Page 52 of Dragon Fires Everywhere (Witchlore #4)

“Real love blooms in trust. In yourself and in each other. Sometimes the world and its wars ask too much. Sometimes you lose

sight of each other along the path, but you must always find your way back. To love without limits. To joy beyond measure.

Because to do otherwise is to let fear win.”

It brings tears to my eyes as I read, even knowing what I need to do next.

Because Jacob and Emerson found their way back already, after ten years of Em not knowing who she was.

I have no doubts about their happy-ever-after now.

Not just because they love each other, but because they’ll fight for it. Fight for each other. Both of them.

No matter what they give of themselves to others, they will always come back to their love, their home .

They fit .

And I refuse to let that land inside me like a new kind of grief.

Because I have shit to do. I don’t have time to grieve.

When my reading is done, I walk off the stage and to my seat. By the time we’re all done with our readings, Jacob and Emerson

will be alone with the priest and priestess to give their vows, to bind their hands and ceremonialize what is already true.

I hope I’ll be back in time to see it.

But right now I have to focus on more than this wedding.

Real snow begins to fall along with the lovely snow Emerson whipped up for the ceremony, but the magical warmers and actual

heater towers keep us all cozy. Even out here in the middle of Main Street, St. Cyprian. It’s perfect, just as Emerson wanted,

and I wish I could enjoy it. I wish we could all enjoy it.

But as Jacob said, what kind of wedding would Emerson have except one that might free people from terrible curses and bring

the Joywood and Carol down for good?

Nothing could be more her .

Now seated, I create the projection inside me, and then Ellowyn and Zander give it life. While they make the projection spell

a reality, I let it go and then simultaneously magic myself out of the seat and off to the front of Carol’s house.

I tried to land inside, but she’s got enough wards and locks to keep even the strongest witches out. Plus I’ve never actually

been inside, so there’s no picturing it to project myself there.

I told my coven I’d bring my father, so I reach out to him.

Dad, I need you.

It’s real winter on this side of town, and freezing, so I magic myself a coat plus one for Dad. When he appears, looking more

than a little concerned, I hold it out to him, and he slides his arms inside.

“Georgie...”

“I need you to be brave,” I tell him, staring at Carol’s house. Not at him. “I need to get in her library.”

The truth is there. I know it.

As ever, my father focuses on the puzzle, not the problem. “How are you going to get in?”

It appears to me like a flash. I am not just a historian. I am the Historian. And a key once unlocked many secrets to me. Why wouldn’t it unlock this?

I call out for the key. When it arrives in my outstretched palm, it is warm and glowing, just like when I go into the archives.

Please work.

I move forward, past Carol’s gate. I start walking toward the looming door. But I can tell Dad hasn’t followed, so I look

back.

“I can’t pass the gate, princess,” he says.

He stands there, pushing against something invisible that won’t let him pass. But I’m so close. And the wedding is only so

long. I can’t wait. I can’t worry about why I can get through and he can’t.

“Stay right here,” I tell him. “If you see anything fishy, reach out to me. Reach out to my coven.”

“This isn’t safe,” he admonishes me. “You know it isn’t.”

“Maybe not. But I have to do it.” I feel it like a pull. And it’s a bit like the pull of the river, so maybe that should stop

me, but the key is glowing...

And the key is not black magic. It is not bad .

When I reach Carol’s door, I see gold shining from the keyhole. This is right. This is right .

I put the key in the door, and the lock gives.

My heart is beating like a hammer against my chest. The key feels like holding a hot coal, almost, and something in the shape

of a circle burns around my finger where Azrael’s ring once was.

Azrael. That grief swells up in me, but now is not the time for it. Except maybe one little thing.

You should be here , I reach out and tell him. Maybe he’s blocked me. I don’t know. But I feel better having sent that message to him anyway.

Carol’s house smells like sulfur and rot, but it’s beautiful . Gleaming wood and elaborate carvings. Every window is stained glass. Every light fixture is a glorious gold.

I peek in each room I see, looking for books. When I finally make it to the library, it’s the biggest and most beautiful one

I’ve ever seen. It puts full museums in Europe to shame, both in volume and the artifacts she’s no doubt stolen. I should

be disgusted.

But the Historian in me, raised in libraries, can’t help a dreamy sigh all the same.

I scan the titles, keeping the archive key in my hand.

What am I looking for? What do I need to know? I ask the library, the same way I ask the archives.

I feel something move around me, but it’s almost like it starts and then stops. As if it’s hindered by something.

An outside, evil force.

No doubt more wards and locks. I look at the key, wondering if there’s some clue here. But it’s just a key. The room is just

a library.

Still, something is here . I feel it. A dark, lurking presence.

But books are ideas. And ideas aren’t dangerous in and of themselves.

It’s what people do with them that causes trouble.

That’s never seemed like a good enough reason to restrict any and all ideas to me.

I’d rather let the ideas go free and maybe work on restricting the people who try to use them to hurt others.

“ Reveal to me, what I should see ,” I say.

The world around me ripples , but doesn’t quite change. So I do it again, and again, and again . Still there’s no give.

I know something exists behind the facade, but my magic can’t reach it. I keep trying, though. I have to do this. I have to succeed.

Everything is up to me .

I’m pretty quickly spent. Sweaty and shaking. I’ve no doubt done irreparable damage to my hair, and if I have the energy to

get back to the wedding, it will be on nothing more than my own two feet, not a flight or a pop of magic .

But I haven’t succeeded yet, and I have to succeed. I squeeze the key in my palm. It got me in here. It must have the answer.

I look around, searching for something. Not the books I’m after, but maybe some kind of sign—

Then, there it is.

A little metal... weasel? A lot like the one Carol wore to the house tour what feels like a lifetime ago.

It’s screwed to one of the bookshelf joints, but if I touch it, the metal swings. And when I swing it out of the way, there’s

a keyhole.

With shaky hands—both nerves and exhaustion—I shove my key into the hole. Nothing happens. But then I turn the key, and...

The world beneath my feet rumbles. The shelves shake, move, twist, and then turn. They open up the wall into a dark sort of

cave.

And in that cave are even more books.

A stack of books, bound in black leather. There are no titles embossed on them, no authors mentioned. But I feel the evil pumping off them.

I smell it. I taste it.

And still I move forward. I need to protect myself before I open them, I know I do, but—

“You didn’t think it’d be that easy, did you?” a voice asks me.

It’s a vaguely familiar voice. But only vaguely—

Until I turn and come face to face with my father.

Not Stanford Pendell, but my biological father.

Desmond Wilde.