Page 82 of The Messengers of Magic

Chapter Fifty-Six

O ver the next few weeks, Adelaide settled into an easy rhythm with Pen.

Each morning, she would read his letter and answer his questions, sharing bits of herself with him.

Then it was her turn; she’d ask him about his old life back in Oak Ridge.

They’d both shared the joys and heartbreaking details of their pasts.

His letters were always sweet, and with each one her heart fluttered a tiny bit more.

She felt she’d come to know Pen better through letters than she’d ever known Jeff.

Their exchanges, though interrupted by the gaps in time, were deeper than any conversation she’d had with her ex.

Jeff had never talked about his feelings, claiming it wasn’t “manly,” but with Pen, his emotions flowed freely on the page.

Dottie had been right. There was something different about him. He was everything she’d said and more.

Adelaide was just finishing moving a section of books when the shop’s door chimes rang out. Walking to the front, she saw the postman had arrived. Four large boxes sat on the floor.

“Good morning, miss,” the man said, holding out a slip and a pen. “Can you just sign this for me?”

“Of course,” she replied, signing and handing the paper back to him.

“Sure glad to see you reopening this place. We need a bookstore in town,” he told her, tipping his hat as he left.

Adelaide smiled as she lifted the first box onto the counter.

She grabbed a pair of scissors and sliced through the tape, peeling back the flaps to reveal the glossy covers of the new children’s books she’d ordered.

A rush of excitement filled her. If this was how it felt every time a new order of books arrived, she was certain she’d be a bookseller for the rest of her life.

It was even better than the thrill of Christmas morning.

She was reaching for the next box, already imagining the treasures inside, when the shop’s door chimes rang out again.

However, this time when she looked up, it was Ewan she saw standing in the doorway.

“Let me get that for you,” he insisted, taking the box from her and setting it on the counter.

Adelaide folded her arms tightly across her chest. “Ewan, what are you doing here?” A knot formed in her stomach, and heat flushed through her, part anger, part nerves. She hated that he had this effect on her.

“I just wanted to stop by. See how you were doing. Haven’t heard from you in a few weeks.”

“Oh?” she said. “I figured you’d be too busy, seeing as you have Mary and Kelly to keep you company.” Her fingernails pressed crescents into her palms as she fought to quell her emotions.

Ewan stepped closer, unfazed, as if her knowing about the other women didn’t even matter. He moved like nothing had changed, like he still had a right to her space as his hands found her waist and he pulled her hips into his.

“Oh, don’t be like that,” he murmured. “You know how much I like you. Those girls mean nothing.”

She shoved him back, hard. “Oh, really? Not sure they’d agree with that.”

“Addie, come on. We had fun. You really want to throw that away? What about that night at my place, when you—”

A crash rang out behind him. Ewan flinched, his eyes wide as the crushed velvet chair lay tipped over sideways on the floor.

“What the hell was that?” he asked, staring at the chair.

Adelaide smiled, a cool, quiet grin. “Your cue to get the hell out of here,” she said, waving her hand toward the door.

“Babe, come on. It’s my day off. Let’s just—”

The chair slid violently across the floor, stopping inches from his shins. He stumbled back, eyes wide.

“What the fuck!”

Adelaide crossed to the door and opened it with a flourish. “Like I said, your cue to leave.”

He shot her a look, defiance mixed with fear, glanced over his shoulder at the shop, then reluctantly walked out.

She slammed the door behind him with satisfying force, a laugh bubbling up from her chest. It felt good telling him to bugger off, and witnessing Pen’s theatrics was the cherry on top.

“Oh, Pen,” she said, grinning. “That was brilliant. Did you see his face?”

She picked up the chair, pushed it back into its spot, and returned to unboxing the books.

“Well, that was Ewan,” she said, knowing Pen was still listening. “My first mistake in the world of being single.”

She paused for a moment, her thoughts shooting back to the day in the loft with Ewan.

“Oh, wait, holy shit. It was you, wasn’t it? The table in the loft the day he was here. You knocked it over.” She laughed, shaking her head. “Wow. Even you knew he was bad news. I guess I was the only one who couldn’t see it.”

Her smile trailed off, the book order forgotten.

She was quiet for a long while as the memory of that day returned.

Ewan’s voice, his hands, the tension, but then the crash of the table falling, glass shattering.

Pen had done that, but why? One word kept surfacing.

Jealousy. She almost laughed. It sounded ridiculous.

Pen had barely known her then. But maybe that wasn’t quite true.

She’d been coming to the shop for a little over a week at that point, and he’d been here all that time.

He’d known her far longer than she’d known him.

The idea that Pen might have been jealous of Ewan made her heart flutter and flip. There was no denying it: she was crushing hard on the invisible man in her bookshop, as crazy as that sounded.

“Well,” she said to the empty room, shaking her head, “the last thing I have to do before we open next week is get these books put away and this new rug down.”

She kicked the large rug she’d bought with Camie.

She’d avoided laying it down until all the painting was finished, the final touch to her makeover of the space.

The rug wasn’t perfect, a little worn at the edges, but the color, deep rusts and greens, would bring the whole front of the shop to life.

She planned to lay it lengthwise, through the center of the room, along the pathway through the bookshelves leading to the stairs.

The old rug there now was worn thin in places, its colors so faded she couldn’t even guess what they’d once been.

She rolled up the old one, dragged it to the back door, and hauled it into the alleyway for the bin man to pick up.

She paused as she stepped back in. Hadn’t the door been navy blue before?

Now, a thick stained oak door with a brass handle stood in its place.

She’d only used the back door a handful of times; she had to be misremembering.

“Weird,” she muttered.

Shrugging it off, she dragged the new rug into position. It was larger than she remembered, stretching farther across the floor than the old one had. That wouldn’t have been an issue, except it overlapped with the small rug tucked beneath the stairs.

She let out a sigh and walked over to it, lifting the small table that sat on top and setting it aside.

Then she crouched down and tugged at the corner; the rug resisted, snagged on something hidden underneath.

She pulled harder. Must be caught on a nail or splintered floorboard.

When it finally broke free, she stopped.

Beneath its edges, the floor looked… wrong.

Not damaged, deliberate. There, just under the lip of the stair, was a faint seam in the boards. A ring. Brass, flush with the wood.

Her heart raced; she’d found it, the hidden room from Rowland’s journal.

How had she not thought to look here? It had been disguised so perfectly, blending in with the floorboards around it. Hidden in plain sight.

Bending down, she curled her fingers around the cold metal ring, and the old wooden door groaned softly as she pulled it open. Faint, unexpected light flickered from below. A warm orange glow crept up the dark stone stairs, spilling into the shop like a whispered invitation for her to follow it.

She propped the door open, then hesitated, Pen’s warning echoing in her mind, his unease about the watch and the danger it carried. For a moment, she stood still, half-expecting him to reach out and stop her. But he didn’t.

Taking a deep breath, she descended into the cool, musty space below.

What greeted her sent her pulse into a frantic rhythm.

The room was sparse, stone walls pressing in close around a single bookshelf on the far side, holding no more than a handful of aged volumes, and a large oak desk in its center.

Its surface was bare except for an old Underwood typewriter.

She didn’t need to be told. This was it.

This was where Pen wrote his letters to her.

Adelaide pulled out the captain’s chair, sat at the desk, and ran her fingers over the cold metal typewriter keys, the same keys Pen touched night after night, each letter spelled out with care, with feeling.

Her heart ached at the intimacy of it but she quickly pulled herself back.

She looked down at the desk drawers and gave one a tug.

She tried the next. And the next. But they were all locked. Why were they locked?

“The watch… it’s in here, isn’t it?” she whispered. “The key. There must be a key. Pen?”

The silence stretched on, but in the stillness, something clicked into place in her memory. The painting.

“John Dee’s painting,” she said aloud, rising quickly. “The key, taped on the back.”

She raced up the stairs to her jacket and rifled through the pockets until her fingers brushed cold metal.

Spinning the ring of keys, she spotted the smallest one, no bigger than something meant for a jewelry box.

It rested between the key to the Feather Thorn and the one to her old house with Jeff, a slender wedge between all she had left behind and everything she was about to discover.

She swallowed hard, the weight of the moment settling in, then turned and hurried back into the hidden room.