Page 31 of The Messengers of Magic

There was a chittering sound and then a scream.

Not quite human, but close enough to freeze the blood in Pen’s veins.

It sounded like a child, startled or hurt, and it sent a jolt of fear racing through him, every hair on his body rising.

His mind shot to the folklore book from Ward’s house, to the creatures from its pages: the Kelpie, the Selkie, the beasts that didn’t belong in the waking world.

But reason kicked in, shaky though it was.

This had to be the animal he’d suspected for weeks was living in the shop, the one that left muddy paw prints in the stairwell, the one he’d glimpsed once or twice from the corner of his eye.

Yet now that he was face-to-face with it, he wasn’t so sure he wanted to confront it.

He stood rooted between the shelves, heart hammering, gaze locked on the hunched shadow beneath the stairs.

It shifted. Just a hair. And in that tiny movement, something strange flickered on the floor.

A faint glow, soft and golden, bleeding through a crack in the wood like candlelight.

Neither of them moved. Pen, holding his breath. The creature, crouched low in the shadows.

A silent standoff.

Slowly, Pen reached for a book on the shelf beside him, weighed it in his palm, and lobbed it toward the base of the stairs.

It landed with a loud thwack.

The critter bolted.

It streaked across the floor, a blur of limbs and claws, nail skittering against the old boards. For a breathless second, the moonlight caught it: a long, lean body and a bushy tail.

Definitely an animal.

Still, something in his gut wouldn’t settle.

His eyes returned to the space beneath the stairs. The glow was still there, peeking from beneath a faded runner rug. A narrow table sat in front of it, stacked with a few old books, like props on a stage, as if nothing unusual lay just beyond it.

Pen crossed the room and flicked on a nearby lamp, hoping the light might ease the feeling in his chest.

It didn’t.

Instead, the warm lamplight only made the glow more distinct, fading it into a fine line of gold slicing between the floorboards, steady and unnatural.

Shoving the table aside, he peeled back the rug. A trapdoor, set into the floor, the brass ring at its center dulled with age.

“There must be a basement,” he muttered.

He grabbed the ring, pulled open the door. A narrow staircase descended into a pool of amber light. Looking above his head, he spotted a hook that fit the brass hoop perfectly, and he hooked it, propping the trapdoor open.

Pen walked down the stairs, every sense alert. The glow was coming from a stained-glass lamp, its panels orange and gold, dotted with dark brown moths in flight. Had it been left on all these years? Quietly waiting for the electricity to be restored.

The lamp rested on a broad oak desk, accompanied by a vintage typewriter, likely from the same era as the cash register upstairs. Aside from the desk and its chair, the room held a small shelf on the back wall with only a handful of books upon it.

That was it.

And yet the room felt… wrong.

A shiver ran down Pen’s spine. It should have been unremarkable, just another space in the dusty old shop, but it felt hollow, haunted by a strange absence. He told himself it had probably been Rowland’s office. But it didn’t look like anyone had ever used it for bookkeeping.

Pen circled the desk, pulling at the drawers.

All locked. The top one, the side drawers, nothing budged.

He scanned the top of the desk for a key.

Nothing except the old Underwood typewriter and a layer of dust so thick it could have been a blanket.

He sighed and turned to the shelf on the back wall, running his fingers along the spines. Between the gaps. No luck.

He finally gave up and climbed back up the stairs, into the bookshop, lowering the trapdoor behind him.

The shop was still. Moonbeams streamed through the paned windows, throwing crosshatch shadows across the wooden floors.

The new clock he’d hung above the front counter read, quarter past eleven.

Still feeling the weight of the day, Pen walked back up to the apartment, to the bedroom, where he lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling. The moonlight danced across the walls, but his mind remained tethered to the hidden room, and sleep would not come.

Though the space was mostly empty, it wasn’t void of presence. There was an energy in there that clung to him like damp clothes. There was something off about the room, something wrong in how it was hidden. The rug, the table, deliberate choices to keep that door out of sight.

But why? There was nothing down there but dust and locked drawers. Unless that was the point. Whatever was in those locked drawers, it wasn’t meant to be found. Not easily, anyway.

He’d find the key. Tomorrow.

The drawers were the only part of that room still holding their secrets, and maybe, their contents would hold the answer to the biggest secret of all: What happened to Rowland all those years ago?