16

Big City, Little Orphan Witch

If not particularly helpful to the cause, the Arbiters’ records of the Gauntlets turned out to be of unexpectedly top-notch entertainment value.

“I’m pleased to report that Arbiter Savannah Harlow was a deadass comedian,” Talia said, still chortling as she flipped closed one of the slim tomes, sleeved in crackled caramel leather, that I’d dug up early that morning in the Gauntlet-designated section of the Harlow archive. “Get your affairs in order, Harlow. Savannah’s out to kill.”

I held out my hands as she lobbed the volume at me from where she lay sprawled on the ancient corduroy couch, worn down to its nap, tucked into one of the attic’s corners.

“I want to see, too!” Linden exclaimed, abandoning the records she’d been reading and trotting up behind me to peer over my shoulder. “Wow, is that a—a stick figure with gigantic balls?”

“It’s perfection, is what it is,” I said gleefully, cracking up as I leafed through pages of flowing copperplate script—in sharp contrast to margins doodled with strutting stick figures, all featuring comical expressions and equally funny distinguishing marks, illustrating the one Gauntlet in which the Blackmoores had lost to the Thorns.

“She calls Evrain Blackmoore ‘the prancing ballsack’ every time she refers to him, but then strikes it through—very neatly, of course, so you can still read it just fine—and ultra-courteously replaces it with his actual name.” Talia grinned, her eyes sparkling with admiration for my irreverent ancestress. “You know, for propriety’s sake. She must have despised him.”

“Doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination to picture what he must’ve been like. She, on the other hand . . .” I said, feeling genuine fondness for my grandmother several greats removed. “Clearly a legend.”

Talia, Linden, and I had been in the Tomes attic for hours, breathing in the magic-suffused air and reading by the dreamy, consistently late-afternoon light that slanted through its windows no matter the actual time of day. Since Mondays tended to be quiet, my father had taken one of his rare days off and flipped the shop’s sign to closed, so there was no one around to disturb us. Rowan had declined to join our research session, trusting Lin to fill him in later on anything we turned up; allegedly he was busy with work, but I had a suspicion his absence had more to do with a desire to avoid being in close quarters with even a friendly Avramov.

It suited me just fine, given how upbeat I was feeling, so hopeful and optimistic I would have resented anything killing my vibe. I could feel the cleared fresh air between Lin and me, breezy and open as new spring; room in which she and I could find each other again. And I kept thinking back to last night, to the candle and my bespelled little flame. Every so often I’d test it, surging a little magic into my fingertips, letting the heat build inside my hands like tangible potential.