Conjured

She felt a lump in her throat, and she had to look away from him. Without his arms around her, her skin prickled, cold. She wrapped her own arms around herself.

“You’re really brave,” Zach said.

Another laugh burst out of her lips, still shrill.

“I’m serious. I can’t imagine …”

She heard footsteps. Both of them froze. A patron wandered into the aisle. He browsed through two shelves, selected a book, and then left. Eve listened to his footsteps recede, soft on the carpet.

Zach drew Eve close again and resumed stroking her hair, a little faster and harder than was soothing. “Listen, it will be okay.”

“You don’t know that.” Eve wanted to tell him what Malcolm had said—about how the unnamed “he” cut his victims into pieces. And how each piece was kept in a box. And how she saw those boxes in her visions. And how, in her visions, she’d been inside one, shrunken and trapped, in a box that stank of the old urine of other victims. And how she’d seen one of the boxes on Patti’s desk in this very library … How had it gotten here? Was the Magician here? Am I safe? She pushed down a burst of panic. The WitSec agents wouldn’t have brought her back to the library if it wasn’t safe, she told herself. She’d still be in the agency or the hospital.

“Well, no, I don’t know, but I think that’s what you’re supposed to say in situations like these. Not that I’ve ever been in a situation like this.” He was trying to sound light, Eve could tell, but his voice sounded strained instead.

Another patron poked his head into their aisle. He retreated with apologies when he saw Eve and Zach intertwined. Eve listened for more footsteps.

Zach stood up and pulled Eve to her feet. “It will be okay. Because I said so. And I don’t lie.” He placed his hands on her shoulders so she’d look directly into his eyes. “You know, the moment I saw you, I said to myself—because all the great people talk to themselves, of course—I said, ‘Zach, you have to meet that lovely lady, because she will make your life extraordinary.’ I was not wrong.” He took a deep breath and tried to smile. “I’m going to help you remember.”

“You are?” Eve asked.

“You remember that you like to kiss me?” His eyes looked puppy-dog hopeful. “And what happened when you first kissed me?”

“We floated. And then the books in the reading room flew.” She could count the number of good memories that she had on one hand—those were two of them.

“And after that?”

She shook her head.

“We experimented. We learned. We … had our first real date.”

“I don’t remember.” Saying it out loud made her feel as if someone had reached inside and ripped away pieces of her. Those memories were supposed to be hers! She wanted them back.

“Then I will show you.”

He sounded so confident that she nearly smiled in spite of everything.

Taking her hand, he led her deeper into the stacks to a corner where the books were matching yellow and the fluorescent lights flickered and buzzed.

“Relax. All you have to do is give me the magic, and I’ll shape it.” He leaned toward her. “You don’t even have to kiss me. The magic is in your breath. I only have to breathe it in.”

She kissed him anyway, eyes open.

Behind him, she saw books sail off the shelves and then stack themselves around them, interlaced like stones in a wall, closing off their row from the rest of the library. He breathed in her magic again, and green tips of plants burst through the worn carpet. They grew, thickening and sprouting. Curling, they wrapped around the bookshelves and spread across the ceiling tile. Leaves unfurled, and soon the bookshelves and walls were draped in lush summer green. Red buds popped from the bends in the green. And then the buds opened all around them, a riot of burgundy roses.

He picked one and handed it to her. She took it. It still smelled like dusty paper, but when he touched the petals, they changed color, shifting from red to purple to blue to pale yellow. “Lovely,” she said.

“Not done yet,” Zach said. “I can use the magic in multiple ways. I can even hold the magic for a little while before it dissipates. Watch this.”

Again he kissed her, taking her magic through the kiss and then pouring it into the library shelves around them. She saw the painting at the end of the row shimmer. Ripples spread through the paint, and water spilled over the lip of the frame. It soaked into the carpet below, and water lilies sprouted in the dusty fibers. Painted geese swam in circles. “And now,” Zach said, “we dance.” He placed one hand on her back and held the other. She scooted her feet out of the way as he danced forward and backward, and then slowly she began to follow the rhythm. “You taught me this dance, and you described this bower. You said you’d seen it once and had wished you were the one dancing.”

She had? She didn’t remember that. She didn’t remember this!