But now she was pulling her hands out of his and moving back, her eyes a little distant.
“Fine,” she said. “You?”
Rhys gingerly touched his ribs again. “Nothing a hot bath and a nice whisky won’t fix.”
She nodded, then looked back to the shelf the ghost had been searching. “What was she looking for?”
“That’s what you’re concerned about?” Rhys asked, raising his eyebrows. “Not the fact that ghosts are real?”
“That part, too,” she said, walking over to the shelf, frowning as she scanned the titles there. “Have you ever seen one before?”
“Most definitely not,” Rhys said, shoving his hands in his pockets with a shudder. He could still feel the unnatural coldness of the spirit slipping over him, remembered how he’d felt suddenly not in control of his own body.
Fucking horrifying.
And it hadn’t just been the cold he’d felt—that thing had been angry at him. But why?
“Ms. Jones.”
A woman stood in the doorway between the regular library and Special Collections, Dr. Fulke hovering nervously behind her. She could’ve been anywhere between fifty and eighty, somehow ageless and ancient all at once, her hair a bright shock of white against her dark skin, and she was wearing, as far as Rhys could tell, about sixty-eight scarves.
Next to him, Vivi heaved a deep sigh.
“Dr. Arbuthnot,” she said, and then looked at Rhys. “Head of Witchery.”
Chapter 16
Vivi had never been in the witchery department before, and she was surprised to see it was a lot like the regular buildings on campus, just nicer. The floors were marble instead of linoleum, the walls wallpapered in a dark green damask pattern and the chairs in Dr. Arbuthnot’s office were velvet instead of the hard plastic and polyester Vivi’s office featured.
But the office was still small, there was still only one window, and as Dr. Arbuthnot passed Vivi a cup of tea, she noticed a stack of papers at the edge of the desk, waiting to be graded.
“Would you like to tell me what you were searching for in Special Collections?” Dr. Arbuthnot asked now, coming to sit on the other side of the desk from Vivi and Rhys.
Vivi didn’t know about Rhys, but she felt like she’d been called to the principal’s office, and she sipped her tea, trying to regain some composure. Between the kiss and the ghost, her brain felt like it had been scattered into a million pieces, and she knew she would need every shred of that brain to go toe-to-toe with the head of Witchery.
“We’ve had a magical mishap of sorts,” Rhys said, smiling as he lifted his own teacup to his lips. “Something went wrong when I was charging the ley lines, as is my responsibility as a member of the founding family of this town.”
Charm and authority, usually a winning combination, but Vivi saw Dr. Arbuthnot’s expression harden. “A mishap,” she repeated, her voice flat, then busied herself with collecting papers on her desk. “Well, this mishap has apparently released a ghost from a very powerful binding spell, so I suggest you fix it as soon as possible.”
“A binding spell?” Vivi leaned forward. She’d heard of those before, but they were intense magic, far more serious than anything she’d ever attempted. “The ghost we saw today had been bound?”
The corners of Dr. Arbuthnot’s mouth turned down, but she nodded. “Piper McBride, back in 1994. One of our best students. Unfortunately became too interested in the darker arts, and when she attempted contact beyond the veil, she ended up accidentally sacrificing herself. This is why we’re so strict about certain types of magic being forbidden. Mess with the wrong thing, it kills you, as Piper learned, sadly.”