Page 27 of Langiappe & Lost Legends

We spent the next hour layering protections like the world's most paranoid magical lasagna. The Smith determination was in the foundation because nobody was stubborn like my family. The Yearsley intuition was woven through the reactive elements because sometimes you need wards that can think on their feet.

“Focus,”Adele projected when Dre started suggesting we add explosion runes just for funsies. “The temporal anchors need to be perfectly aligned or reality will leak through like a poorly sealed can of tuna.”

By the time we finished, my brain felt like scrambled eggs. I was pretty sure I'd forgotten what normal time felt like. But the wards... holy shit, the wards were something else. They hummed with power, layers of protection that would make Fort Knox jealous.

Adele prowled the perimeter one last time with her tail held high like a furry inspection rod. “It'll do,”she declared. From her, that was practically a standing ovation. “Now, perhaps wecan focus on why this room decided to pop into existence like a metaphysical jack-in-the-box.”

“Let’s add that to the list,” I suggested. “We have a good enough understanding of that. We need to focus on the Lost Legends right now.”

"Must be a mighty long list by now," Lucas drawled from the doorway, and I didn't need to turn around to know he was wearing that smirk.

"The new wards look solid," Noah said, changing the topic. Dani went over to him and wrapped her arms around him.

“Yes, yes, everyone's paired off like a magical Noah's Ark. Can we focus on the fact that our mystery room is broadcasting temporal energy like a supernatural radio tower?”Adele's tail twitched in irritation.

"The combination of traditional protection spells and temporal anchors should prevent them from pulling their time-jumping tricks," Phi explained, while simultaneously trying to shoo Adele away from her latest scientific contraption.

“Touch my tail with that quantum detector again, and you'll find out exactly how many dimensions I can exist in,”our familiar threatened as she relocated to a higher shelf.

"Shouldbeing the operative word," I muttered but had to admit the wards felt solid. Even Adele's whiskers weren't twitching, which was basically a five-star rating from our feline quality control.

My phone buzzed for what felt like the thousandth time today. The council's emergency hotline was lighting up like a Christmas tree on steroids. "Another one?" Dani asked, already knowing the answer.

“Do tell us about more humans panicking over temporal anomalies. It's not like we have a room full of artifacts that appeared out of thin air to worry about,”Adele projected sarcastically.

"Yeah." I scrolled through the message. "The Magnolia Garden wedding venue just reported their rose garden is cycling through the seasons. Apparently, the bride is not thrilled about her photos featuring flowers from various life cycles."

Adele's mental eye roll was practically audible. “The fabric of reality is unraveling, and they're worried about their Instagram aesthetic.”

"That's the least of our worries," Dre said as she emerged from our magical pop-up room, arms full of spelled notebooks. "Who cares if there are dead flowers in a few pictures?"

“Finally, someone with sense,”Adele approved, though she immediately ruined it by adding, “Though I'd appreciate it if you'd stop dropping grimoire dust everywhere. Some of us groom regularly.”

The alerts kept coming, each one making my blood run colder than the last. "They're hitting businesses across the Quarter. Places with magical signatures." I looked up at my sisters. "I bet my new pair of Hokas they're searching for artifacts."

“Or they're creating a distraction,”Adele suggested, her mental voice suddenly sharp. “While we're all running around playing temporal whack-a-mole, they could be?—”

"Um, guys?" Dea called from downstairs. "We might have a bigger problem. Someone's requesting access to the council's archive records. Specifically, anything relating to the crystal."

Adele's tail puffed up like a bottle brush. “Well, isn't that just perfectly suspicious timing?”Sometimes I really hated when our familiar was right.

I nearly broke my neck, scrambling down the stairs with the others. My lucky charm bracelet was going batshit crazy against my wrist. The temporal distortions were getting worse. I could feel probability threads tangling around us like possessed spaghetti.

"When is it not suspicious? They’re in the archives?" I asked as I reached the entryway of the main house. "But they've only been collecting records for like, what? Three months?" My brain was already running the odds, and they weren't pretty. The chances of someone being legitimately interested in the council’s baby archive were about the same as finding a sober tourist on Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras.

"Exactly," Phi said. She got that look she’d get when she was ten steps ahead of everyone else. Show-off. "Which means either someone is really interested in Karen's complaint about Mr. Johnson's magical wind chimes..."

"Or they're trying to get something that isn't there yet," Kota finished. I grabbed my car keys. Sure, I was our group’s defacto driver, but I was the only one I trusted to drive while reality was doing the cha-cha around us.

"No. We protected that room six ways from Sunday," Dre said. I caught her rubbing her temples as another wave of temporal fuckery made the Spanish moss do its disappearing act. "We used every ward in our arsenal, plus some we made up on the spot that probably violated several laws of magic. Unless they want to deal with explosion runes, poison gas, and what happens when you mix my nastiest protection spells with Dani's paranoia, they're not getting in."

I didn't mention that my head felt like someone was using it as a temporal ping-pong ball. Or that I'd dumped enough power into those wards to fuel a small magical city. My sisters didn't need to know I'd barely left enough juice to heat up a cup of coffee.

"Besides," I added, watching a tree exist in three different seasons at once, "if they're trying this hard to distract us, it means they can't break through our wards. Which means they're getting desperate. And desperate people make mistakes."

Like showing up at the council archives when they were emptier than a vegetarian restaurant during Mardi Gras. The timing was about as subtle as a drunk gator in a tutu. My hands tightened on the steering wheel as I drove.

"Though if I'm wrong," I muttered, pulling another tissue from my pocket as my nose started its impression of a leaky faucet again, "I'm going to be really pissed about wasting all those explosion runes. Do you know how hard it is to draw those things while trying not to sneeze blood all over them?"

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