An Arcane Inheritance by Kamilah Cole - 32

It started with a rumbling. Ellory cut her sentence short to stare wide-eyed at the shelves, which vibrated like they were at the epicenter of an earthquake. The books quailed with them, rustling against one another like leaves in the wind. Hudson backed away from the ones he’d been examining until he was standing between her and the trembling walls, arm extended to keep her from trying to get past him.

A red book slid free of the shelf and shot toward them.

“Get down!” Hudson called.

Ellory hit the floor, the impact reverberating up her arms. The book slammed into the desk, right where she had just been standing. Hudson, crouched next to her, was still staring at the shelves in open horror. A blue book shook loose and hovered in the air before flying in their direction. Then a green book, a gold book, a leather-bound brown book—faster and faster, each pausing to search for them every time. Dust clung to Ellory’s skin as she rolled out of the way, throwing her arms over her head in time to avoid getting concussed by a first edition of The Mysterious Affair at Styles.

“The desk,” she shouted. More and more books joined the cacophony, swirling into a tornado of paper in the middle of the room. “Get under the desk!”

Hudson threw out a hand, and a podium screeched across the room to shield them. Whatever memory he had sacrificed to cast that spell saved them just in time. Hardcovers hit the walls, one another, the glass case, and the latter began to crack under the assault. Book after book struck the podium so hard that the wood splintered, and still they kept coming . Ellory flinched and huddled closer to Hudson; his breathing was calm where hers was labored, and she tried to match his level of peace before she hyperventilated.

Magic is dangerous… It’s been twisted into this dark version of itself somehow.

It wasn’t that Ellory hadn’t believed Hudson when he’d told her that. She just hadn’t thought magic itself would try to kill her.

The shelves emptied until the final book clattered to the ground inches away from Ellory’s leg. Tension leaked from Hudson’s body, but Ellory was on high alert. The shelves were shaking, even with nothing on them, and fear had been her friend and protector so far. When Hudson shifted to move the podium, she grabbed his sleeve.

His eyebrows lifted curiously, but before he could speak, the shelf opposite them tilted forward.

It collapsed to the ground hard enough to make her jump, taking a desk and three podiums with it. Wood panels cracked down the center. Books spilled from beneath with torn pages and bent covers. Ellory saw silver bolts in the wall, silver bolts that should have kept these shelves standing through another World War.

Then a second shelf crashed down.

“We have to get out of here,” Hudson whispered. “Someone will come and investigate. Worse, one of the shelves is behind the glass case, and if it shatters—”

Ellory imagined trying to pick her way through sharp wood and sharper glass—if, of course, those shards didn’t end up embedded in her body. Her hand throbbed with the phantom pain from Liam’s Christmas party. “Lead the way.”

He took her hand and kicked away the podium.

Together, they ran for the doors, sliding down the back of a broken shelf as the third worked itself loose of its bolts. The books surged from the ground and followed them anew, forcing them into a zigzag pattern to avoid being struck. Ellory’s grip tightened around Hudson’s as her free hand knocked a book off course before it could smash into the back of her head. They hit the door at a run, fumbling with the handle and tumbling into the hall.

The third shelf came down, and the glass case exploded with it.

It sounded like it was hailing indoors. Crystal pieces flew everywhere, coating the floor, pitter-pattering against the window in the door, slapping the walls as though they were trying to escape. The books the case had been protecting were covered in a thin layer of glass, and the humidifier rumbled in displeasure as pieces sank into the holes on its sides.

A shadowed figure stood in the center of the destruction, hands raised as though to protect themself from a strike. Their mouth opened wide, white teeth stark against their obsidian body, and they screamed until Ellory’s ears began to ring. That scream echoed through her head, filled her chest, made her legs shake. Only her hand in Hudson’s kept her on her feet.

“What?” he asked. “What is it?”

Ellory opened her mouth to explain, only to see that the figure—the ghost—was gone.

“Are you all right?” Hudson turned her to face him. “Are you hurt?”

“I—”

“What the hell happened down here?” A Bailey librarian emerged from the elevator, her heels clacking across the floor, her eyes alight with fury. “What did you do?”

“We didn’t do anything,” Hudson said quickly. To Ellory’s disappointment, he let go of her hand. “Didn’t you feel the earthquake? It destroyed the room with us in it. We nearly died.”

“What earthquake? We’re in Connecticut .” The librarian shooed them away from the door and then gasped. “What on—how could—oh my god.”

“Unless you’re suggesting we can unbolt shelves from the wall and shatter a glass case with just our hands,” Hudson continued, unruffled, “then I think you should take us at our word. And instead of suing for reckless endangerment, I’ll see to it that my family restores this room to its former glory.”

“I—” Her hand covered her mouth. She couldn’t drag her eyes away from the window. “That would…that would be great. Are the two of you okay?”

Ellory knew the smile she gave as an answer was the wrong side of manic, but it was all that she could manage given the circumstances. She let Hudson and the librarian discuss the tentative details of the restoration on the way back upstairs so she could wring her hands in silence. Hudson had been right. Bailey Library was a place of magic, but that magic had become dark and dangerous. If she had come alone…

Hudson gave the librarian an actual business card and then walked out at a leisurely pace that grew urgent as soon as they had turned the corner at the end of the block. He slid in front of her before she could go any farther, his forehead creasing.

“Seriously, are you all right, Morgan? It’s not like you to be so quiet.”

The joke fell flat. Ellory shivered, her mind replaying the attack. She wrung her hands again and paused. There was a smear of crimson near the base of her palm. “What…?”

A quick check made it clear that the blood was not hers. But that meant—

Hudson rolled up his sleeve to show her his bleeding arm. There was a deep crevasse that could have been done only by a particularly sharp glass shard and a crimson scratch like he’d caught himself on one of the broken shelves. She blinked, and the red almost looked like another sleeve, there was so much blood. She blinked again, and it was bad, but it wasn’t that bad, but he’d still gotten injured to protect her, and she didn’t know how to feel about that.

“ You’re hurt,” she said numbly. “Why didn’t you tell me you were hurt?”

“It hardly matters—”

“It matters to me .” Ellory reached for him before realizing that touching him would only hurt him further. “My dorm is closer. Let’s go.”

***

As if the universe knew that she needed a victory, Ellory’s dormitory was empty when they arrived. Clothes were strewn across Stasie’s bed, which meant she would be gone for hours, as she usually only put that much effort into her outfit when she had people to show up. Maybe Ellory had gotten really lucky and Stasie was on a date, one that would keep her from making eyes at Hudson and giving him whatever he asked for.

Not that Ellory was any better.

“Sit there,” she said, pointing him toward her bed. “I’m going to wet this cloth and come back.”

When she returned from the bathroom, Hudson was sitting on the edge of her bed. He’d shed his coat and his sweater, leaving him in just a slate-gray button-down. One sleeve was rolled up to his bicep, the cuffs dotted with rust-colored stains. He stared at his folded hands instead of any of her things, though she wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d already gone through her books. Hadn’t she done the same thing to him at that party back in September?

She couldn’t believe it had been four months since her perspective on Hudson Graves had first changed. She couldn’t believe it had been four months and she still didn’t know where they stood.

“I’m going to clean the blood, and then I’m going to put on some antiseptic, and then I’ll bandage you up, okay?” she said, pulling her desk chair over so she didn’t have to join him on the bed or kneel in front of him. Both things were far too intimate after the last few weeks. She needed to keep her hands steady and her thoughts focused. “This shouldn’t take long.”

“Shockingly, I know how first aid works,” Hudson murmured, though he presented his hand without further complaint. “I could have done this myself.”

“Just because you can do it yourself doesn’t mean you should have to. You’re hurt because of me.”

“I’m hurt because of a poltergeist in the rare-books room. I don’t see where you fit into that.”

Ellory bit the inside of her cheek to keep from arguing with him. Letting him bait her into snapping at him would only make her feel worse. She wiped at the blood as gently as she could, her eyes flicking up every now and then to make sure she wasn’t hurting him. He watched her intently but didn’t flinch. He didn’t even seem to blink.

She swallowed and moved on to the antiseptic.

“I think,” Hudson said, his voice barely above a whisper, “something we did in there triggered a protective spell. Spells fall under the realm of incantation, which might mean Bailey Library once housed that school.”

“We’re not going back there,” said Ellory. “Even if I wanted to, they’re going to cordon it off until they can fix the rare-books room.” She smiled up at him. “Nice job using money to get us out of trouble, by the way.”

“What else is it for?” Hudson returned her smile with a hint of mischief. “Money will make the greatest skeptic to ever exist swear there was an earthquake even when there’s no such thing in the news. She’ll spread our story for us, and we’ll be in the clear.”

“You disgust me.” Ellory smoothed the bandage over the last cut and sat back, admiring her handiwork. “Maybe I should have gone into medicine. I have at least six nurses in the family, you know.”

“I couldn’t see you as a nurse. Your bedside manner is poor.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re incredibly bossy.”

“That’s a good skill for a nurse. And you’re patched up now, aren’t you?”

Hudson laughed. “I think nurses are kinder about it.”

“I’ll rip this bandage off and send you to a nurse right now.”

He caught her wrist before she could pretend to make good on her threat. Ellory had leaned closer in the process, and now she froze, waiting to see what he would do next. His free hand hovered by her face, not quite touching her cheek but close enough that she could feel the warmth of potential. That intense, unblinking gaze had returned, but there was something soft about it, as if he not only saw something in her but liked it more than he knew how to express. It should have scared her, this closeness and her reaction to it, but it felt right. Normal.

She wanted to pull away, to reject him like he had rejected her at the party. But she was suspended by how being close to him made her feel a belonging that she struggled to capture anywhere else. The déjà vu that had led her down this path roared back to life.

There’s something to the concept of people who feel like you knew them in another life , Aunt Carol had said. Maybe you did. Our brains can only store so many memories, and we’re already losing the earliest ones from this life before we’re even halfway through it. Who’s to say this is the only life we’ve ever had?

If that was what all these echoes of memories had been telling her, that this was not the first life she had ever lived, then she was sure Hudson had been a part of the prior one. It was the only thing that made sense.

“Did we know each other,” she mused, “before I lost my memories?”

Hudson’s eyes had been tracing the curve of her cheek in an invisible caress. Now they snapped back to meet hers. “What do you mean?”

“Sometimes, it feels like we’ve had conversations before, gone to places together before. Like I know you better than I should. Like—” She pressed her lips together before she could tell him about her daydream. “Like we should know each other better than we do. Is it just me?” A pleading note had woven its way into her voice, and she cleared her throat to be rid of it. “I can’t be the only one feeling like this. Am I?”

Hudson’s hand dropped to the bed. He was pulling away from her again, and she didn’t know how to stop it. “I…I should go to the health center. Not that I don’t trust your work, but…just in case.”

“Hudson—”

“Morgan,” he said, standing. “I can’t, okay? Whatever it is you want from me, I can’t give it to you. Not— I can’t .”

Ellory deflated. If this was a preview of what it would be like to tell him how she felt, then she would die with her crush unspoken. She enjoyed their push and pull, but not when it came to her emotions. She was too old for games and for men who still played them. If he wanted to be partners in this investigation and nothing more, then that was what he would get from her.

“I guess I’ll see you later, then,” she said, her voice hoarfrost cold.

Hudson mumbled something that might have been a goodbye or might have been an apology. Either way, Ellory ignored it.