Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus Legends

  Love, Lies and Hocus Pocus: Legends

  The Lily Singer Adventures Book 4

  Lydia Sherrer

  To my super fans, who care more than they should, thank God

  Contents

  Cast of Characters

  I. Episode 7

  1. A Hop Across the Pond

  2. The Most Honorable House of Barrington

  3. Of Libraries and Legends

  4. Bibliophile Heaven

  Epilogue

  Interlude

  Twilight’s Hour

  II. Episode 8

  1. West Country

  2. Like a Thief in the Night

  3. The Narrow Fort

  4. Awakening Morgan

  5. Dancing With Death

  Epilogue

  Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus: Betrayal

  Afterword

  Also by Lydia Sherrer:

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Cast of Characters

  Main:

  Lily Singer - introverted wizard, library archivist in Atlanta, GA

  Sebastian Blackwell - ne’er-do-well “professional” witch, Lily’s best friend

  Sir Edgar Allan Kipling - talking cat, Lily’s closest companion, Lily is “his” human

  Madam Ethel Barrington - wizard, Lily’s mentor/teacher, Sebastian’s great-great-aunt

  John Faust LeFay - wizard, Lily’s father, plots to revive wizard race and rule mundanes

  * * *

  Lily’s Family:

  Allen LeFay - wizard, John Faust’s younger brother, Lily’s uncle

  Trista - mundane, John Faust’s daughter, Lily’s half sister, skilled fighter

  Caden - wizard, John Faust’s son, Lily’s half brother

  Freda Singer - wizard, Lily’s mother, formerly Freda LeFay

  Jamie Singer - wizard (untrained), Lily’s half brother by her mundane stepfather

  * * *

  Sebastian’s Family:

  George Dee - wizard, Sebastian’s great-grandfather, lives in England

  Day Barrington Dee - mundane, George’s wife, Madam Barrington’s sister, deceased

  Elizabeth Dee Blackwell - mundane, George’s daughter, Sebastian’s grandmother

  Stephen Blackwell - wizard, Elizabeth’s husband, mysteriously disappeared

  Thomas Blackwell - wizard, Sebastian’s father, deceased

  Alison Blackwell - mundane, Sebastian’s mother, deceased

  Frederick Blackwell - wizard (untrained), Sebastian’s brother

  * * *

  English Cast:

  Nigel Hawkins - mundane, George’s manservant, lent to Lily and Sebastian

  Helen Pemberton - wizard, Bodleian library system administrator at Oxford University

  Cyril Hawtrey - wizard, history professor at Oxford University

  Emmaline Nichols - mundane, designer and seamstress for her family business

  Mary Falconer - mundane, friendly local

  * * *

  Fae:

  Kaliar/Kaliel - fae king and queen, the dualities of growth

  Thiriar/Thiriel - fae king and queen, the dualities of decay

  Urdiar - high fae, a duality of earth/soil

  Shariel - high fae, a duality of plants

  Yuki - a duality of the aspect of fox, loves to annoy Sir Kipling

  Pip - low fae of the aspect of plants, specifically flowers, loves rum

  Grimmold - low fae of the aspect of decay, specifically mold, loves aged pizza

  Part I

  Episode 7

  The Calm Before the Storm

  1

  A Hop Across the Pond

  Lily sometimes wondered why health insurance didn’t cover the cost of cat ownership. It really ought to, since cats were one of the leading contributors to stress reduction and overall happiness in households across the nation. They were one hundred percent natural and had no harmful side effects—well, if you ignored the hair. She supposed, to be fair, it should cover dog ownership as well. But dogs didn’t purr, so they were at a distinct disadvantage in the stress-reduction department.

  At the very least, she thought she should get some sort of premium discount, since Sir Edgar Allan Kipling—her snarky, obstreperous, talking cat—was solely responsible for preventing a variety of health complications over the past twenty-four hours. Heart attack. Anxiety attack. If-you-do-that-one-more-time-I’m-going-to-kill-you attack. The therapeutic effect of burying one’s face in a fuzzy cat tummy knew no bounds.

  Not having a heart attack was a good thing, since the fate of wizardkind currently rested on her shoulders. Being a socially awkward introvert didn’t help, and she’d long ago admitted she needed all the friends and allies she could get. Which brought her back to the heart attack. It was an understandable concern, considering that her most powerful ally lay near death, afflicted by an unknown curse.

  Madam Ethel Barrington was Lily’s friend, mentor, and instructor in the wizarding arts. Though the woman was more than a hundred years old by Lily’s best guess—wizards aged well, she didn’t look a day over seventy—she’d always been a pillar of wisdom and stability in Lily’s life. Now she lay cold and ashen as the grave, and Lily was trying very hard not to panic.

  Lily sat by her mentor’s sickbed in her uncle Allen LeFay’s townhouse situated in the heart of historic Savannah, Georgia. Though one of the more modest of Savannah’s historic homes, it was nonetheless an impressive example of antebellum architecture with its high ceilings, wood-paneled floors, and plaster walls complete with crown molding. Madam Barrington’s room was clean and well lit by sunlight streaming in from four tall windows, two each on the east and north walls. Privacy was preserved thanks to a handy spell that made it appear from the outside as if the curtains were drawn. Allen didn’t like mundanes nosing about, and there were plenty in this city full of curious tourists.

  Despite the sunlight, however, and copious layers of warm blankets, Madam Barrington’s hand was still deathly cold as Lily gripped it between both of hers, keeping silent vigil beside the bed. Her heart felt as cold as the hand she clutched, and just as immune to the sunlight. Back aching, limbs stiff, and eyes stinging with weariness, Lily tried not to think too much as she watched the slow, almost imperceptible rise and fall of her mentor’s chest. But with nothing else to occupy her thoughts, like iron to a magnet they inevitably gravitated back toward the cause of this whole mess: her father, John Faust LeFay.

  It had been less than twenty-four hours since their…confrontation. Though to call it a confrontation was a bit of an understatement. If you asked her best friend, Sebastian Blackwell, he would have described it as an epic battle between good and evil. Which was why she rarely let him explain things: he liked to exaggerate. She supposed he deserved a break in this instance, however, since he had gotten his butt soundly kicked by her half sister Trista. The young mundane was a veritable expert in armed and unarmed combat and had unfortunately been brainwashed by their father to help him in his grand plan to “save” the wizard race and bring about an age of “benevolent” wizard rule. So from Sebastian’s perspective she supposed it had been an epic battle. He’d had to use every bit of his fae magic—acquired in a trade, as was the witches’ way—along with his own natural wiles to eventually run her off.

  And that was the other reason Lily preferred to think of it as a “confrontation.” They hadn’t won. Oh, they’d rescued Allen and freed the other wizard children John Faust had been raising as his brainwashed minions. And John Faust had fled, along with Trista and her wizard half brother, Caden. But they hadn’t won. Madam Barrington had been almost killed by one of John Faust’s curses, and their adversaries had escaped
with knowledge of Morgan le Fay’s location. Morgan was one of the most powerful wizards from the past two millennia—and Lily’s ancestor. There was no telling what kind of power John Faust might obtain from her, whether she was still alive or not.

  What with John Faust getting a head start, her mentor being fatally ill, and knowing she had to go to England and fix it all, alone, it was a testament to the power of Sir Kipling’s purr that she hadn’t lost it already. Alright, so, not quite alone. Sir Kipling would be coming, and then there was Sebastian.

  “How’s she doing?”

  The soft voice behind her made her jump, and she turned to make shushing motions at Sebastian’s bright-eyed, boyish face as it poked around the door into Madam Barrington’s sickroom. Turning back to the bed, she gently released the ice-cold hand she’d been holding and laid it on the covers, trying not to think how like a corpse her mentor looked. It was the blue lips and grey skin that did it, and the fact that her breathing was so shallow it seemed nonexistent. To make Madam Barrington more comfortable, Lily had taken down her strict bun and combed out the grey hair to cascade over her shoulders. It was the first time Lily had ever seen the older woman’s hair down. It made her look more vulnerable. More human.

  With a sigh she moved away, pausing to pet Sir Kipling, currently stationed in a catloaf on the older woman’s chest, where his warmth and purring would do the most good. Then she slipped out of the bedroom—the last room at the end of the hall—giving Sebastian a weary shrug as she quietly answered his question. “I can’t see any change yet. Allen seems sure his antidote will at least get her conscious, but I can’t help worrying. What if she doesn’t wake up? I can’t bear the thought of leaving before we know she’ll be okay.”

  Though she fought to hold it back, moistness formed in the corners of her eyes and threatened to spill down over her cheeks.

  “Hey, hey. It’s gonna be fine.” Sebastian assured her, giving her shoulder a comforting squeeze, then leaving his hand there. While its warmth was not unwelcome, what she really wanted was to wrap her arms around him and bury her face in his collar. That was out of the question, of course, so she compromised by leaning forward slightly to rest her forehead on his chest and taking deep, slow breaths to calm her emotions.

  While she was eternally grateful for his friendship and knew she couldn’t have gotten this far without him, he did create his own set of problems, though not exactly the ones you’d expect. The fact that he was a witch was a non-issue, even though witches and wizards were traditionally rivals. Being born with magic, wizards tended to distrust and look down on witches for their wheeling and dealing to acquire magic for themselves. But Lily and Sebastian had long since decided to ignore the traditions of their elders. The fact that he was a ne’er-do-well who considered rules to be more like guidelines was, surprisingly, not a major problem, either. He had a good heart and always meant well, even if he drove her crazy.

  No, the biggest problem was that she had finally, sort of, almost admitted that she loved him. She hadn’t spoken about it openly, but the fact that she had progressed from denial to semi-acceptance was a huge step for an awkward, controlling, up-tight introvert like herself. Of course, the most sensible thing to do would be to ignore her feelings and get on with the task ahead. The problem was, she didn’t know if she wanted to be sensible anymore.

  Staring at the polished wood under her feet, she felt Sebastian’s chest rise and fall in a sigh of his own, making her uncomfortably aware of how close they were. Raising her head and stepping back, she turned to stare out the hall window that looked over the busy street below, giving absent, one-word answers to Sebastian’s concerned queries.

  The whole relationship issue was made more complicated by this life-threatening adventure they’d been sucked into, clouding her judgment with worry and fear. Everything depended on her. With Allen recovering from his own injuries while simultaneously nursing Madam Barrington, Lily was the only wizard with the necessary knowledge to track down Morgan le Fay before John Faust. They might already be too late. Who knew how long it would take them to puzzle out her location from their copy of the ancient journal Morgan had left behind? John Faust, on the other hand, had already discovered her resting place, using a location spell he’d devised. A spell he’d channeled through her Uncle Allen, almost killing him.

  They’d “confronted” John Faust too late to stop him using the spell, but at least they’d survived the encounter intact and had deprived her father of his base of operations. The old mental ward he’d been using as a magical laboratory was now an FBI crime scene where Agent Richard Grant—their contact in the agency—was busy leading the investigation against his illegal activities. Not that the FBI knew anything about John Faust’s larger plans. They thought he was just some crazy cultist wacko. Lily wished it were that simple.

  The worst part was, she agreed with her father. Not with his methods, of course. They were deplorable. But his goal to repopulate the wizard race was a noble one, especially since most wizards were in denial about their slow decline and eventual extinction. Even her father’s vision of ruling mundane society, putting an end to their petty wars while using magic to make people’s lives better, was a laudable goal. Supremacist, racist, arrogant, and wildly idealistic, but still, laudable. If her father hadn’t been such a miserable excuse for a human being, she might have been tempted to join him. But having already been held captive by him and experimented on herself, she’d thoroughly and irrevocably burned those bridges. Her father was wrong. The ends did not justify the means, and no amount of future good could justify present immorality.

  Lost in her own dark thoughts, she became aware of Sebastian again only when he gripped her by the shoulders and gave her a gentle shake. “Hey. Hey! Are you hearing me, Lil? You’re gonna be fine. You know why? Because I’m going to help you. And so is Kip, and Allen, and your mom, and everyone else. You’re not alone. We’ll figure this out together, okay?”

  Lily took a deep breath and nodded. She opened her mouth to say something bracing that she didn’t feel when she heard a weak, halting voice from inside the bedroom.

  “Hello…Mr. Kipling. I do not suppose…you could…fetch some water…could you?”

  Whirling, Lily rushed back into the room with Sebastian close behind. Madam Barrington lay as motionless as ever but her eyes were half open. Even this simple task seemed to take great effort, but despite her weakness, a ghost of a smile came to her lips as Lily and Sebastian entered her field of vision. Lily gently took her mentor’s hand and gripped it tightly. It was still ice cold.

  “You’re awake. How are you feeling?” Lily asked as Sebastian took a cup of water from the bedside table and ever so carefully helped his aunt take a few sips.

  “As weak…as a newborn foal. Allen? Is he…alright?”

  “Quite a bit better than, well, yourself, I expect. Ahem, Madam.” Allen’s wry, reedy voice came from the doorway, and Lily and Sebastian moved back to allow him room to examine his patient.

  He poked and prodded, muttering things under his breath like “good, good, good,” and “what’s this now…interesting.” Finally he straightened, looking grave. “It appears that, hmm, the coma was, as I feared, a p—precipitate of trauma rather than, er, a concomitant of the c—curse’s parameters. While consciousness is a p—positive development, I fear it does little to illuminate the lexical c—composition of the curse.”

  Lily’s face fell, and she shot a worried look at Madam Barrington, who had closed her eyes, saving what strength she had.

  “Okay, could someone translate for the witch in the room?” Sebastian asked, looking back and forth between them.

  Lily almost smiled, but her cheek muscles felt heavy and stiff. “He said that Madam Barrington’s coma was a reaction to her physical trauma, like when you get a concussion, rather than magically caused by the curse. So, it’s good that she’s awake, but it doesn’t help us figure out the specific wording of John Faust’s spell, which is what we’d ne
ed to reverse it. We can treat her physical symptoms, but until we get an idea of how the curse was cast we’ll have little chance of breaking it, much less reversing it.”

  “Oh,” Sebastian said, subdued.

  There was a long silence in which only Sir Kipling’s purring was audible.

  “So, what do we do now?” Sebastian finally asked.

  “I sh—shall do my best to keep her, well, strength up while I investigate a c—cure.”

  Lily bit her lip, hesitant to appear rude, but absolutely certain Allen would make a terrible nursemaid. “Um, Uncle. I know you’ll be terribly busy experimenting and researching, so wouldn’t it be helpful to have someone around to care for Madam Barrington?”

  “What? No, no, not at all. My, er, constructs are p—perfectly capable of…um, well, you know…” he trailed off, looking suddenly uncertain.

  “I think what Lily meant was, wouldn’t it be good to have someone around to keep Aunt B. company? A female someone perhaps?” Sebastian offered, wiggling his eyebrows significantly.

  “Oh, yes! Yes, yes, of course. But, well, I’m afraid I d—don’t exactly—that is I’m not acquainted with—”

  “There’s no need,” Lily rushed to say, extremely grateful for Sebastian’s diplomatic wording. “I’m sure my mother would be happy to help nurse Madam Barrington. Let me call her.”