Read Arcane Magic (Stella Mayweather Series) for Free Online

sitting alone at the kitchen table the next day with only a stack of accumulated, unopened mail for company. After I made my way into the sunroom, which also doubled as my home office, I noticed a new shipment of boxes arrived. They were replete with their own coating of decades-old dust. I still couldn’t work out why whoever sent them couldn't magically remove the messy dust and cobwebs without transporting them to my house. After a short phrase of magic, the dust and webs disappeared, and I grinned with mild satisfaction. The smile was wiped off my face seconds later when the box at my feet split its sides, spilling loose sheets of typed paper across the floor.
    "Guess that's where I'll start," I muttered, stooping to pick up the scattered sheets before piling them on my desk. The box was simply tossed into the corner for repair, or throwaway later. It was hardly a new occurrence. Three rolls of duct tape had already been squandered in quick succession on the ancient card boxes. Frankly, it was a miracle they made it through their magical journey still intact at all. Despite the amazing powers and talents bestowed on the witches of the past, unfortunately, archival filing wasn't included.
    Powering up my computer, I logged onto the online database where all the documents were being uploaded. Luckily, I didn't have to type out every piece of paper word-for-word. All I had to do was outline the material before assigning it to a category, after which a team of admins (I previously assembled back in the city) performed the majority of hard, tedious work:. They scanned, typed and added the content online, making it available to all witches. That was a process I insisted upon after two months on, when I realised I was utterly overwhelmed.
    Étoile adamantly advocated that everyone have access to the materials that had been secreted away for countless years. While I agreed in principle, I still had some doubts. What if the material were highly sensitive? Or contained details of crimes, or magic, that could lead to the population's detriment? As such, anything I deemed worthy of a second look by Étoile was filed in its own sealed box and sent straight to her office. I transferred more than a dozen such boxes since the start of the program. Étoile was great in giving me the autonomy I required to just get on and work, but as head of the Council, and champion of this project, there couldn't be any room for error. After all, it wasn't like she had the support of every witch in the community. No, there were always dissenters. Compounding that, she also had to liaise with others of our magical world, which operated secretly, yet concurrently in conjunction with the human world. The more I thought about it, the more reasonable her request became. However, I was surprised she didn't bring up the Brotherhood, or elaborate in more detail.
    As far as the regular humans knew, magic was just something they read about in movies. Even after the Brotherhood made their big announcement about the existence of witches, they did little more than create a cult-like conspiracy for theorists to debate. While some of these theorists became quite vocal, not that the media ever took them particularly seriously, the Brotherhood essentially remained in hiding. I couldn't decide whether I was glad about that or not. It wasn't a case of no news was good news, but rather the endless waiting and expectation that something was imminent and meant I could never entirely relax. Would I ever be free of their persecution?
    Kicking back in my chair, I stared out the long windowpanes toward the woods that bordered my property. Last night it was quiet, but during the next full moon, I would be able to freely observe the wolves that used the woods for their own private recreation grounds. The naming ceremony ensured they'd all be out in full force. It was something I'd grown used to since Annalise and Gage first revealed their secret. Now, only Gage lived across the