Page 35 of The Hearth Witch’s Guide to Spite & Spellwork

Esteri met her gaze. “It allowed them to monitor the stock.”

Avery clicked her tongue against her teeth. “There it is.”

“Don’t get all dour and anti-government, good things came of it too! Not only did it keep these books safe, but it meant everyone and anyone could access them.”

“Allowing the public to freely access the meticulously curated and undoubtedly limited collection?”

“Olet kuin perseeseen ammuttu karhu!”22 exclaimed Esteri. “Do you want to leave?”

Avery’s disdain melted in a flash of panic. “No.” She smoothed down her jacket lapels. “Show me how it works.”

Esteri quirked a deep-teal eyebrow. “Are you sure? I wouldn’t wish to debase you by having you wander through government-curated shelves.”

“Esteri,” Avery protested.

“With all that moral superiority in there, I’m not sure you have space in your head for more information anyway.”

“I’m sorry,” Avery hissed in a low whisper as she shoved her hands in her coat pockets. “I am sorry, this is wonderful, and it was unkind of me to spit on the trouble you went to to show me something you knew I would love.”

Esteri waited.

Contrite and far quieter, Avery tried again. “Please show me?”

Esteri accepted this with a curt nod. “You will need to sign up for a library card. Do not worry; I will do this for you. You will then use that card to borrow books for a few weeks, at which time you will return those books, and that will allow you to borrow more books.”

“They just…let you take them?”

“Yes.”

“Any book?”

“Any book.” Esteri nodded toward one of the hallways. “Go on, go look. I will find you when I am done.”

Avery needed no further prompting. She moved to the nearest shelf, looking over the titles. Dictionaries, encyclopedias, handbooks, atlases. She looked up to see a sign that read REFERENCE. Her fingers moved over each spine reverently.

She pulled one of the encyclopedias from its shelf to thumb through it. Her eyes widened in delight. Short blurbs of information on seemingly every topic—organized alphabetically. For the past month she’d felt entirely out of her depth, and here lay the very answer to her prayers, organized meticulously for her benefit. She reshelved the book, moving back to find A, B, and C volumes. She didn’t need help. She didn’t need anyone. There were books. As there had always been when mortal frailty left her abandoned, there were books.

She ignored the pang in her chest and the inexplicable longing for sprinkles as she gathered volumes into her arms. They were hefty, but she’d manage.

She continued her journey through the stacks, delighting at the fiction section that was split into further categories. She found an abandoned cart and placed the three encyclopedias on top of it as she peered at the titles under a section labeled SCI-FI.

Pulling a book from the shelf, she eyed the cover, which was emblazoned with a giant squid. “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea…” Her brows raised in intrigue, and she turned the volume over, noting there appeared to be a short passage about what the book contained.

Jules Verne’s 1870 science fiction novel—

Avery looked up at the SCI-FI label as if to confirm she remembered the term correctly. “Fascinating.”

follows three men on an underwater adventure. After a disastrous encounter with a mysterious sea monster, they find themselves at the mercy of Captain Nemo, the enigmatic commander of the Nautilus—an incredibly advanced submarine.

That sounded gripping, certainly. She put the book on her cart and continued on. She’d wandered through the stacks, gathering a few books as she went when the occasional cover caught her eye. She’d at last found the nonfiction aisles and was perusing the history offerings by the time Esteri caught up with her.

The tulikettu peered at the cart full of books. “You have been busy.”

“I have two hundred years to catch up on,” said Avery.

“In one go?”

Avery shot her a glare but instead focused on the card being offered to her. She glanced at Esteri’s beaming smile and took it. “Thank you.”