Balancing the four lattes I’d bought from the coffee shop around the corner on a Tupperware container filled with freshly baked blueberry cinnamon buns, I crossed through the darkened offices of the magical antiquities section of the National Museum of Ireland.
The nonmagical museum collections were actually distributed throughout Dublin, but the two main buildings — natural history and archaeology — were housed next to each other in the heart of the city, only blocks away from Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Trinity College, and the large park of St. Stephen’s Green.
Caught up in moving and prepping for my new job, I hadn’t had a chance to really explore the city yet. So I’d walked the twenty minutes to work, finding the early-November morning warm enough that I’d taken off my brown leather jacket and slung it over one arm, keeping my backpack secured over both shoulders, as always. I’d purloined the coat from my mother’s closet, so technically it was vintage. A favorite dark-brown sweater, plaid skirt, tights, and laced brown boots completed my outfit.
The exterior door to the magical archive was tucked away at the side of the archaeology museum, which was built in the Victorian Palladian style — complete with an impressively grand colonnaded entrance that fronted a twenty-meter high domed rotunda. The unremarkable steel door that led to the archive was unmarked and locked, but it had yielded to my touch with only a slight push of magic. No automated lights had flickered on when I entered, so I left it that way.
I’d gotten up at 4:00 a.m. to bake the cinnamon buns, which were still warm and sticky. The lattes were for my new employees, though having never met them, I had no idea if they even drank coffee. Making the buns in the temporary kitchen currently set up in the basement of my newly inherited house had been challenging, but I wanted to meet my co-workers and start the first Monday of my first official job on the best of terms.
‘House’ still wasn’t the right word. My new estate. Palace? Manor?
A name would really be helpful. Something that encompassed the scope of the estate. But I’d been a little too busy upending my life and overseeing the revitalization of the main house to come up with anything suitable. And my five-year-old brother’s suggestions were a little over the top. Sisu, who had a habit of changing his own name on a whim, was the son of a demigod and had to be continually reminded that he was neither invincible nor the defender of all.
The so-called inheritance of the estate was part of my cover for being in Dublin in the first place. As was the job I was starting today. All subparts of a larger task given to me by the guardian dragons — to live and work among the Adept as a dragon archivist, posing as a Godfrey witch.
I was well qualified for the head curator position I was to undertake — though I had crammed about two years of studying into the last month in order to feel that way. But the spy mission was another thing altogether.
Hence, opening with the offering of coffee and cinnamon buns. My research had informed me that bringing occasional treats to the office was a customary bonding ritual among colleagues.
I crossed through the open office area, my eyes easily adjusting to the low light. Four desks occupied the corners of the large room, some neat and tidy, others piled with books, papers, and supplies. Shelving units and filing cabinets filled the walls behind the desks.
An enclosed office took up about two-thirds of the far wall. A name I couldn’t read from this distance was stenciled into the obscured glass of the top half of the door. A clear path cut from the main entrance through the other four desks toward that door, with a corridor stretching farther into the building on the left, presumably leading to the bathroom and some sort of kitchen or eating area.
Energy radiated through the floor from heavy-duty wards, informing me that the main magical collection was archived below ground. As witches typically did when securing objects of power, sourcing their magic most often from the earth.
As I crossed through the main room, I wondered if there was also a more public collection. Something that the Adepts who called Dublin home could access without requesting specific items through one of the archivists or the librarian. If there wasn’t, I’d need to look into the logistics of opening a small viewing space or even a library.
As I approached the office door, the name emblazoned across its glass came into focus — Celeste Cameron. It wasn’t my own name, but the title printed underneath was mine — head curator.
So I’d found my office. Celeste Cameron had been murdered in an incident with a soul sucker entity over six years ago. An entity so powerful that it had also severely hurt my Great-Uncle Jamal when he’d been called in to deal with it, though he had managed to contain it.
I knew that the other employees — two archivists, a librarian, and a historian — had been maintaining the archive, but I’d been surprised to learn that neither the Byrne coven nor the witches Convocation had yet found anyone suitable to fill Celeste’s position. Before the guardian dragons had arranged to appoint me. Not that anyone knew the guardian part of my assignment, excepting the head of the witches Convocation, Pearl Godfrey. The witch who oversaw all other witches was now Auntie Pearl to me and my brother Sisu. On paper at least.
With the lattes and cinnamon buns balanced in my left hand, I reached for the doorknob of the office, feeling the energy radiating around the door. Possibly a ward — but the office might also have been sealed after Celeste Cameron died. The fact that her name was still printed across the glass made the second option seem likely.
Power hummed under my hand, but the door didn’t yield to my touch. I waited, feeling my way through the tenor of the energy, trying to assess its strength and purpose.
I could have waited until my employees arrived. But I’d come to work thirty minutes early to get a sense of the offices before meeting the people who were going to look at me as if I were simply a twenty-five-year-old witch who’d just come into her magical inheritance. A name and expectations came with that inheritance, but I’d have to prove I was qualified for the position I’d landed in.
Also, I had no doubt that the Byrne witches I’d already met, plus the members of the Conall pack helping renovate the estate, had already whispered bits of information about me to their friends and family.
So, since I couldn’t actually control what other people said about me, or Sisu, I wouldn’t worry about it.
Well, I wouldn’t worry about it much.
I had still gotten up way too early to bake. To make a friendly first impression.
I twisted my hand gently, forcing the magic locking the door to yield to me. It resisted.
I applied slightly more pressure, but carefully. A broken door and shredded wards would result in questions — specifically, the question of why I hadn’t waited to be given permission to enter.
But I didn’t want to start out asking for permission to do my job, which was why I’d also given the boundary wards that had sealed the exterior entrance a slight nudge when I’d entered. Manipulating wards, or even breaking through them, wasn’t beyond the abilities of any archivist talented enough to be a head curator, even a witch or sorcerer. And though I might have been still feeling my way through all the other aspects of the new life that had been thrust upon me, I was a good archivist.
I would eventually be a great one.
And all of that started today.
Magic stirred within my backpack. A press of warmth between my shoulder blades from Infinity, my personal archive. Not a warning. That always felt like more of a buzz. Encouragement, maybe?
Smiling, I pressed a touch of my own power to the door handle — and it yielded. The door popped open, swinging inward to reveal a large, dark office. The windows on the far side of the room were heavily shuttered. Which made sense, because now that the door was open, I could feel a humming energy emanating from the dozens upon dozens of magical items that occupied bookshelves running floor to ceiling along both adjacent walls.
I could feel the magic contained within Celeste Cameron’s office even before I’d stepped through the secondary ward that stretched invisibly across the open doorway.
No.
It was my office now.
And either the wards were weak, or they hadn’t been made to block the level of sensitivity I brought to the job. A higher sensitivity even than most other archivists — whether witches, werewolves, sorcerers, necromancers, or dragons — all of whom typically ranked as highly sensitive to magical items and creatures. It was practically the first line of the job description, right before a natural resistance to such magic. Otherwise that archivist’s career would be cut dreadfully short.
I stepped through the doorway. Energy clung to me, trying to taste my magic, then slid off when it couldn’t gain purchase. Because it was difficult to ward against a dragon. We were magic, descended from demigods. Not that it couldn’t be done. But the witch who’d built the wards would have needed to know that dragons existed in the first place, outside of morality tales and mythology.
The boundary wards yielded completely. My front foot landed on a worn rug set just inside the door to protect the oak hardwood. And the buzzing of all the magic objects on the shelves increased.
A wide grin swamped my face.
This place already felt like home. Literally. The library at my mother’s estate was filled with tiny touches of energy, just like —
Something slammed into the side of my head, getting instantly tangled in my already wild hair and obscuring my eyesight. Tiny claws tried to hook into my skin, failing at first, but then finding a hold on my bottom lip. The creature latched onto my right upper canine and started nibbling and suckling.
Yes. On my tooth.
I laughed.
Still somehow balancing the coffee and cinnamon buns in my left hand, I gently attempted to pull the creature off me. It clung with a tenacious strength that was usually only reserved for the starving. And since going for my teeth was a bit of a clue as to what I was dealing with, I understood that this creature did have a rather specialized diet.
I managed to transfer its front claws from my lip to my forefinger, tugging it away from me so I could peer at it. It assessed me with wide, dark-orbed eyes.
An imp. Known as a tooth fairy among various cultures. ‘Imp’ was a wide classification for magical creatures — some with wings, some without — that ranged in size from smaller than brownies to larger than pixies. This imp was the length of my forearm. Its eyes dominated its light-gray-skinned face, except for the overly large mismatched teeth of its lipless mouth.
“That wasn’t nice,” I said teasingly, holding it loosely so I didn’t accidentally crush it. “You could have said hello.”
The imp narrowed its eyes at me, then chittered discontentedly. It was unlikely it understood English, or spoke any language I could understand, but my tone should have —
The imp sprang free from my grasp, attempting to launch off the coffees and the Tupperware balanced in my other hand as it made its escape.
Four lattes in large paper cups with plastic lids didn’t make for a terribly stable surface.
Scrambling for footing, the imp leaped for the nearest shelf.
The lattes slammed into my chest and shoulder, lids flying off to dump hot coffee all over me.
Shrieking — even a dragon wasn’t completely impervious to heat — I lost hold of the cinnamon buns as well.
Hot liquid soaked into my hair and sweater, scalding the skin of my neck and collarbone, then dripping down my plaid skirt, all over my favorite brown boots and the rug.
The imp watched me warily from the shelf at eye level to my left. It chittered again, disconcerted.
“Yeah, that also wasn’t nice,” I said, sighing.
– Invoking Infinity (Archivist 1)
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