The Magician's Dream (Oona Crate Mystery: book 3) Read Free Page B

to understand what she was looking at, and then she realized that the branch that the maid had been dusting had not been a branch after all, but was actually Samuligan, who was wrapped in his dusty old cloak and sticking bizarrely out of the side of the tree.
    He sat up, the books toppling to the floor, and Mrs. Carlyle hurriedly scurried down the ladder to hide behind Oona. The faerie’s long jacket had been transformed into the same dark brown texture as the bark of the tree, but as he hopped to the library floor, the coat once again took on its normal shade of midnight black.
    The faerie servant, who stood nearly six and a half feet tall, tipped his black cowboy hat at Mrs. Carlyle. The maid gave a little whimper from behind Oona.
    “Now, Samuligan, that was not very nice,” Oona said. “You startled Mrs. Carlyle.”
    “My apologies,” Samuligan said, though he did not sound too apologetic. Oona knew this was the best she could expect from him. There would be time to speak to him about his behavior later. For now she needed to hurry if she was going to get in all she wanted to do in the day before her first battle test at three o’clock.
    “Samuligan, we need to find a book,” Deacon said.
    “Yes, we do,” Oona said quickly, before the faerie could respond. “So please . . . bring around the carriage. We’re off to the public library.”
    Deacon groaned.

Chapter Two
    The Faerie Carbuncle
     
    “Bizarre,” Deacon said.
    “You say that every time we come here,” Oona said.
    “I can’t seem to help it,” Deacon replied.
    Oona stepped from the carriage and craned her neck back. Above them, built directly on top of the enormous stone fortress that was the Museum of Magical History, the new public library towered over the street looking like a battered old witch’s hat. Four stories tall, the building coned to a floppy point as it rose toward the purplish-blue sky. The brim of the hatlike structure drooped over the edges of the museum like sagging cloth, while a stone hatband displayed the words public library in letters carved a full story tall.
    “According to the Dark Street Tribune ,” Deacon added, “this was the only place big enough to host the new facility.”
    “The design is supposed to celebrate the magical heritage of the street,” Oona said as she started up the stone steps toward the museum door.
    “Looks more like someone left their hat out in the rain,” Deacon said.
    Oona laughed. “Someone with a bigger head than you?”
    “Me?” Deacon quipped. “I’m not the one who thinks I can pass a magical battle test unprepared.”
    Oona pulled open the museum door and stepped through. “Who says I’m going to be unprepared? There’s plenty of time to—”
    Oona came to an abrupt halt in the entryway. Composed of tall curving walls and a high beamed ceiling, the room was home to an awe-inspiring circle of enormous monolithic stones—an exact copy of Stonehenge in England, except unlike their English counterparts, these stones had been perfectly preserved. The museum was a seldom-visited place, and more often than not, the tall gray stones stood stark and lonely.
    But today the entryway was a bustle of activity. Along with the usual museum guard, three police constables occupied the circle of stones, as well as what looked like a second museum guard whom Oona did not recognize. One of the police constables, a tall man with a potbelly and arms that seemed too long for his body, stepped to one side, revealing two more people.
    The first was the museum curator, Mr. Glump, a short man with a neatly trimmed beard and pointy nose. Oona had once questioned him about a pair of magical daggers that had been stolen from the museum. If she remembered correctly, the curator had had a streak of bad luck while gambling at the Nightshade Casino.
    The second person Oona saw was none other than Inspector White, the tall, extremely pale-faced man who had taken over Oona’s father’s position as head