Chapter 1
PERIPETEIA BOOKSHOP, HAVENPORT, DELORNIA
These fucking books are going to be the death of me.
Hanging from the worn brass handrail of my rolling ladder, I inch closer to the errant, very illegal grimoire that is attempting to squeeze itself between an illustrated guide to hepatomancy and a misplaced rare first edition of The Slumbering Willows of Easthavenshire.
My magic whispers along the towering bookshelf to keep the squeaky wheels gliding at a casual pace.
Pages flutter as the grimoire twists and turns as it attempts to wedge itself into the too-small space.
Finally, it thunks into place on the wooden shelf.
The opalescent scaly case glints an enticing greenish-blue glow, like a lure on a fishing line.
During the daylight hours, Peripeteia Bookshop is a quaint literary haven where humans or magicians—their magic-wielding counterparts—can immerse themselves in magical theory or knowledge.
The overstuffed armchairs within the gaslit nooks are rarely empty and I’ve had to shoo tired apprentices out of them at closing more often than not.
Once the sun dips behind the Astrum Forest’s mountains, acquirers on the hunt for something a little more illicit arrive, and the true shop emerges.
The dangerous inventory, composed of tomes, manuscripts, and encyclopedias of a different kind, takes its place along the shelves, the safer daytime inventory relegated to another pocket of reality hidden within the shelves.
Grimoires, books created by weavers sewing their Soul Thread into the bindings, are sentient, magical instruments. These creations watch my customers from their diurnal prison, trembling with excitement that they may be plucked from the shelf at night and admired. Or worse. Read.
The secrets of magic within those deadly pages are strictly forbidden outside the careful control of the weavers.
Any grimoire found within the city must be handed over to the Magical Magistrate to be returned to the weavers within the Astrum Forest. Because of me, the Amur, the leader of Havenport’s magician guild, was the first magician since the founder of the Guilds five hundred years ago to behold a grimoire.
And like the Magistrate and weavers feared, it granted him unimaginable power.
It’s made my weaverly presence within the city a little more tolerable.
What I lost in profit by gifting it to him, I gained in security when he accepted my business within the city: less chance of someone slitting my throat in the night.
I had a store. I had a safe haven. And I desperately needed that after three years of struggling in the streets when I fled the weavers.
Now one of those grimoires has slipped from its daytime prison and is hiding among the harmless, bound paper books, waiting for an unsuspecting victim. I need to imprison it before it’s too late.
My long fingers walk along the spines of the various theoretical herbology texts within the potions section of my bookshop, both searching for the book a magician’s apprentice requested and to cover my approach.
The grimoire can’t know I’ve spotted it.
The pesky book would try to run and chasing it through the bookshop while there’s a customer up front is a fresh layer of hell I don’t feel like experiencing.
I pay a king’s ransom to the Amur to keep the Magistrate from uncovering my grimoire-smuggling, but even that only goes so far.
He’d be much less motivated if any of my customers were killed, never mind a qualified apprentice from his precious guild.
The grimoire shifts back a quarter of an inch, and it takes all my self-control not to flinch. Is it withdrawing back into the pocket? No. I’m never that lucky. It’s probably getting ready to make a break for it.
I grind my teeth. Where the hell is my damn cat?
I don’t ask much of my cranky shifter of a familiar, but this is Jinx’s responsibility.
Guarding the shop from trespassers and making sure the illegal inventory stays put is vitally important.
Besides, Jinx could smack this book back into the pocket while staying in her overly fluffy black cat form and I wouldn’t need to be stuck here, wasting time sneaking up on the damn thing.
A quavering voice echoes through the looming stacks. “Did you find it, Aster?”
The sound of my nom de guerre nearly has me toppling off the tall ladder.
Adopting the name Aster Rosemont was for my safety when I ran from the Astrum Order seven years ago, but I wish I hadn’t chosen a first name so close to my true one.
My mother named me Astoria, and I had found it harder to shed than my surname, Androclaria.
The magician’s apprentice sounds closer than where I left him at the front of the shop, like he’s moving through the stacks to find where I am. I throw on a smile to help pitch my tone to carefree, “That’s quite alright. I’ve nearly found it.”
His boots’ heavy footfalls continue to approach and my heart races. That fucking grimoire is definitely withdrawing to launch itself like a deadly slingshot. The teenage apprentice would be an easy snack for any grimoire.
I cannot allow that to happen. There’s no way in the darkest recesses of the Weave that I’m cleaning up all that blood by myself.
I spring forward, my magic crackling in my veins and my eyes warming.
My irises flash through the hazel glamour that conceals their true color and emerald green reflects off the book spines.
The grimoire shrieks and launches off the shelf, but it’s too late.
I slap it with a crackle of electricity, sparks dancing along my fingertips.
Singed leather burns my nose and the static of the magic lifts my hair.
The grimoire slams through the magical divide with a pressure-shifting pop in my ears, and the harmless monograph on fungi it switched places with returns to its rightful spot.
There are fresh chew marks marring the spine from the other grimoires nibbling on it while it was within the pocket.
I’m going to throttle Jinx when I find wherever she slunk off to for a nap.
My momentum is too great and I tumble from the ladder. The wooden floor is unforgiving as I land ass-first. I hiss, rolling to my side and rubbing the aching spot. The magician apprentice sprints around the corner of the stacks, his brown eyes wide.
“Are you alright?”
I grimace at him, “Yeah. Just fell off the ladder.”
The apprentice holds out his hand in offering, the multitude of charms along the lapels of his coat catching the gas lamplight.
I accept the boy’s offered hand and my shirt’s cuffs ride up.
I pause, shocked by how the boniness of my wrist matches the reed-thin boy’s.
When was the last time I ate? I worked through lunch and breakfast was more of a light snack as I dashed out the door after oversleeping.
Being negligent with such things is not uncommon, but the lack of hunger is strange.
The stress of having Lucas gone must be getting to me.
The acquisition mission he’s on has sent him from my side for weeks on end.
Handling everything without my business partner is exhausting, but it will be well worth it when he returns with the grimoire he’s retrieving.
The fabled book is worth a fortune to the collector who hired us. If it exists, which it fucking better.
The boy hauls on my hand. I stumble and fall back down, a playful laugh bubbling from my chest to hide my embarrassment. He holds out his other hand with a sheepish grin and it causes his buttoned jacket to bulge open. My eyes lock on an object hidden within and my reaching hand stills.
A wand.
A stirring in my chest keeps my gaze glued to the irreplaceable relic, an emerald vein twists within the burned wood, emanating power. The beautiful abomination of a magician’s token holds the same hypnotic beauty as fungus sprouting from the rotting remains of a stag.
The Soul Thread within this boy’s wand sings to me, the long-dead weaver’s magic glinting for my eyes alone.
The thread holds Transformation magic, which explains the treatise on the effects of phyllosticta infections on potion ingredients he’s searching for.
He’s probably a craftsman in training, just powerful enough to make the Amur Guild money, but not enough for their leader to bring him into the Guild’s more coveted and illegitimate businesses.
The boy has no idea how lucky he is for that small blessing.
I place my other hand in his and stumble to my feet when my knees wobble.
A drip of cold clenches my gut. Why am I so weak?
All I used was a small zap of magic. Nowhere near enough to drain my stamina this much.
For the love of the Weave, I’m the daughter of the Archweaver.
I’ve wielded magic that others merely dream of.
Could it be a symptom of my frequent dark magic use?
No, this can’t be magical. This stems from my basic mortal needs not being met.
I only overslept because I tossed and turned all night.
Which is why I skipped lunch in the first place.
I’d taken a longer-than-usual break when Nora stopped by with a bag of potion supplies and her best restful slumber tea from her apothecary.
Naturally, we had to catch up. We’ve been so busy running our businesses that we haven’t seen each other for a few weeks.
Or has it been months? Regardless, it’s a waste of energy to worry about something that will clear up with some good sleep and regular meals.
The boy is steadily turning a ripe tomato red and his fingers twitch in my tight hold. I release his hands and cover the quick movement by straightening my cuffs and brushing down my slacks in efficient swipes.
He ducks his head and kicks at the floor, “So, um, do you—”
I cut him off, “Your book should be right over here.”