Page 36 of A Lost Light

The library was on the third floor, where Andy had put River. The jaguar shifter carried me up here after our game in the garden. Everything up here was all dusty and it made my nose itch. But there were a lot of interesting books. The big libraries on the first and second floor were filled with spellbooks, bestiaries, witch history, and grimoires—most of them full of nasty stuff. But up here in the smaller library were all the books that most of the previous Lovells probably thought were useless.Thesebooks weren't full of crazy spells and dangerous Lovell ideas or inventions. They were books that didn't seem to belong. Books about the humane treatment of familiars, or why non-witch creatures were more than servants or spell components. Somone, long ago, had not had the same moral compass as the rest of the coven. Must have been someone important, if they were allowed to keep these things.

Up here, I found stuff that interested me. This current book was about me. About familiars who were bound to a witch and what to expect from the relationship. I bet Andy would want to see this when I was done with it. She was worried about our bond, worried that she was using me. I knew that even though I told her I was fine, she wouldn't listen. This book, though, outlined how familiarsshouldbe treated, and how the relationship between familiar and witch could be loving and beneficial to them both. Maybe reading it would help her understand that Iwantedto be her familiar. Sometimes I called her momma. Because she felt like a mother to me. But we could also be a team. Equals in her magic working.

I carefully turned a page, soaking up the words about all the benefits afamiliargot from being bonded to a witch who understood them. But my concentration was interrupted again by that feeling of wrongness. This time it was followed by an ominous rumbling. The house shook. A couple of books fell off the shelves behind me, and I scampered off the dusty old desk to hide underneath, where I'd be safe from falling objects.

The shaking was brief, only a few seconds. I cautiously stuck my nose out from my hiding place and tasted the air around me, part of my awareness going, as always, to my witch's magic. The bubble that held the pocket world sort of… wavered. Then it settled down. It was almost as if something had hit the barrier.

That thought gave me a shiver. The kind of shiver that I couldn't really explain to the others. The kind of shiver that told me I was right. Somethinghadhit Andy's magic. I abandoned my book and scurried across the dusty floor, down the hallway,and to the stairs. River was there, and he paused at the head of the stairs when he saw me.

“These quakes aren't normal, are they?” he asked, his yellow cat eyes wide.

I let out a peep of frustration. “No. Something's wrong with the barrier, I think. I need to see momma.”

He smiled softly and squatted down, holding out his hands. “Come on, I'll carry you. Save you the trouble of managing all these stairs.”

I huffed. I didn't like to be treated like a baby or a pet. But stairswerehard. And there were somanyof them between here and the ground floor. I hurried over to River and let him pick me up. He cradled me against his chest with one arm, not minding my prickles. I enjoyed the feel of the soft sweater he was wearing. It was pink. One of my favorite colors. I probably shouldn't be able to see colors. Or read, for that matter. But I had long ago stopped questioning why I could do all the things I could do. I was me. And that was that.

River hopped down the stairs two at a time, at a speed that made me nervous. But he didn't even come close to tripping or losing his balance. It must be a cat thing.

When we reached the ground floor, everyone was out in the courtyard again. Andy had her hands on her hips, glaring up at the sky. River sat me down and I ran to my witch, tugging at her pant leg so she would pick me up. Once I was stationed at my place on her shoulder, I shook out my spines and settled into the peace and rightness that came with being in close contact with her aura.

“What do you think?” she asked me as she continued to stare up at the sky. “Is the barrier breaking again?”

I held onto a lock of her deep green hair as I took a moment to feel out the magic she had created. “No. I don't think so,” I saidslowly. “But I felt… it felt like something bounced off the barrier when the shaking happened.”

She turned her head to glance at me out of the corner of her eyes. “Something bounced off? Like… void debris or something? Is there such a thing?”

I shook my head. “No. This seemed… purposeful?” I didn't know how to put it into words, how to explainhowI knew that. I just knew.

Andy sighed. “So someone is trying to break in,” she said, her voice flat and tired.

I peeped in sympathy at Andy's statement. “Maybe?”

“Can you sense anything else?” she asked evenly. “Like a magical signature or anything that might tell us who is out there knocking at our door?”

I hummed as I thought about that. “Not on my own. But maybe together?”

She heaved a sigh that made me sway on her shoulder and clutch her hair tighter to steady myself. I knew what she was thinking. That she didn't want to use me. I huffed.

“Stop worrying about me,” I demanded, giving the lock of hair I held onto a little yank for emphasis. “You're not going to hurt me. I wasmadefor this. And if we don't see what we can figure out, everyone here is probably going to die when the barrier is breached.”

She gave me the side eye again. “I hate how you're always right.”

I bared my teeth at her, my ears forward, in my version of a smug smile. “Which is always, if you'd just listen to me.”

“Kids,” she grumbled. “You give them a voice and suddenly they think they know it all.”

But she stopped resisting and opened up her aura to me. I used the link between us as a sort of… bridge. A path I could follow that linked me to all of the magic she had worked, to all of herspells that were currently active. I could touch the magic that fed the garden. I could sense the threads that connected her—us—to all of the others around us, except River. I could sense the little things she had worked, like the healing tea she made not long ago, or the tincture she had activated and placed on a small scrape on her finger from something she'd done in the garden.

And I could feel the wards. The massive bubble arching up overhead and down below, enclosing the entire mansion and the grounds around it, and all the rocks and soil below us. An iceberg of land afloat in the black sea of the void between realms.

And… there. A nudging. The ground rumbled again, softer this time. Andy's consciousness followed mine as I directed her to where I felt the difference, the magic that didn't belong. The aura that wasn't hers.

“Holy shit,” Andy breathed, her hand coming up to touch my feet, to steady me as we both swayed. “Is this real?”

I peeped. I couldn't really form words to assure her that yes, this was real. We were seeing beyond the barrier. My eyes took in the usual scenery of our current home. But mymindwas filled with something else entirely.

A being. Several of them. Hovering outside our home, tapping curious “fingers” of energy against the barrier as they tried to figure out what this was.

---