The Prof Croft Series: Books 0-4 (Prof Croft Box Sets Book 1) Brad Magnarella (ink book reader txt) 📖

quick look around showed it to be in the same state of general disorder as when I’d left it four days ago. His gold cup still sat on the corner of his lab table.

“Fuoco,” I said.

From the bottom of the cup, a red flame jetted up and stood in a spire. I watched it for several minutes, waiting for messages to begin spouting forth. I had only been present a handful of times when messages arrived through my own flame—pieces of parchment paper that would unfold as they descended, coming to a neat rest in the center of my desk as though someone had set them there.

But Chicory’s flame only hissed quietly.

What did that tell me? That Chicory had locked his own cup with an enchantment? Or that he wasn’t Lich? Given the insanity unfolding outside, I was leaning more and more toward the first.

But was I certain enough to return to the Refuge?

The answer was not yet. “Goddammit,” I hissed at myself.

I was considering my options when the front door opened.

My chest locked around my slamming heart, and I froze.

The door closed. A stuffy silence followed, as though the person were standing in the foyer, studying my pack.

Cutting the light, I whispered, “Spegnere.” But the flame from Chicory’s cup continued to burn. I tiptoed over to it, removed the cup from the table top, and placed it behind a stack of books on the floor. The corner of the room glowed as if from a night light, but the flame was no longer in plain view. As I was creeping into a position behind the door, sword sliding from staff, a floorboard creaked under my foot. I stiffened, swearing at myself.

“Hello?” someone called.

Footsteps began to click down the hallway.

“Everson? Is that you?”

It was Chicory.

19

“Everson?” Chicory called again. “Are you in here?”

My throat tightened and I swallowed with a dry click. I couldn’t have answered if I’d wanted to. His return on the fourth day meant he was Lich, didn’t it? Or was there some other explanation for his return? As his footsteps drew nearer, a corkscrew of dizziness hit me. I risked another few steps to make my way to the wall beside the door, out of sight.

“Oscurare,” I whispered, deepening the shadows in the room and drawing back my sword.

Chicory began muttering to himself in his curmudgeonly way. He sounded so familiar, so … harmless. Was it all a guise? His footsteps stopped in the doorway. I could see his hand pawing the wall before it found the light switch. When he stepped in, his mop of gray hair gave a little hop.

“Everson!” he exclaimed, his lips breaking into a smile. “Goodness, I feared I’d lost you!”

He stepped forward as though to clap my shoulder, but I showed him the ends of my sword and staff. “Stay right there,” I said, backing away, my voice low and husky. “Reach for your wand or utter the first foreign syllable, and I swear to God, I’ll end you.”

Chicory frowned sternly. “They got to you, didn’t they?”

“It doesn’t matter. I want to hear how you’re alive.”

“It does matter,” Chicory countered. “Don’t you remember what I told you before you left? How long did they hold you for?” When I didn’t answer, he said, “Well, long enough to poison you thoroughly, I can see that much. Come, there’s no time to waste. This is going to take Elder-level magic, but I can at least contain the poison, keep it from consuming the rest of your mind.”

“How are you alive?” I repeated.

Ignoring my earlier warning, Chicory began bustling around the room plucking spell items from the mess. “I’ll tell you everything after we’ve begun,” he said. “No telling how much time you have left.”

I pressed the tip of the blade to his back. “No,” I said. “You’ll tell me now.”

The coldness in my voice seemed to get through. He stopped and let out a huff. “I never died, Everson.”

“Bullshit. I saw you get run through down there.”

“You saw a doppelganger get run through down there.”

“Doppelganger? You better start making sense.”

Chicory turned to face me. “When I received the message that you had destroyed the book, I tried to retrieve you, but the defensive magic around the realm was too strong. I then tried to go there myself, but the same magic repelled me. My only recourse was to send a doppelganger. A weaker version of myself that I managed to imbue with your father’s essence. It got in but was slain before my doppelganger was able to kill Marlow and pull you out. An unfortunate turn of events, certainly. But that’s what you saw. Not me.”

“What happened to the real you?” I challenged. “Tabitha said you never came back.”

“The death of one’s doppelganger is like suffering a mini-death oneself. I transported myself to a healing plane where I went into a coma to speed my recovery. I would have been recuperating for months, otherwise.”

Could the Front have known that?

“Then why didn’t the Order come for me?” I asked.

“The Order didn’t know you were there, and that’s … well, that’s my fault, Everson.” He gave an apologetic shrug. “In all the excitement, I neglected to tell them I was sending you in.”

I shook my head. “Nice try, but I sent them a message when I was in the Refuge.”

“I don’t doubt you did, Everson—or at least tried. The message never would have gotten past their defenses.”

I thought about Connell’s lack of concern upon seeing the cup I’d manifested.

“What about the messages I sent when I got back?” I pressed. I was about to mention the messages James had sent as well but felt a sudden protective instinct for him and held back.

“Still going up the chain of command, no doubt,” Chicory said. “Once we get you stabilized, I’ll use my direct line to the Elders to update them and arrange to have you cleaned. Listen to me, Everson.” Despite my aimed sword, he leaned nearer, eyes growing sterner. “Whatever they did to you