“That’s one way to put it.” He nodded. “It’s accurate, though. Many of the demis are the progeny of mixed couplings between some god and a demon. Rarely do a god and demon actually stay together as a couple though, so your Mr. Lovelace and this ‘brother’ are most likely half-siblings.”
I didn’t correct him about Lovelace’s name. Whether we called him Mr. Cupid or Mr. Lovelace, he’d clued me into the real problem. I needed to get that serum back and fast.
Nothing else mattered.
I spun on my heel and headed for the library.
“Naida?” Grym called. “Where are you going?”
“To do some research.” I swung a hand at the dividing door, enjoying the way it opened to my magic without my even having to touch it. Since I’d completed the pairing between us, taking up the full mantel of my role as Keeper, the artifacts and the library itself recognized my energy and responded to my every thought.
I felt pleased with myself until I remembered it had been my cat who’d clued me in to the power. Mr. Wicked had been opening doors with a thought for months before it occurred to me that he was simply channeling my Keeper energy to do it. I felt a little silly that my cat was magically smarter than I was.
But I wasn’t surprised.
I pushed the feeling of inadequacy away as I swept through the door. Mr. Wicked had been trained in magic from a kitten. I’d come into my knowledge late. My New Year’s resolution had been to cut myself some slack, magically speaking.
And that was exactly what I’d do.
At the top of my list was performing an inventory in the toxic magic vault before I decided how to move forward. Maybe the serum wasn’t the only thing that had been taken from the vault. If something else was gone, our thief probably had a different plan in mind than Lovelace Cupid thought. Maybe he planned to sell the serum rather than use it himself, which might give me more time to find it before all Hades broke loose. Literally.
I was coming to understand what a dangerous temptation the artifacts I managed were to those with evil intentions. None more tempting than the relics in the vault.
I’d believed I had them locked down and safely under my control. The recent theft had shown me how wrong I could be.
As I passed Shakespeare’s desk, I hesitated. The inventory could wait a few more minutes. I needed to learn what I was up against with the serum.
I checked the chair in front of the desk before dropping into it. My mind wrapped up in other things, I’d been caught off guard by it too many times. Casanova’s perverted chair liked to slip itself under the desk and wait for a pair of unsuspecting butt cheeks to land in its molesting seat.
Fortunately, the velvet nightmare was not lying in wait for my poor boohind, so I dropped into the chair and rested my palm in the center of the aged, tooled leather blotter. The blotter had been created to look like a book, with Shakespeare’s family sigil in the center of what would be the front cover
The Shakespeare family motto was embossed in fading gold letters along the spine. Non Sanz Droict. Not without Right. Since I was the current KoA, I was one of the very few who had the right to utilize the desk’s prodigious library. “I need information on Cupid and his Love Serum,” I told the desk.
Right on cue, the tooled leather beneath my palms warmed and began to boil, like a magical curser searching for just the right volume to tell me what I needed to know.
A moment later, I was starting to worry that it wasn’t going to find anything.
Light flared just above the blotter, and a slender volume popped into existence. The book was covered in a strange, pale leather that bore two words in blood red on its face. Love. The Deadly Plague.
Well. That wasn’t terrifying at all.
I opened the book, repulsed by the cool, rubbery feel of the book’s cover against my fingertips. It felt too much like human skin for my comfort.
And then I shrieked in surprise as something shiny and round popped out of the pages in front of me.
7
Wretched Creatures, Slug Monsters
The disembodied head floated above the pages of the book, a hostile glower firmly fixed on the ruddy face. Doctor Mortimus Osvald was listed on the biography page of the book as a Professor of Devilry at the New York Institute of Magic. But I didn’t know him as a professor. I basically just knew him as a head ─ a hostile head ─ whose essence had been infused into every one of his magical reference books like a fleshy whack-a-mole.
Osvald pursed full, dry, slightly cruel lips.
I squinted. “Are you wearing a bike helmet?”
He sniffed, the thick dark brows over his black eyes lowering like sad caterpillars. “It’s a necessary precaution around you.”
I just barely caught myself before I rolled my eyes. I’d definitely been hanging around Sebille too long. “Just because we slammed the book on your head that one time.” Or was it two…?
The dry lips twisted. “And threatened to set me on fire. More than once.”
I grimaced. Technically, it had been Sebille who’d threatened him with a book burning. But I hadn’t done anything to make him think I’d save him if she tried. “Is that helmet fire proof?” I asked. A chuckle fled my chest before I could stop it.
His glower deepened. “What can I help you with, Naida keeper?” he asked in a clipped and snotty English accent.
I settled back in the chair. “So eager to be helpful,” I observed, narrowing my gaze. “What are you up to?”
The head swiveled
