Archivist 2 preview: chapter 1, part 1

I uploaded a preview of Archivist 2 (see below) in the back of Archivist 1 on all retailers today … so I thought it only fair to share it here for all of you who already own book one. Compelling Infinity (Archivist 2) is available for preorder on all retailers. T-minus 29 days!

The gallery hummed with energy. Magic generated by dozens of elaborately masked Adepts coated the marble floors and corniced walls as I wove my way through the tuxedo-and-ballgown-swathed crowd that lingered along the edges of the room. The guests all appeared thoroughly entertained, watching those dancing, nibbling on hors d’oeuvres, and discussing the artwork and artifacts on display.

The meticulously curated exhibit.

Even if I said so myself.

Witch lights twined around the smooth marble columns that supported the mosaic ceiling. More lights were strung along the casings and moldings. Every surface glinted and twinkled with pinpoints of magic. To my sight, at least.

Crystal insisted on referring to those tiny points of magic as fae lights or fairy lights, which was slightly too fanciful for my taste but perfectly on theme. And since it had taken the acting head librarian over three days to set all those pinpoints in place, each marked with an inked personal rune, she could call them whatever she wished. 

She had also used witch lights to frame the artwork, to curl like tendrils around the podiums, and to line the benches set within the niches. Pine witches accessed their power through the written word — or the scribed rune in the case of this particular casting. And Crystal had invested so much of her magic into the setting and the ambience of the gala that she’d been exhausted each night that week.

I’d been doubtful at first about all the extras the librarian had decreed necessities, thinking that the art and the artifacts on display were all that would be needed to make a fundraising gala a success. But the finished effect was stunning. Breathtaking.

With Crystal’s guidance, the gala was a fairy tale that had been brought to life, then filled with magic and music and laughter.

And the crab cakes were utterly delicious as well.

My silk chiffon dress brushed against my ankles as I passed a masked couple I didn’t know. Dressed almost identically in shimmering shades of deep green, the pair of witches crossed onto the small dance floor that Crystal had also insisted on.

The librarian had looked resplendent in blue silk herself when I arrived. Her blond hair was curled into tight swirls pinned to her head with more pinpoints of glistening magic. She’d replaced her typical wide-framed glasses with an intricate black-lace mask that covered most of her face, leaving her ears strikingly exposed. Then she’d deliberately emphasized that effect by lining each ear with tiny diamonds.

I’d done three circuits of the room in the first hour, greeting guests and not-so-subtly directing them to the silent auction set up at the back of the gallery, just off the hall to the kitchen. The tickets to the gala had been expensive, limited to seventy-five guests, and had sold out in under a week. Though the gallery connected the nonmagical National Museum of Ireland to the offices of the magical antiquities section of that museum, Brady had informed me that the space hadn’t been used or open to the public for as long as he’d worked at the archive. The Adept public specifically. The entrance was hidden from anyone nonmagical under multiple layers of masking and distraction spells. Crystal and James had reinforced all those spells over the last week. 

Crystal was still standing sentry by the collection of ancient journals and letters we’d put on display for the evening. Some of the more delicate tomes were sealed under glass, with the rest set on shelves crusted in glimmering crystals. I was surprised that the librarian was still on her feet, given the time and energy she’d put into setting up the displays and everything around them. 

I was more than capable of selecting and hanging the artwork or shuffling the display cases — Crystal had changed her mind three times about the ‘flow,’ as she called it. But delicate, precise witch magic wasn’t a talent of mine. I was the complete opposite when it came to casting, tending toward the destructive end of the scale even with something as simple as a cleaning spell.

My brother, Sisu, and I had called Dublin and Wilding Manor our home for nearly two and a half months. But when it came to pretending to be a witch when I was actually a dragon in disguise, practice apparently didn’t make perfect. As such, I leaned into my strengths, focusing on collecting and containing magical artifacts and creatures, while avoiding the more basic, exceedingly useful aspects of magic. So even though I might have been the head curator of magical antiquities at the National Museum of Ireland, and I might have proposed the idea of the holiday gala as a fundraiser, it was Crystal who’d put it all together and pulled it all off. 

Beautifully. I felt like I was gliding through magic with every step I took. 

My brown silk dress helped, cinched at the waist, then gradually flaring over my hips, with its subtle plaid patterning and sweeping boat neckline. Yes, I felt like a princess. Even if I’d had to practice walking in heeled gold sandals.

Crystal had also insisted on the event being masked and formal, because it suited her theme: Fated Mates.

I’d had no idea a gala needed a fanciful theme, other than selecting an era or a specific branch of the magical world as a focus for the artifacts and art we’d unearthed from the archive — in the most literal sense. Every magical item that had ever been collected in Ireland was housed underneath the gallery in a cavernous but completely inviting archive space — according to me, anyway — that stretched out under the offices and the entire footprint of the main museum.

“Seventeenth century, England,” Crystal murmured in a hushed, reverent tone to my right as I continued toward the back of the gallery. Her American accent stood out in a room full of Irish and British intonation.

I wanted to check on the silent-auction items. Okay, fine. I was looking for more crab cakes. I was fairly certain it was the red pepper and a touch of cayenne that made them so perfectly tasty, but I needed to test at least two or three more to know for absolute certain.

Crystal settled her hand gently on the display case she was showing to a brown-haired sorcerer in a black mask and a subtly brocaded tux. “Fated mates, yes. But doomed to never wed, never see each other beyond mere glimpses years apart. But their letters …” She sighed dramatically, splaying her fingers across her chest. “Oh, their letters. I’ve selected a few beautiful passages …”

Crystal was a self-proclaimed romantic, and had been insistent that the Adepts of Dublin would adore dressing up and being visually beguiled. Clearly, she was right.

I’d had to get my own dress made, not just because I didn’t actually own any formal wear, but because I needed pockets. Specifically, I needed a slitted pocket so I could reach the bone blade strapped to my right thigh. Not that I was planning to stab anyone — I would have hated to accidentally splatter blood on any of the collection. But we’d gone from severely tightening security for the archive after the incidents with Rook and Ayre Byrne not even two months ago, to opening fairly widely for this event. The entrances and exits were all heavily warded, of course, and each artifact, book, and piece of vellum was tagged. 

Not only had I not owned any formal wear before last week, I’d never even worn any. Not once in my twenty-five years. So I was a little … out of my comfort zone. Again. Ravine had done my hair and makeup, along with her sister River’s, over three hours ago back at the manor. Things were still a bit chilly with the scion of the Byrne coven, but River and I managed to be polite. When forced to do so. Mostly for the sake of her daughter, Rook, who was spending the night with Sisu and the twins at the manor.

Ravine had insisted that I borrow the simple gold mask I currently wore, a series of thread-thin strands of yellow gold that outlined my eyes and swept up over my brow. The metal mage had created it, along with the gold masks worn by her and River, which were even more intricate pieces of art. The product of years of work and additions, laced with Ravine’s unique magic.

Sisu, despite vehement protests, remained at home with Rook, and with the shapeshifter twins, Lile and Neve. Before I’d even left for the gala, the kids had already collected every pillow and cushion to be found in the manor and created a huge, comfy fort in the living room, with the TV in easy view and multiple movies queued. The twins’ father, Len Murphy, had chosen to supervise the younglings, apparently not interested in dressing up or mingling with the Adepts of Dublin. Though according to Ravine, that had more to do with the fact that Gitta, the twins’ mother, was currently dating someone else. At the same time she was seeing Len.

Apparently, Ravine knew who everyone with even a mote of magical power in the city was ‘riding’ at any particular time.

Her word, not mine.

Metal magic and that honed sense for people’s entanglements were the earth witch’s self-declared specialties. Since we’d met, she had continually teased me about who my first conquest among the Dublin Adept should be — and had practically pushed me into the arms of three witches and one sorcerer in the last hour.

Unfortunately, my interest was stuck on someone else. Someone entirely unsuitable. Someone who wasn’t actually available.

I’d been relieved when Kellan Conall had begun limiting his hours at the estate last month, leaving the overseeing of the ongoing renovation of the upstairs bedrooms and bathrooms to his sister Gitta, and simply dropping in to build and install woodwork and cabinets as needed. Mostly when I was at work myself.

Conall Construction had multiple projects on the go, but thankfully, they had prioritized getting me a kitchen and two working bathrooms when we’d first taken occupancy. Wilding Manor was so massive, though, that it would take years to revitalize the entire estate.

Shoving thoughts of ridiculously sexy, unexplainably powerful shapeshifters out of my mind, I distracted myself by glancing around for Ravine, finding her on the dance floor in the arms of a female werewolf I didn’t know. She was sheathed in layers of black chiffon — sleeveless and practically backless — with intricate Celtic-inspired bands of gold twined around her pale-skinned arms. The metal mage’s sleek, dark hair slipped and shimmered around her neck and shoulders as she moved, blunt ends barely brushing her collarbone. She winked at me, but appeared to be offishly ignoring her dance partner. Or perhaps she was just allowing herself to be admired in silence.

Gitta was also on the dance floor, wearing a green sheath that was so dark it was practically black. As she spun toward me, the fairy lights brought out hues of red from the dark-brown hair that cascaded in a shiny waterfall around her shoulders. Her spiked heels added to her already impressive height, and her lively shifter magic brushed across my upper arm as she passed. She was in the arms of an imposing Nordic-looking werewolf in his midthirties — Thurston, a newcomer to the Conall pack, and her current object of interest.

Again, all according to Ravine.

An enchanted grand piano, a cello, and a harp on loan from the Byrne coven for the evening all occupied the far corner near the hall to the kitchen and bathrooms. The silent-auction items were displayed along the same wall on the opposite side of the doorway, and I was pleased to see numerous Adepts slowly making their way along the table to bid on the items I’d collected from local Adept artisans, shops, and restaurants. Putting together the auction had given me an excuse to meet other magic users who worked and lived in the city.

The current song the magical trio was playing might have been some sort of waltz, but I honestly knew nothing about music. Or dancing. Hence my having kept to the edges of the gallery all night. 

I slipped, hopefully unnoticed, behind a murmured conversation between Mesa Byrne and her son, Ridge, who were discussing an oil painting by an eighteenth-century Irish sorcerer. Tiny fairies hid among the ruins of a stone tower in the expansive landscape, whose color palette was dominated by blues, greens, and golds. According to Crystal, the archive held three of the artist’s works, but the landscape was the most appropriate thematically.

Though it was rare that a piece of art appealed to me, I found myself itching to take the oil painting home and hang it in my library. Crystal had great taste. Or at least her taste apparently aligned with my own.

A ruddy-haired man stood slightly apart from Mesa and Ridge, his back to the wall and an untouched glass of champagne in his hand. Dillon Garvey, Ridge’s guest. According to Ravine, again and always, their relationship was new enough that the gala was the first social function they’d attended together, and the first Adept function that Dillon had ever set foot within.

Dillon, in his midthirties, was an investigator for the Garda Siochana, the national police service of Ireland. But despite his Adept heritage — his grandmother had been a necromancer affiliated with the Byrne coven — when I’d shaken his hand at the beginning of the evening, whatever magic might still simmer within Dillon Garvey’s blood had felt completely dormant.

I skirted along the silent-auction display, secretly coveting at least three items — a handblown glass vase that had been donated by a pack werewolf, a spellbook donated by Mesa Byrne, and a gift basket curated by Cove Byrne, who ran the cafe I frequented for lunch on Tuesdays, and who had also catered the gala.

I paused by my own donation — a tour of the archive and a two-hour chat with the head curator. Namely, me. Crystal had suggested it, with her, Brady, and James each offering something relevant to their own specialties as well. I’d been surprised that Crystal thought two hours of my time would be worth anything to regular Adepts. Then I’d been flummoxed when the bid had surpassed five hundred euros within thirty minutes. It was currently sitting at a bid of fifteen hundred euros.

Kellan Conall was the current top bidder.

My heart paused for a breath, then sped up for a few beats before leveling out.

I liked Kellan’s handwriting. Well formed, readable, but not fancy. The thick, steady strokes indicated a firm …

What was I doing?

Who got turned on by handwriting?

Other than me, obviously.

Kellan had been bidding against Mesa Byrne and someone named Brendan Prince for the last six bids. They’d had to flip the card over.

A small plate holding three tiny crab cakes appeared under my nose. He’d approached silently. Surrounded by the energy that teemed from every surface and every one of the eighty-plus people in the room, I hadn’t picked up his magic.

Kellan.

I took the plate without thinking, then actually steeled myself before turning my attention to him. I’d already caught sight of the imposing shapeshifter multiple times in the last hour, tearing my gaze away and altering my direction each time.

Kellan leaned in to read the silent-auction card. His voice was a soft purr next to my ear, his breath whispering across my exposed neck and collarbone. “Who,” he murmured, “is Brendan Prince?”

His deep, playful tone did all sorts of mushy things to my insides. I met his golden-green eyes, their color vibrant and pronounced next to his light-brown skin and darker-brown hair. He wasn’t wearing a mask. I forced myself to smile even though my heart had started hammering in my chest.

Because Kellan Conall might have been imposing in construction gear. Maybe even ruggedly handsome wearing a sweater and jeans. But in a tuxedo, he was devastation. Utter wanton devastation. 

According to my hormones.

Even though rationally and logically, I knew he was off-limits. For multiple reasons.

Grinning, Kellan straightened to his full height, still towering over me despite my heels.

I popped a crab cake in my mouth, making appreciative noises. Even though I’d been avoiding him all evening, he’d apparently noticed how much I liked them.

His grin widened, magic sparking in his eyes as his gaze fell to my lips. And suddenly I was the one who felt utterly wanton. And exposed. 

– Compelling Infinity (Archivist 2)

PREORDER NOW – AVAILABLE JAN 4, 2022

– AMAZON – APPLE BOOKS – BARNES AND NOBLE – KOBO – SMASHWORDS –

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Are you new to the Archivist series? The first book is Awakening Infinity (Archivist 0), Or click here for the complete reading order of the Adept Universe.