Page 26 of Spellwright

“How charming.” He sounded less than charmed.

“I think so too. Anyway, you probably want to wash up and change,” she said, even though no one would be able to tell he’d slept in his suit if they didn’t look too closely at the cat hairs. Even his hair hardly appeared ruffled, the dark strands brushed neatly back from his face.

He rubbed his temples against what might have been a headache. “And sleep for a hundred more years.”

Fia winced. “I’m sorry Finnick woke you.”

“No, trust me, it’s good he did.”

“Still, I feel bad you’re unrested. I never imagined we’d have so many customers yesterday, and you called on so much magic. I was thinking maybe I could mind things this morning and make appointments for you over the next few days instead of having everyone vulture over you at once.”

She was pleased when he grinned at her little joke, and it emboldened her.

“And also…” Her palms went warm at the other idea she did and did not want to present to him. “I wondered if you might like to stay… here. Instead of going back and forth to the Glory District each day. It would be more convenient. And only temporary. If you want.” Her words came out in a quick ramble of incomplete sentences and incomplete truths.

His brow notched questioningly. “I—”

“But I have to tell you something else before you decide.” Something she likely should have told him from the start. Or maybe he already knew. “Do you read the papers?”

“Not if I can help it.” Probably the last thing he wanted to see was some gossip columnist rattling off obnoxious opinions about him or anyone else in his family.

So Fia told him about that article from the Trivoris Herald and what Dominik Honestly had implied about her involvement in the theft at Thistledown. “I didn’t steal The Book of Ribs. But the thieves know I was… outside the library”—another incomplete truth—“and I think they might be watching me. I want to find out who they are. And for now, I guess I’d feel better if you—if someone—were here. With me.”

The grin slid from his face as he processed everything she’d dumped on him. “With you.”

An awkward pause followed.

Oh, Fia was bungling everything, but she braved one last appeal. “I wouldn’t put you on the sofa again. You could take the bed.” And then she hastily added, “Sleeping in the spare bedroom. Not with me.”

Not with me.

All right, now she was mortified. She needed to stop talking or, better yet, disappear. But he was looking at her too keenly, rooting her in place.

“I’ll get my things,” Penbrook said simply.

“Oh?” With all her fumbling, she’d lost hope he’d say yes. “You will?”

“Well, yes.” His grin returned. “How could I possibly refuse such a tempting offer?”

Fia tried to block out every awkward word she’d said to the Madbury while she readied her mother’s room for him, and the emptiness of the once warm space roused a soft wave of grief. There wasn’t much that needed to be done besides placing clean sheets and a fresh blanket on the bed and lightly dusting. The wardrobe and dresser were already empty, the clothing donated per her mother’s wishes. Sable hadn’t been sentimental about things, so there were no trinkets to tuck away, no mementos saved over the years. There were no reminders of her mother at all.

Which was why Fia ached for her mother’s spellbook so much. It was the one thing Sable Ives had cherished. And Fia cherished all the memories surrounding it—the way her mother had bent her head over the velvet-bound volume, writing so carefully. How she’d sometimes whisper to the pages. Fia had always listened, trying to ascertain if the book ever whispered back.

Sighing, Fia took one long last look at the room, her hand falling on the glass doorknob her mother had so frequently touched. She couldn’t bring herself to let go—not when she could almost imagine she was holding her mother’s hand.

Which was when she realized she couldn’t bear the thought of someone else touching the glass, overlapping her mother’s fingerprints with their own.

Impulsively, Fia scrambled down the stairs and rooted out a screwdriver from one of the drawers in the spellshop. Then she was back at her mother’s door, bent over, hair in her face, working out the screws until the knobs fell, one after the other, into her hands.

They glinted in the light, bright prisms in the cut of the glass, and she laughed out loud at how silly and wonderful it felt to have these keepsakes. Carrying them to her room, she set one on the nightstand where she could always reach it, and the other she tied off with a ribbon, then hung it in the window where it would catch the sun.

Smiling, she went downstairs again, carefully tucking away her thoughts of Sable as she drew up a new sign for the window.

PENBROOK MADBURY

MAGICIAN, ILLUSIONIST, ARTIST

SEEN BY APPOINTMENT ONLY