The Mortal Heart by Kami García, Margaret Stohl

I. Sunday in the Gatlin County Library
    No time in the world passed slower than a Sunday at the Gatlin County Library. On Sundays, it seemed as if the whole town had better things to do than read a book. But Marian knew most folks in Gatlin never read anything but the Bible if they could help it.
    At least my special deliveries keep me busy from Monday to Saturday
, Marian thought, wrapping the next week’s
illicit
book deliveries in brown paper. She addressed this particular wrapped copy of
The Beast and the Bodice
to Mrs. Lincoln and put her Sharpie back in the drawer. Illicit by Gatlin standards could mean anything from a romance novel to Carl Sagan’s astronomy text,
Cosmos
. “Who is this fella Carl to be tellin’ folks that the Big Boom created the world, instead a the Good Lord Almighty?” Aunt Mercy, one of the Sisters, had asked Marian. It was the sort of question that took as long to answer as reading the book itself.
    Common sense is not so common, as Voltaire would say.
Marian shook her head as she unlocked the door to her private archive behind the checkout desk.
That’s what life in Gatlin teaches you: The bar is low. For Casters and for Mortals alike.
    Caster librarians, like Marian, preferred things quiet. Quiet meant no worlds were ending, no universes were crumbling, no Casters were being Claimed for Light or Dark. No supernatural judgments were being handed down from the Far Keep, and no Keepers were losing their jobs. All of which Marian had survived in the past.
    She had started making tea but stopped and shivered at the thought of it—the chaos, the panic, the destruction.… Marian had spent more time trying
not
to remember the details of the past few years than she cared to admit.
    Now things were finally different. The biggest problems in Gatlin County were pedestrian happenings, like boy-crazy Thaumaturge Ryan Duchannes using her powers to break and heal hearts at Gatlin’s junior high, or Incubus-turned-Caster Macon Ravenwood tracking the location of every Ravenwood on the eastern seaboard while refusing to say why. Aside from these blips on her otherwise quiet Keeper radar, Marian tried to stop and appreciate the gentler pace of a librarian’s life every chance she could.
    But today it felt like the old Simplex wall clock’s hands were conspiring against her, and she waited impatiently over a pot of Earl Grey French Blue Mariage Frères tea. It was her good tea, loose-leaf and still in the tin Olivia Durand had hand-carried back from Paris; Marian generally saved it for holidays or occasions when she knew Ethan Wate’s Volvo would be pulling into her cracked asphalt parking lot. Which should be any minute now.
    That old clock has to be wrong.
Marian double-checked the mother-of-pearl face on the thin, silver-strapped watch her best friend, Lila Wate, had given her.
Seems like seven thousand years ago. At least two lifetimes.
    Marian pulled out a Tupperware container of homemade lilac shortbread, sliding one piece onto each of the three mismatched saucers she’d set out on her desk in the archive. At least she knew how to roll out a decent cookie. She wished the same could be said of Lilian English’s biscuits, her chicken, her pies, or even her chili-ghetti. Taking over the cooking in Amma’s kitchen wouldn’t be easy for anyone, let alone Mitchell Wate’s future bride. Still, Marian had been relieved when she wasn’t invited to one of Mitchell and Lilian’s subpar chicken and biscuit dinners. Now that the engagement was official, there were more than a few tiers of relatives who had to be rotated in and out before the couple tied the knot next summer. Anyway, Marian knew that Ethan would make the time to see her on his way out of town—and she wasn’t surprised when the bell on the library door jingled.
    “Aunt Marian?” Ethan bounded through the door, with Lena right behind him.
    “Ethan—”
    A hug was the first order of business, long and more articulate than anything