The City of Crows by Bethany Lovejoy (novels in english .txt) 📗

waiting room adjacent to the office, a necessity allocated to the professor due to the high volume of foot traffic to her office. A young man with dusty red hair and deep blue eyes came stomping around the corner, his textbooks in his arms rather than his half-opened bag, a look of irritation on his face.

“Your turn,” he spat, his chin holding down the papers atop his formidable stack and his mouth moving with inaudible swears. If I had to guess, the woman in question held a few hundred names upon his lips, not a single one of them good.

My lips tightened, but Leo’s hand on my shoulder helped me with the tension, at least I didn’t have to face her alone. A sigh, here I was again in many ways. The walk with Leo was both familiar and unfamiliar, a long hallway leading to a spacious office; the occupant having climbed her way up by her nails in order to get this room, holding tenure longer and class loads heavier than her male counterparts. She was now head of department and gifted with all of the prestige that came with the title; no doubt not trusting a single person in her department to have the role and not screw things up.

Lydia Wynne, the golden name tag read just before you entered her office, somehow managing to capture an ominous light.

A short, thin middle aged woman sat at a large mahogany desk. The faded blue dye on her hair had began to give way to grey and had become almost transparent over time, her red horn-rimmed glasses balanced precariously upon her crooked nose, and a large floral scarf wrapped around her neck. My mother always had this habit of looking like a cross between an old antique shop owner, a campervan woman, and a librarian. Her speech however, did not match her look. “Name,” the woman commanded, her head bowed as she studied the papers in front of her. It was the only way she got things done, grading in the short moments in-between classes; it was a blessing that she could read so fast.

“Lyra Wynne,” I said, with not a hint of irony in my voice. “And Leo Hoang.”

She took her time looking up from her papers, basking in the silence. If I left in that time, to her it was all the better. Still, her eyes traveled up, her lips pursed, and a single eyebrow raised. “And to what do I owe the absolute honor of seeing my daughter?” Her voice suggested that it was anything but an honor, and she dismissed me easily, “the answering machine stated that I was far too busy for any personal meetings. Showing up in person was unfortunately, unnecessary and unproductive, Lyra. Now, you can leave and write a nice letter, just as you have before, and patiently await my response.”

“Mother.”

“As you can see,” she gestured to the formidable stack of papers in front of her, not even bothering to acknowledge Leo who stood beside me, “I am quite busy, Lyra, and your visitation is an interruption to me.” She tapped her pen against the stack. “Now, leave.”

An impossible woman as always. “Mother, I—” I grimaced, knowing that there was only one way to convince her to allow us to stay. “I’m the one who broke that lamp, the everlasting light, you called it. It wasn’t dad, he lied for me. You were right, it was me.”

Finally, she looked up from her papers.

“You’ve been to the crossroads and back, and you’ve consulted with Dalia,” My mother said with a hint of amusement, sipping on the strong black coffee she’d poured from coffee maker in the corner of her office. The door was securely shut behind us as she sat at her desk, still keeping a formidable distance between us. I’d recovered from her ear full and demands that I reimburse her for a lamp I’d broken at the age of six. Now she’d finally begun to listen and was unable to hold back her amusement. “And Rowan, that stupid boy, signed a piece of paper and gave his soul away, expecting you to do the very same?” Her spoon clinked against the sides of her ceramic cup, though what she was stirring I did not know; my mother drank her coffee black, no sugar. “I almost regret not answering your family’s letters, Mr. Hoang.”

Leo opened his mouth to speak but was once again cut off.

“Almost,” my mother clarified with a hum. The sparkle in her eye hinted at more than she would say. We had not clarified the status of our relationship to my mother, but I didn’t think we needed to or that she’d care either way. All she did care about was the fact that Rowan was gone, a feat worth celebrating in her mind. She’d probably pop open a bottle of wine after we left.

“So, you’ll help us?” Leo asked, desperate to get a word in and have the confirmation that he so desperately needed. I didn’t fault him for it, I was getting antsy too. We’d wasted practically a whole day driving six hours to the university and we’d waste six more driving back.

“I’m afraid not,” my mother said, no air of remorse to her words. First and foremost, I can not begin to service every single soul who comes my way that needs help. I have piles and piles of letters, people with spiteful, hateful curses; and I do not have the time. More, just from looking at you, I can tell that it would be a difficult curse to break. No, the woman at the crossroads was right, as Dalia always is. A last-minute reversal in a case such as yours is difficult, if not downright impossible.” She sighed, likely taking in the way that my jaw tightened. “Witches got their power from pacts made with demons, hundreds and hundreds of years ago. In exchange, they became the demons familiars, representatives of them on