Page 61 of The Spellreader and the Phoenix

When he saw Rory looking, he shrugged. “I still have no idea what’s going on.”

That was fair. Rory didn’t really know what was going on, either. But this had definitely been very important to Mr. Jones. In fact, if Rory didn’t miss his guess, it was the very reason that Mr. Jones had held out as long as he had. Rory still wasn’t sure what made the man think that Max and Rory were the right people. (They were both great people, of course, but they also had no idea what was going on. Rory might believe in the Magic and something like fate, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t frustrating sometimes.)

With the box carefully sealed away, Max looked around himself like he couldn’t quite figure out where to start.

“Do you just want to read something?” Rory asked. “For fun?”

Realistically, it wasn’t like he could make much headway in cataloguing anything tonight, and they were about to leave for days or weeks. Rory didn’t think Mr. Jones would rearrange anything, but it wasn’t out of the question.

Max’s eyes traveled around the room. “Would you mind?”

“Of course not,” Rory demurred immediately.

Max flashed him a smile. “For a little while, then. In the morning, I think we could get a preliminary count of the books and their organization. I’ll have to check everything properly later, but that would be a good start.”

“That sounds like a great idea,” Rory agreed.

Within a few minutes, Max was lost completely in the books surrounding them. They spent almost three hours in the little room, Rory alternating between reading his completely prosaic book—okay, it was a steamy fantasy romance, but it wasn’t literally magical—and watching Max. Max was in his element, and it was delightful the way his face lit up as he looked at one book or another. He browsed for a while, looking at this book and then that collection of spells, not seeming able to commit to one specific text when there were so many options. But then he’d lean against a shelf and get lost in something for twenty or thirty minutes before he pulled himself out of it and went on to look at something else.

Really, he was adorable.

It was edging towards eleven by the time Max yawned for the dozenth or so time, seemed annoyed with himself, checked his watch, and then appeared surprised by the time.

“Oh,” he said, a bit blankly. “Is it that time already?”

He’d turned off his usual alarms for this trip, and it showed.

“Time flies when you’re having fun,” Rory quipped.

Max grinned at him. “That’s true. But we need to be up early to get counting; I don’t want to wear out our welcome.”

Really, it was just as well that they’d been given a reasonable deadline. Without it, they’d probably be leaving at this time tomorrow night, which wouldn’t make for pleasant driving or a pleasant opening on Monday.

They might need to talk to Alex about taking over Saturdays more often, if they were up for it. Would Max consider keeping Sundays closed more permanently if it meant he could be here looking at all these books?

Or Rory supposed that he could stay at the bookshop and keep it open on Sundays. He grimaced faintly. He loved the bookshop, and he’d do it for Max… but he would much rather spend time with his witch.

They needed a member of staff to escort them again, and Rory hoped they hadn’t had to stay up just for them. It was too late now, anyway. They both thanked the man, and then they got ready for bed. Max, still looking a bit embarrassed, but not as bad as yesterday said, “Would you mind?”

“Not at all,” Rory assured him. “Just let me know if it gets uncomfortable at any point.”

He enjoyed sleeping in his bird form; he always had. But he liked sleeping as a human, too, and he liked being close to Max.

Rory chose to set his book aside right away tonight. He’d read for several hours already, and he was tired. Being so close to Mr. Jones and his familiar wasn’t draining, exactly, but it took its toll, seeing the two of them on the cusp of death like that.

Death was a perfectly natural part of life, of course. There would be all sorts of problems if everyone lived forever. Mr. Jones and his familiar seemed ready, overall, which would make things easier, but still…

“Everything alright?” Max asked, voice quiet in the dark of the room.

Rory hummed an agreement. “Yeah. Just thinking about Mr. Jones and his familiar. They’ve been alive for a long time, but now that time is drawing to a close. Transitions tend to be hard, you know?”

Max let out a puff of breath. “Yeah, I know. I guess no one lives forever, right?”

“Right,” Rory agreed.

In truth, they weren’t sure about the mythical shifters. Having been created by the Magic, they assumed it could unmake them, too, but they had no idea if that would happen. They lived their lives differently than mortals did. The others had said they didn’t exactly choose how long they wanted to sleep, but the hibernation seemed to loosely correlate to how much of a break they needed, like the Magic was guiding them and giving them the pause they required. Rory’s rebirths took care of that, one more way that he was different even from the other mythical shifters.

Rory was a fan of all the different experiences. He enjoyed protecting people. And he’d always been looking for his mate. But he knew it wasn’t the same for everyone. They might all be mythical, but they hadn’t all had the same experiences. A few of them had found their mates centuries ago. Imagine how different it would be to spend hundreds of years with your mate!