“Don’t drop the cage!” my cousin Cass warned me, backing out into the main section of the library’s third floor. The cage in question floated behind us, propelled by Cass’s magic. Her long curly red hair was twisted into a topknot out of her face, while water soaked her silver-edged black cloak.
I opened my Biblio-Witch Inventory—a small black book with a silver insignia on the cover—and tapped the word fly. The small black-covered book glowed as my magic combined with Cass’s, steadying the cage. Inside it, Cass’s pet kelpie growled at me through the bars. This could go really wrong, really fast.
The majestic white-and-blue-haired water horse, who Cass had christened Swift, had washed up on the beach a few weeks ago. While he’d come to trust me almost as much as he did Cass, that trust probably didn’t extend to letting me levitate him down three flights of stairs in our family’s magical library. I walked backwards, glancing at the floor behind me every other step in case it disappeared—which wouldn’t be the first time. Until now, I’d never levitated anything bigger than a pencil, but letting Cass attempt to single-handedly release a wild kelpie into the ocean was bound to end in disaster. Just another day in the life of a biblio-witch.
Sylvester, my family’s owl familiar, flew over our heads, letting out a hoot of derision. “Are you trying to cause an accident?”
“Her idea, not mine,” I said to him.
Sylvester snorted. He was a large tawny owl whose wings spanned the length of my shoulders when extended and was generally friendlier to Cass than he was to me. That he was laughing at both of us wasn’t a good sign, but I could hardly back out now.
Cass and I had been at odds since I’d first moved to the library, and she’d shocked me when she’d revealed she’d rescued Swift after she’d found him injured on the beach. After she’d spent my entire first week at the library trying to drive me away because she expected that I’d run off like my dad did, I’d decided the best way to mend things between us was to help her take care of her new friend.
As we manoeuvred the cage between the bookshelves, Swift snorted and shook his head, expressing his displeasure.
“Sorry,” I muttered to him. “The tank was too heavy to levitate downstairs and if the water had overflowed, the library would have flooded.”
We’d already caused a flood when we’d moved the reluctant kelpie from the tank to the cage, which one of us would have to clean up later if we wanted to avoid Aunt Adelaide’s wrath. Cass’s mother had long since stopped trying to interfere in her daughter’s wild schemes, while Estelle was busy with a tutoring session. Meanwhile, Aunt Candace had laughed hysterically when I’d asked if she’d like to help us and declared that she’d prefer to live long enough to write the whole event into one of her books.
“You’re dripping everywhere,” Sylvester said from above me.
I gritted my teeth, lifting my cloak off the ground. Like Cass’s, it had dragged in the water we’d spilt on the upper floor.
“Talk to me when I’m not trying to keep a cage in the air.” I did a kind of sideways shuffle towards the staircase down to the second floor, ignoring the owl’s comments. The spell’s effectiveness depended on me keeping my attention on the cage, and I’d prefer not to find out how much damage a water horse could do to my family’s seemingly endless collection of rare books.
I tested the stairs one step at a time, holding onto the bannister for balance with my free hand in case a step disappeared again. Cass walked along behind the hovering cage, grumbling.
“Hurry up,” she said. “The sooner we get down these stairs, the better.”
“Wouldn’t you rather we get downstairs in one piece?” I hopped off the last step, my soaking wet cloak tangling around my ankles. I caught myself before I lost my balance. “I don’t understand why you didn’t want to use a transportation spell to get him directly into the sea without any of this nonsense.”
“I don’t want him to panic,” said Cass.
I rolled my eyes. Cass was surprisingly sensitive when it came to dealing with animals. People… not so much.
Keeping one eye on the cage, I crossed the second floor, weaving in and out of the towering stacks. The bookshelves moved out of our way at Cass’s command. She had better control over the library than I did, luckily for both of us. The cage dripped a trail of water onto the thick carpet, and I swore under my breath. “Aunt Adelaide will have us cleaning this up all night.”
“Relax, the library will deal with it in a second,” she said confidently.
I’d take her word for it, but Cass had an irritating habit of vanishing whenever there was any real work to be done. I opened my mouth to say so, and the floor moved underneath my feet, causing my cloak to tangle around my ankles again. I tripped, arms pinwheeling, and crashed to the carpet. As I did so, the cage dipped in mid-air. Cass swore, hitting her Biblio-Witch Inventory with her pen. “Get back on your feet, idiot.”
“I didn’t move the floor on purpose.” I scrambled back to my feet. “Anyway, this kind of magic is way beyond my level.”
“Grade One lessons are beyond your level,” she said waspishly. “But you’re the only person who will help me, and it’s too late to put the cage back now.”
Swift snorted and tapped a hoof, distressed by the cage’s rocking movements. I didn’t blame him. “Sorry,” I whispered to the cage, tapping the word fly in my Biblio-Witch Inventory again.
Sylvester flew over our heads with an amused cackle. “I can’t believe you’re carrying it all the way to the sea using magic.”
I backed up a step, holding my cloak off the ground. “Care to lend a hand, or are you just going to laugh at us from up there?”
Sylvester clucked his beak. “I thought I’d shout words of discouragement as well.”
“Some familiar you are.”
Not that Sylvester was in any way a typical familiar. As far as I knew, the only magic he had was the ability to talk. He took his job as the library’s security guard, assistant and rodent-killer very seriously, but got entirely too much enjoyment out of any disaster that befell me.
Cass and I directed the cage down the second staircase to the first floor. I wiped sweat from my forehead. Just one staircase to go.
A cough drew my attention to the balcony which overlooked the lobby. Aunt Candace stood there with her notebook and pen, wearing an expectant look on her face. Knowing her, she hoped the kelpie would make a bolt for it, so she’d be able to record the event for use in a future novel. Not many people knew Aunt Candace was a bestselling author apart from our family, and she guarded her pen names fiercely. Like the rest of us, Aunt Candace had curly red hair and a pale face dusted with freckles. She was tall and willowy and wore her hair loose, wild tangles flowing to her waist. She grinned and waved at us as we floated the cage past her.
“I can’t wait to see what my sister says when that thing escapes,” she said.
“Nice to know you all have so much faith in me.” I kept my attention firmly on the cage, determined not to screw up now we were so close to the end.
I’d expected at least one of my aunts to kick up a fuss about us levitating Swift right through the middle of the library, but Aunt Adelaide was as hands-off a supervisor as it was possible to be. It was a welcome change from my previous job as a bookshop assistant, where Abe, my dad’s former business partner, had constantly nit-picked on my mistakes. Up until a few short weeks ago, I’d assumed he would be the closest I’d ever have to a family. Then three vampires had shown up at the shop where I worked as Abe’s assistant and nearly set the place on fire in an attempt to steal a mysterious journal Dad had left in the shop’s back room.
The spell Aunt Adelaide had set up to protect me had also awakened my own magic, which Dad had been forced to hide from me since my mum had been a normal, and the magical rules stated that non-paranormals weren’t allowed to know about this world. Despite that rule, the magical laws seemed quite lax at times, though it didn’t hurt that my family made the rules. In the library, at least. Using hostile magic was strictly forbidden, but as Cass had pointed out a dozen times that week alone, no law prevented her from keeping dangerous pets.
It could be worse. At least it’s not a chimera. I’d had a crash-course in all things paranormal over the last three weeks since I’d moved here, and the library threw another surprise at me each day. I reached the final staircase, skipping the missing top step—and the second step vanished, too.
I tripped, grabbing the bannister, and the Biblio-Witch Inventory fell from my hand, tumbling downstairs.
Cass shouted aloud. The cage dipped in mid-air, and I panicked, grabbing it with my hand. There was no way I could support its weight without magic, so I let go and jumped out of the way as the cage crashed onto the stairs. The door burst open, and the kelpie leapt over my head, splattering me with water. Flat on my back, I lifted my head in time to see Swift land at the foot of the stairs and run full-tilt across the ground floor.
Shouts rang out from below as the giant white horse circled the lobby, causing patrons to dive behind bookshelves and stacks of books to topple over.
“You idiot!” screamed Cass, running downstairs. She jumped the last few steps and sprinted between the shelves to the front desk. “You left the cage unlocked!”
“You told me to!” I knew something like this would happen. I scrambled to my feet, grabbing my sopping wet cloak in one hand to avoid tripping again, and ran downstairs to retrieve my Biblio-Witch Inventory—entirely too late. There was no chance of recapturing the kelpie now he’d tasted freedom.
I skidded to a halt in the reception area, the carpet considerably wetter than it’d been earlier. Catching up to Swift on foot was an impossibility—there was a good reason for his name. “Cass, we have to transport him to the sea. He’s not domesticated—”
“He doesn’t want to hurt anyone, he wants to play,” Cass insisted.
I opened my mouth to say she was deluded, but she was right. Swift had picked up a book in his mouth and threw it at a crowd of students, who scattered.
“He wants to play fetch,” I told them.
The students didn’t look convinced. One of them had fainted. Another threw a book at the kelpie in defence. I ran and caught the leather-bound book before it made contact and put it on the desk.
Swift completed another circuit around the lobby. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was enjoying the attention.
“Over here!” Cass said, jumping up and down in front of the front doors and waving both arms.
“Use the spell,” I said, running towards her.
“I don’t need to,” she said insistently. “He recognises my voice.”
Sure enough, Swift turned his long head in our direction. Then he launched into a sprint, so fast his hooves hardly seemed to touch the ground.
“Uh, Cass, I don’t think he’s going to stop if we don’t move.”
“Don’t be absurd.”
The kelpie kept running.
“Cass, seriously.”
I grabbed her arm and yanked her to the side, and the kelpie soared past, knocking open the oak doors and leaping into the town square.
Cass gave me a furious look. “You—”
“If I’d tried to stop him, he’d have knocked me out.” I caught the left-hand door before it slammed closed, and the cold sea breeze buffeted me in the face. Around the town square, panicking shoppers fled the escaped kelpie’s path.
I hopped down the steps into the square. Behind us, the huge brick form of the library dwarfed every other building. It’d always struck me as like a palace or a castle, with its majestic stained-glass windows drawing the eye from miles off, and I could still hardly believe I got to call it home. Even Cass’s hissing, “This is all your fault” into my ear at the sight of Swift wheeling around the town square didn’t take that away.
“It’s not my fault,” I said. “Anyway, he’s having fun.”
The kelpie ran at a crowd of Christmas shoppers wearing pointed wizard’s hats, who yelped and hid behind one another as he wheeled into the bakery. I heard Zee swearing and ran after him, but he ducked out a moment later, a muffin in his mouth. I should have guessed he’d go there—he’d become a fan of Zee’s muffins after I’d fed him one in an attempt to get him to trust me. Oops.
Zee herself emerged from the shop behind Swift, staring in disbelief. Flour stained her warm brown skin and her curly hair was soaked in water. “He wrecked the whole display,” she said accusingly.
“Oh, no.” I kept one eye on the kelpie, who devoured the muffin in two quick bites. “If it’s any consolation, I think he’s a fan of your cooking. I’ll pay you back—tell my aunt if I’m not back in half an hour. We need to make sure he reaches the ocean first.”
“Mum’s going to kill you for that,” said Cass.
“He’s your kelpie,” I reminded her.
Swift darted into the flower shop and emerged with a mouthful of peonies.
“Hey!” yelled the shopkeeper.
“I’ll pay you back,” I called to him, but Swift was already running to the next shop, scattering flowers everywhere as he did so.
Cass swore. “Now what, genius? Aren’t you going to help me get him back into the cage?”
“I think it’s a bit late for the cage,” I said. “I told you I wasn’t an experienced enough witch to get the cage all the way downstairs.”
“Well, you should be by now,” she said, with a sniff. “What’s my sister doing with your training? Or are you spending all your time watching Netflix instead?”
“We’re spending a lot of time on magic lessons, actually.” Okay, we studied magic with a reward of watching Netflix, but I’d missed out on about a decade of television and hadn’t even owned a TV for the last three. It was nice to have a cousin close to my own age, and Estelle had fast become my closest friend here in Ivory Beach. “Look, Cass, if you want to get him to the sea without him wrecking anything else, you’re going to have to use magic on him. He won’t mind.”
“Fine, but if it goes wrong, it’s on you.” She held up her Biblio-Witch Inventory and tapped on a word.
The horse skidded to a halt and turned to her. “Hey,” she said, waving at him. “Come on, we’re going to the sea. This way.”
She walked to the giant horse, and I hurried to follow her, giving apologetic looks to the passing townspeople.
“Is that a kelpie?” asked Alice from the pet shop, her eyes wide. “I’ve never seen one before.”
“Ah, he washed up on the shore a while ago,” I said. “Cass rescued him and we’re getting him back to the sea now.”
Her brows rose. “Cass did? Really?”
I guess she didn’t know about Cass’s secret soft spot for animals, either. Though maybe it wouldn’t be a secret after today.
Cass stood beside the clock tower. “It’s not working,” she said, beckoning to Swift. “Rory, don’t just stand there, do something.”
“Hey, Swift,” I called. “Don’t you smell the sea air? You’re almost home.”
Actually, I had no idea how the kelpie had ended up here, considering they were native to Scotland and we were on the northern English coast, but Swift turned his head towards me. Encouraged, I gestured over my shoulder at the sparkling line of sea in the distance.
Swift jumped, soaring over our heads. Both of us ducked to avoid being hit in the face by a flying talon, and then Cass sprinted after him.
The few people on the seafront moved aside as the kelpie leapt down to the pebbled beach towards the sea. I stopped to clutch at a stitch in my chest, gasping for breath.
Swift swam into the lapping tide, his white-blue coat blending in with the high waves, and was gone.
Cass jumped down to the pebbled beach, walking out to the ocean. The sea lapped around her ankles, stirring her already soaking wet cloak.
“Cass, come back!” I shouted. Even if she was a great swimmer, there was no chance of her catching up to the kelpie.
I hurried down the pebbled beach, stopping at a suitable distance from the lapping waves. “Cass, give it up. It’s far too cold to go into the sea.”
She ignored me, determinedly wading into the water. I shook my head, then I spotted someone else in the sea, just beneath the pier. A man with blond hair stood ankle-deep in the shallows. The Reaper.
Despite his name, he didn’t look grim in the slightest—more like an angel, with tousled fair hair that looked white in contrast to his dark clothing and the curved scythe he carried strapped to his back. What was he doing paddling in the sea? He’d once joked about liking swimming just fine despite having the scythe as a permanent accessory, but I’d assumed he’d meant in a recreational sense. Not fully clothed on a winter’s day when the water was like an ice bath.
“Hey, Xavier,” I called, walking along the beach to him. “What’re you doing out here?”
Then I saw what lay tangled in the shallows at his feet.
It was a body.
