Page 64 of The Librarian’s Familiar

“Are you there?” the Coven guy asked.

“Where else would I be? Do you know how hard it is to reach this place?”

“Um, yes…I have confirmed there is a swelling of magic in your area. However, I can’t say for sure that it is a storm event.”

“What am I supposed to do? I can’t evacuate the town. And for them to take storm precautions, there needs to be an alert…which won’t happen until the storm is on the radar.”

“Satellite.”

“Whatever. By the time that happens, it will be too late, won’t it? This is a very sensitive area.”

“I am aware. It will take at least twenty hours for someone to get there to assist.”

“Twenty hours.” That was going to be too late. “The storm will hit before then. I’m guessing that whoever is behind this knows how long it will take for the Coven to react. They probably know there are no animal talkers in town.” They’d gotten an unexpected early warning. All the fishing gear and survival books… “The previous librarian. Can you confirm his location?”

“Why do you need that information?”

“Because he’s had nine years to plan this job and knows exactly how the Coven and prison will respond. I suggest you get someone investigating his connections.”

“I’m not investigating another agent, and you don’t have that authority.”

“Fine. Put me through to someone who does.”

“I’m not doing that either.”

“I’m trapped in town, with an incoming storm that no one else can see. I have nothing but time to make phone calls.” He’d start with his mother since she still had leverage. “I’ll start with agent Alicia Ander.” His mother had never changed her name when she married, and it was occasionally useful to drop her name.

The man on the other end typed into his keyboard. He made a small noise like he was being strangled. “I will call you back.”

“You’d better.” Charlie hung up and immediately called his mother. His parents were somewhere in Europe, so it would either be super late or super early.

She answered with a sleepy noise that may have been his name.

“Sorry about the timing, Mom. I have a potentially very serious issue up here, and I’m not getting any joy, so I may need you to pull rank to get info.”

Bed sheets rustled. “What’s the situation?”

“Magic building. The animals say it’s a storm. The previous person who held my job had it for nine years and did fuck all with the library, but he did do a lot of fishing and bought a lot of books on survival and hunting and fishing. I thought he was lazy at first, but now…”

“Could be unrelated, but if that’s the only lead you have…”

“It is. Not that it makes a difference if we’re all about to get hit with a whiteout.”

“I can try giving the Coven a nudge at my end. Are you going to be able to ride out the storm?”

“Yes, there are protocols. Can a storm be used as a brute force attack on wards?”

“I see where you’re going…potentially.”

“And that’ll be bad, right? If the prison wards break and the people get out?”

“If the wards break, there will be a substantial release of magic. What happens depends on how they were set up. It could be like an earthquake. It could supercharge the storm. It could kill everyone in one-hundred-mile radius.”

A little sugar coating would be nice, but that’s not what she did.

“And the prisoners?”

“The witches have been stripped of their magic.”