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“Are you sure? I can wear my snowsuit and sit outside to help.”
“Save your energy for keeping the Nightfall cocktail hounds happy. I’ve got this.” I lift a hand as she mounts the bike. “Bike safe.”
“Will do,” she promises, blowing a kiss my way before heading toward town.
I stand watching her until she’s nothing but a tiny, green-jacketed speck on the horizon. Only when she finally disappears, do I turn and study the landscape behind me, willing my Wyvern gift to come to me, to show me who’s in danger and what I can do to help.
But aside from a few birds out enjoying the warmer-than-usual winter morning, the swamp is quiet and so is my psychic landscape. Wyvern foresight is notoriously mercurial, and I’m too new to mine to have any real control over it.
But Casey is right—knowledge is power, and I’m an expert at coaxing secrets from fussy pages. I speak three languages, have a higher-than-average patience for parsing through antiquated texts, and at least an hour to kill before I can start placing parchment and arranging the next batch of books in front of the fans.
“Let’s see how much we can learn about demons before lunch,” I whisper with a hand over my belly as I start back inside, idly wondering what my daughter will think about books.
Surely, with Baron and myself for parents, she’ll be a fan. Though I wouldn’t put it past the universe to send me a sporty girl with a passion for soccer and ocean swimming, just to keep me terrified for her safety and on my toes.
I’m so busy daydreaming about my little one—and carefully shifting books around to search for texts on demons—that I don’t realize I’m not alone until Baron rumbles softly from the darkness at the top of the cellar stairs, “Close the curtains.”
I jump halfway out of my skin before pressing a hand to my chest and turning to face him. “Goddess. You scared me. I thought you were sleeping.” I arch a brow. “And pouting.”
“I can’t rest,” he grumbles. “So, I might as well help. The sooner you finish, the sooner you’ll leave me in peace.”
“Inaccurate,” I say. “I’m staying the entire seven days you promised me. It just makes sense.”
He scowls. “In what world?”
“In this one,” I insist, refusing to back down in the face of his grumpiness. I have to show him that being a grouch only makes me dig my heels in harder. Maybe then he’ll stop fighting long enough to see how perfect we are together. “You have a vast library in need of rescue and I’m a librarian with years of book-resuscitating experience. My library in Maine flooded six times in the eight years I worked there. Six. I can practically parchment paper and blow dry pages in my sleep.” I motion toward the books with pages gently wafting in the fan breeze. “Though I don’t use the blow drier anymore. Trial and error taught me a cool breeze is better than a hot one. Less likely to wrinkle the pages.” He scowls harder. I counter with a bright smile. “Also, do you have any books on demons? I was going to do some research for Casey while I waited for the parchment paper delivery.”
He grunts. “I do, but it’s in ancient Hebrew. Do you read ancient Hebrew?”
I grunt back. “No, I don’t. Guess you’ll just have to translate it to me while I organize the rest of this, then.”
“You’re assuming I read ancient Hebrew.”
“You wouldn’t have a book in your library that you couldn’t read,” I say, as sure of that as I am that his broad shoulders filling the doorway leading to the cellar make my blood fizz and that I’d gladly give up scones forever for the chance to kiss his cranky lips one more time. “You have many poor qualities, but you’d never claim a book you couldn’t read.”
“You don’t know me, Annie,” he says in a soft, almost apologetic voice that scares me more than his grouchy one. “And you never will.”
“Never is a very long time,” I say, ignoring the way my stomach drops at the thought of “never” and Baron in the same sentence. “And am I wrong? Are you in possession of a book you can’t read?”
His eyes narrow again. “No.”
“Well, then…” I shrug and motion toward the books still on the shelves, where I’m fairly certain it must be located. I’ve already looked through all the volumes on the floor and coffee table.
“Close the curtains,” he practically growls.
“My pleasure,” I say sweetly, crossing to pull the heavy tapestries across the window overlooking the front of the yard and the road beyond. He’s clearly still determined to fight me fang and nail, but we’re in the same room again and that’s a start.
By the time I turn from arranging the curtains, Baron’s leaning against the wall in the corner farthest from my workstation with an open book cradled in his hands. Mercifully, it appears to be one of the texts that suffered minimal damage. “Chapter One. Demonic Origins and History,” he begins in a deep, soothing voice. “From the dawn of recorded time to the year of our lord 596, as recorded by Ezekiel in the days before the fall of Jerusalem under the scourge of Nebuchadnezzar. A full accounting of the most foul and heinous practices of the horned ones, including the passageway to the burning land below, the ravaging of godly women, and their dreadful occupation of the village of Rabbah, in which all cattle were slain or otherwise interfered with, and no well gave water for forty days and fifty nights.”
I bite my lip and clap my hands together. “Oh, this is going to be good. I can tell.”
His lips twitch. “You really mean that.”
“Why wouldn’t I? I mean, just in that chapter title, there’s already so much to be curious about. How were the cattle ‘interfered’ with, for example? And why only forty days, but fifty nights? Did the demons take time off from drying out the wells for a few days at the end of the occupation? Were they getting tired? Or did someone forget about the wells and the entire takeover failed because Demon Bob dropped the ball and allowed the villagers to get water again? I’m so curious I can hardly stand it.” I catch a full body shiver and hold out my arm, pulling up the sleeve of my sweater to reveal all the blond hairs standing on end. “See? I have goosebumps already.”
He shakes his head, but I would swear there’s a hint of affection in his voice as he mutters, “Some might say you’re easily entertained, Miss Wonderfully.”
“Some might say that you have a wonderful reading voice,” I counter before adding in a softer voice, “Keep going while I rearrange the fans.”
