Silas pulled a set of magical handcuffs out of his coat pocket and offered them to me. “You should do the honors.”
“Don’t be silly,” I said. “You’re senior librarian, and I’ve been fired. It has to be you.”
He scowled at me. “You can’t be fired.”
“I was. I am.”
“You won the bet. You rescued me and solved this. You deserve your office back. I’ll get you your job back. I’ll talk to the boss and—”
“I didn’t win,” I said.
“Of course you did.”
“Sure, I rescued youandI found the amuletandreturned it to the library before our deadline, which is quite impressive work. But, you knew it was Kurnbottom, err, Maize who was the villain this whole time.”
“Maize?” Silas asked.
“It’s his real name,” I said.
“ReubenMaize,” Imogen-possessed Kurnbottom said. “Like the sandwich.”
“Strange,” Silas said. “But, Lily, you were right that Noah Darie stole the amulet from the museum. Edwina Aldea and Kurnbottom conspired to find the goddess the amulet would free. Aldea retrieved the amulet from Darie’s barn after Darie died.”
“How do you know all of this?” Imogen-possessed Kurnbottom asked Silas.
“Kurnbottom cursed me to be stuck in my unicorn form. I was free for a short time, when I saw you at Aldea’s, Lily.Soon after, Kurnbottom captured me again,” Silas said. “Then of course, he did the typical bad guy speech, telling me everything.”
“They always do that.” I nodded. “Then Aldea and Kurnbottom summoned the goddess together.”
Silas nodded. “And Kurnbottom killed them both to steal the goddess’s life magic for himself.”
“Edwina Aldea was still alive when I found her,” I said. “I called emergency services to help her.”
“Did Aldea want to steal the goddess’s magic, too?” Imogen-possessed Kurnbottom asked.
“No,” Silas said. “Kurnbottom was controlling her. With magic.”
“This is all very complicated,” Imogen-possessed Kurnbottom said.
“And it means we both won,” Silas said to me. “A tie.”
“No one want turn in bad guy?” Fernando asked. “Fine, Fernando be senior librarian.”
He grabbed the cuffs from Silas’s hand.
“Wait,”Imogen-possessed Kurnbottom waved his hands. “Let me out first. I don’t want to get trapped in this guy.”
Fernando narrowed his eye at him.
Kurnbottom’s shoulders trembled and he fell to the ground.
Imogen bolted upright from where she’d been snoring on the floor. She screamed.
I jumped.
“That’s always so weird.” She put her hands over her cheeks and shivered. “I’m going to need a disinfecting shower and a nap after being in Cornbutt’s head. It’s super gross in there.”
Fernando slapped the cuffs on Kurnbottom’s wrists. Then he used a magical chain that he must have taken from Silas’s pocket, opened a portal to the library.