her speak. He went on: “I was summoned by your unlicensed working tonight.”

  “My unlicensed working… You mean reading from that book downstairs?”

  “The Compendium,” he clarified. She truly didn’t seem to understand the magnitude of her offense. Trying to mask his own growing onfusion, he stuck with basic facts. “You worked a spell within the territory of the Washington Coven without first registering with the Coven Mother.”

  “Look,” she said. “I don’t know what this is all about.” As if to prove her innocence, she glanced at the familiar.

  Obligingly, the creature nodded. “She really doesn’t. The poor thing doesn’t know much of anything at all. Just look at those glasses—can you believe how wrong they are for her face?”

  A witch was in violation of the most basic Covenants. David—a summoned warder—was doing his best to restore a little sorely needed law and order. And this rogue familiar was offering fashion advice?

  At least the witch seemed dissatisfied with her familiar’s criticism. She scowled as she said, “Thanks.”

  The familiar exposed both palms, shrugging as if to convey, What else do you want from me?

  David interrupted their little act. “You expect me to believe that?”

  He was almost distracted by the buzzing of his phone in his pocket. He had no idea who was calling at this time of night, but he wasn’t about to interrupt his interrogation to find out. This witch wasn’t trying to skirt the rules. She didn’t seem to know there were any rules at all. And that made her very, very dangerous.

  She sighed in exasperation. “I don’t expect you to believe anything! Look. I’ll tell you what happened, but I’m not going to get down on my knees and beg your forgiveness. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  He took a breath, ready to recite the Covenant on Familiar Activation, but she interrupted him before he could begin. “Go on,” she said, waving toward the doorway where the familiar still huddled. “Go sit in the kitchen. I’m putting on some real clothes, and I’ll meet you in there.”

  He was shocked. No witch should be this brazen. In all the years he’d served the court—as a cadet, as a warder, even as a clerk—no one had ever dismissed him with such an air of casual disregard.

  David glanced at the familiar, to see if he was in on whatever game she played. The creature merely gaped at his witch, a look of true horror widening his eyes.

  “Neko?” she prompted, as if the familiar were a somewhat stupid child. “Do you know how to put on the tea kettle?” He nodded, apparently unable to find his voice. “Good. The tea is in the pantry. Top right shelf.”

  She turned toward the bedroom that was barely visible at the back of the cottage. The blanket across her shoulders could have been an ermine cape and her flannel pajamas a coronation gown. She was absolutely in control of her domain.

  But then she whirled back toward her familiar. “No,” she said. “Not right. Left.” She turned back to her bedroom. Took one more step. Spun again to face her accomplice. “Wait! Second shelf from the top.”

  “I’ll find the tea,” the familiar said, as if he were more afraid to deal with a crazed homeowner who had lost her teabags than he was to confront a nearly speechless Hecate’s Warder.

  The witch shut her bedroom door carefully. David waited until he heard hangers slide on the closet rod before he followed the familiar into the spartan kitchen.

  “Neko,” David said, putting a stop to a tea-based search and destroy mission that would put most ground troops to shame.

  The familiar froze in his tracks. “Yes?”

  David nodded toward the witch’s refuge. “What’s her game?”

  Neko shook his head. “I don’t think it’s a game. I’m pretty sure she didn’t have the first idea what she was doing down there in the basement.”

  “There’s you and the Compendium. What else?”

  Neko’s eyebrows rose. “You don’t know?”

  David resisted the urge to sigh. The familiar led the way across the living room and opened a door on the far wall. He gestured for David to descend, apparently to a basement. “There’s a light switch at the bottom,” Neko said helpfully. “On the left.”

  David frowned and stalked down the stairs, relying on the light that shone behind him. He palmed the switch at the bottom, wondering what idiot had designed the electrical system in this godforsaken cottage.

  The room at the bottom of the stairs leaped into focus.

  There were books—a lot of them. They were stacked on shelves, on the floor, on every available flat surface. But there was more than a library, a lot more. His warder senses immediately identified a cache of runes, a jumble of wood and clay and jade tiles. Dozens of wands broadcast their magical potential. Crystals, active and inactive, were scattered around the collection, with a massive reservoir sheltered inside a single wooden box. An iron cauldron, fashioned out of a meteorite, crouched in one corner.

  In the center of the room stood a carved bookstand. It looked like mahogany, a perfect match for the shelves lining the walls. One volume—the Compendium, he knew from the rumble of kettledrums across his senses—was displayed on the stand, its creamy pages glowing in the overhead light. David immediately recognized the spell to awaken and bind a familiar.

  “What the hell?” he finally asked.

  Neko said matter-of-factly, “The Osgood collection.”

  “The Osgood—” David started to ask, but the words caught in his throat as his phone rang again.

  He didn’t consider answering.

  Every warder in the Eastern Empire knew the story of the Osgood collection. It had been brought together by Hannah Osgood, one of the most powerful Coven Mothers Washington had ever known. There’d been tragedy in her family—lost children, no heir. She’d hidden her hoard to keep it from
enemy hands. Witches had sought the collection for years, ransacking every known safehold, zeroing in on every centerstone ever set. But the books had been missing for generations.

  Until tonight.

  Until David Montrose found them in the care and keeping of a most unsuitable witch.

  4

  Stunned, David forced himself to ask, “How—”

  The familiar had the temerity to interrupt him. “The last keeper of the collection had a key made. It was hidden where only a witch would find it.”

  “Which your Jane Madison did tonight.”

  “Not my Jane Madison. She woke me, and I’ll serve her for now. But the Collection’s last keeper bound me to the hoard itself. I go where it goes.”

  “You’re a familiar, but you’re not bound to a witch?” David had never heard of that arrangement before.

  Neko shrugged. “I don’t make the rules.” His lips twisted into a wry grin. “Look, you can stand here and gape all you want. But my witch ordered me to make tea, and I’m not about to fall short on my first assignment.”

  David nodded, still bemused as he followed Neko up the stairs. His fingers brushed against his Torch, as if that would be enough to bring order and sanity back into his life. Even with his calming little mantra, the kitchen lights seemed too bright. The sound of water filling a teakettle was deafening.

  That “last keeper” Neko mentioned… She must have submitted a Request for Protection Form on the Compendium. She clearly hadn’t trusted the court, hadn’t been willing to offer up her riches to their control. Nevertheless, she’d wanted a warder on the case if the collection was rediscovered. Now it was up to him to make the best of things, to manage the greatest collection of arcane wealth he’d ever imagined.

  When Jane Madison reappeared, she’d shed her blanket and flannel pajamas in favor of some knit black dress. It managed to reveal what her earlier outfit had not. Behind the off-kilter eyeglasses and the unbrushed brown hair, she had a decent figure. Good hips, anyway. A little flat in the chest, but not enough to matter.