“You sure about that, sweetheart?” He nodded to a little metal placard on the desktop.
I lifted myself from the floor, stood tall, and held my chin up. I would not look at the placard. Had I teleported into the wrong office? Was that even possible?
Now that I was taking the time to actually take in my surroundings, everything was wrong—the chair, the contents of the drawers, even the paint on the walls. But the desk was right. The honey hue was the same. The chips and grooves from years of hard use were all exactly the same. It was the desk my mother had picked out for me when I’d first started working for the library. Yes, we’d argued about the safety of a human taking a position with the magical authority. But she’d bought this desk for me as a show of her support, even if that support had been limited.
“This is my office,” I said, even surer than before. “I’m certain of it. And you, Silas Huxley, are imposing. You should be dead.”
“It’s a pleasure to see you, too, Lily.”
Heat rose up my neck, my cheeks, my ears. I clenched my fists. “Leave before I forcibly remove you.”
“A lot can change in seventy years, Lily,” he said, a wicked sparkle in his cold, dark eyes. He strode across the floor, lifted the placard and turned it to me.
The wordsSenior Librarian Silas Huxleywere written across the wood. My heart sank. It was the final nail in my coffin. I held my head high and refused to blink. I refused to acknowledge his claim in any way.
“You may have become a full librarian first.” Silas took three long, relaxed strides so only the desk was between us. “Now it’s me who has the most experience.”
“That’s not…you couldn’t….” The words died in my throat. This couldn’t be real. It had to be a nightmare. What happened to ice cream cake and laughing at Silas’s hairy ears?
He leaned forward, putting his hands on my desk, all cool self-assurance and practiced authority. In a gruff voice, he said, “This office is mine.”
My heart dropped from my throat down onto the floor, squished beneath the heel of Silas’s polished shoe. And all I could focus on was the fact that his ears weren’t hairy at all.
CHAPTER 1
Present Day…
If I werea character from a children’s cartoon, my eyes would protrude several inches from their sockets. Steam would burst from my ears, and my jaw would elongate so dramatically, my chin would land on the convenience store’s sticky tile floor.
I ogled the selection of snack cakes on the metal shelf—chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, pumpkin, apple, berry…the varieties were endless. In my former life, I’d been certain society had reached the pinnacle of snack perfection with the expanded availability of candies reaching across regions. But this display was a mind-blowing work of beauty.
“Lily, are you listening?” Madison asked through the tiny speaker pressed to my ear.
I licked my lips, checking for drool, adjusted the cellular telephone cradled between my cheek and shoulder, and piled as many variations of the individually wrapped delicacies into my arms as possible.
“Yes, of course,” I said. “You implied that I was frail, old, and incapable of handling a case on my own. I chose not to respond because there’s nothing kind to say in response to your assertion.”
“I did not—”
Scuffling and a sigh carried through the line. I could picture Madison perfectly. If she were a cartoon character, right about now her face would be red, she’d be scrubbing her hands over her eyes, she’d be silently screaming, and perhaps a plethora of symbols and an alphabet soup of curses would be floating over her head.
Some time while I was busy being dead, Elenor had taken on field work, suffered an unfortunate demise, and Madison had replaced her. In addition to her reception duties, Madison had taken on the role of proctologist and wedged herself firmly…yeah that’s right. Elenor had been better.
“I said it’s been a long time.” Madison huffed. She puffed. She practically blew my phone down from my shoulder. “I said a partner could help you—”
“With rust,” I finished for her. “As I said, I know, because I was listening.”
“Being rusty isn’t a bad thing. Library HR would suggest the same if you were returning from maternity leave, or an extended vacation.”
Death was anything but a vacation.
I frowned at the now half empty shelf before me, wishing Madison could see my sharp, sarcastic glare, the glare that was intended for her.
“Is this an order? Or is it a suggestion?” I asked, knowing I had her.
She sputtered.
“Right. Well enjoy me proving you and HR wrong when I easily decimate this soup by myself.”