Page 28 of The Misfit Mage and His Darling Demon

“Absolutely not.” Wally grabbed a book off a shelf, clutching it to his chest like he’d birthed a baby of words. “There are one-of-a-kind artifacts here. Tomes of knowledge that could benefit everyone. Secrets kept from the world. Things to—”

“Fine.” I smothered the fire. “Explore, research, catalog, just stop talking about it.”

Mora would be displeased if I destroyed the villa without uncovering Novus’ methods anyway. Then again, fuck her. She’d conned me into a celebration that tossed us into this situation to begin with. She should be stuck here, unraveling secrets and listening to Wally’s discoveries.

I sighed. This library alone would lead to a million new lessons and rambling discussions. I felt it in my bones.

“Let’s save the library studies for another time.” I waved a hand, telekinetically taking the stack of books Wally had already started piling up for his reading and moved them back to a shelf. Any shelf. I didn’t care about the librarian’s code of organization. “I want to find where he’s keeping the demons. Even if he’s funneling their essence throughout the villa, he has to keep their hearts and minds in one place.”

“Unless he has a sign saying demon parts here, it could take some time,” Wally said, retrieving the books to place on proper shelves, the gears turning in his maze of a mind. He was about to enter a tangent; I could feel it from the tension released from his muscles. “This place could be even bigger than we realize. Fae are known for spatial compressions, so there could be layers upon layers of the villa itself.”

“Doubtful. This gaudy mansion seems to keep everything on display, probably easiest to remain undetected and streamlined by maintaining one reality.”

Though, the frequency here was slightly off compared to most Fae traveling ports, completely different from what was used at the Fae Divinity performance, which was already challenging to read. Best compared to stations on a radio, similar to the fact I didn’t understand how those screeching sounds traveled through wires, simply that I could detect them. If Wally could see the threads of time and space laced in this library alone, he’d probably have a better system description. After he jizzed himself in utter delight and created an obscene amount of categorical research.

“Where should we start?” Wally asked.

“I’d say where he kept you. Chances are, he meant to carve my essence from you and lure me to that spot.”

“I didn’t see any Diabolics in that room.”

“Can we just go?”

Wally led the way through the labyrinth, using an incantation to manifest a torch that lit our way through long-winding corridors.

“I think it was this way.”

“You don’t remember?”

“I wasn’t exactly drawing a map as I ran for my life,” he said with a note of a huffy snark. “Wait a second.”

I mouthed one, two, three, four, and five before he continued. Definitely more than a second.

“This wasn’t here last time.” He walked toward a doorway, trailing his hand along the faded symbols lining the frame.

The door glowed blue, holding the faintest hue of a pocket portal.

“Then we’ve clearly gone the wrong way.”

“No.” He pointed to a hole above several yards ahead. “That’s where I fell through unless there are a bunch of acid-made holes here.”

“Let’s hope not.”

“You know what this means?”

“No.” I stifled my annoyance because I had a good idea.

“It means even if you cut through a lot of the villa searching for me, there could’ve been entire rooms cloaked behind wards like these.” Wally studied the symbols. “You were saying something about that being unlikely?”

I grumbled at his cocky tone.

“My best guess is all these protective wards shielding the villa and hiding pathways were linked to Novus’ magical signature.”

Funny. The Fae noble was as arrogant as the dead magus I never got to pluck from this earth. Abe had similar security measures, tying his magic and life force to everything in the repository. I loved when grandiose fools were slaughtered, and their treasures were easily taken.

I snatched Wally away from the doorway and wrapped him into a tight embrace, flying us through the hole back to where he’d arrived. If I left him to his own devices, he’d spend hours studying the door’s symbols. Hell, we’d have never made it out of the library with Walteresque sleuthing.

Wally scrambled loose from my grip when we landed on what remained of the clay floor. I quickly noted the trap above meant to cut off all access to magic and mana for those bound within the confines of the pentagram. Eyeing the oddities which remained shelved in this room, I found myself impressed by how he’d managed to break free completely independently against a foe such as Novus, who had far more age and skill in casting.

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