Chapter Five #2
“Give me it.” I snatch it out of his hands and stare between the book I’m holding and the book in the case. They definitely look the same. “Did you make this?”
“Yeah. I just found a book that’s of a similar age and redid the pages and the illustrations by copying from the photographs online.”
“Wow,” I mutter. I open the first two pages and see that the illustrations perfectly match the ones of the book in the display case. Then I turn the page. “You’ve only done the first two pages!”
“Yeah, well, it’s only going to be open on that one, isn’t it?” Bastian says.
“And you don’t reckon someone will notice when they open it up to check and most of the pages are blank?” I hiss, slamming the book shut.
“Why would they check?” Bastian frowns. “Look, it’s in this exhibition for the next six months, it’s already been set up, they won’t check unless they think something has happened and they won’t think something happened if we don’t make it a big deal.”
“Don’t you think book stealing is a big deal? Especially if it’s an ancient grimoire with a resurrection spell?”
“Not book stealing, book swapping,” Bastian says emphatically, taking the fake back from me.
“And how are you going to swap them?” I demand.
Bastian holds up his middle finger with the massive sapphire on, inadvertently (or perhaps deliberately) giving me the finger. “Or did you forget that we can do witchcraft?”
“You can do witchcraft; I can’t do shit.”
“Exactly, which is why you’re the lookout,” Bastian says calmly.
He pulls out a small notebook and sets it down on the floor.
Then he stands, widening his stance, holding his hands in a triangle shape with the fingertips and the thumbs meeting.
My heart jolts. This was how Elizabeth stood in the cave on the day of her death.
“What are you even going to do?” I ask suddenly. I realize that Bastian hasn’t actually done any witchcraft around me yet. Maybe that’s why he’s been so easy to talk to.
“An unlocking spell,” he says, nodding at the small padlock. “I’ll just lift the lid off the case and switch them.”
“Seriously?” I stare at his hands. Most unlocking spells are ancient, only relevant for the kind of traditional locks from hundreds of years ago. “Do you even have enough power?”
He gives me such a sharp look that I regret it instantly.
It’s definitely rude for me, a shifter, supposedly full of power, to question a witch, and I cringe at my clumsiness.
His ring is already shining, the light of it pulsing slightly in that uncanny, mesmerizing way, as if the magic inside Bastian is desperate to be released.
I can feel it, even from here; it makes the hair on my arms stand up like in a lightning storm.
It reminds me of Elizabeth’s last breath, and suddenly I really don’t want him to do any witchcraft.
“Why can’t we just use the pages that are online?” I ask desperately. He sighs and drops his hands, turning to look at me. The feeling of coming bewitchment in the room suddenly halts and I hate myself because I’m relieved.
“Because it’s incomplete, the spell won’t work,” he says.
“How do you know?”
“I just do.” Bastian’s voice is level but he’s clenching his fists in annoyance.
“And I’m supposed to just trust you? I barely know you!”
I stare at the grimoire in its case. There are real potential consequences here and it is scaring me that I don’t know what they are. I know I’d do anything to get Elizabeth back but doing this, right now, seems impossible.
“Okay, Lando, let’s put it this way. I’m borrowing this book,” Bastian says firmly, turning back toward the lock and taking up his stance, hands held ready. The air around us prickles. “You can help me or you can piss off.”
I watch as he twists his fingers from the triangle into the diamond, the basic steps of a classic spell—a complicated twisting motion first, the Tangle of Loki, followed by a blinded Hare’s Run—and his ring begins to glow with that strange, unearthly blue light.
My throat tightens. He’s not messing around.
I can tell from the strength of his fingers and the quickness of his twists that he’s good at this, maybe good enough to pull this off. No going back now.
“Christ,” I mutter.
I go to stand at the doorway, peering down the dark corridor.
It’s empty. It’s not a surprise, really; it’s the last ten minutes of the day, and soon the museum will be closing.
There’s a tingle in the air, the same kind of feeling you get when someone who hates you stares at you for a long time, and I look back at Bastian.
His fingers are still moving through the sequence, repeating it, his eyes fixed on the grimoire.
When Elizabeth started her last spell the air was tight and cold.
With Bastian, the air feels hot and a bit dangerous, like standing next to a bonfire, and there’s a smell on the air that’s different to Elizabeth’s magic.
No longer toasted almonds but something deeper, woodier, like logs spitting in a roaring fireplace.
It’s the kind of power I have never sensed before, not from a witch.
I realize he might actually be in with a shot at the Merlin Foundation.
The glass case is beginning to glow, burning red at the edges. That’s when I hear footsteps.
“Someone’s coming,” I say, my voice dropping to a stage whisper.
“Distract them.”
“With what?” I exclaim.
“Well, if you were a real shifter, I might say shift into someone distracting—”
“You’re a wanker,” I snap, and I spin around to stare at the student who had been sitting behind the desk now marching toward me with her lanyard swinging.
“The library is closing in ten minutes, it’s time to go,” she says, all the simper she had for Bastian lost when she looks at me.
“Yeah, I’ll be down in a second.” I swallow. I have no idea what will happen to us if she sees the spellwork. It’s all well and good to be told to be distracting, but I’m not a handsome bloke like Bastian is. I’m not a bloke at all, and to her I probably look like I’m up to trouble. Be distracting!
“Um, I don’t know if this is a problem or anything,” I gabble, sticking my hands in my pockets to stop them shaking. “But I saw that someone spilled a drink upstairs in the main library—”
Her eyebrows shoot up.
“Not water, something nasty,” I add quickly, imagining a librarian’s worst nightmare. “Something purple and sticky.”
“What? There are signs.” She shoots me an accusatory glare. “Was it you?”
“No, no, I’d never bring a sticky drink into the library,” I say. “I love libraries. I only ever bring in water, I swear.”
“Christ alive,” she mutters, then glares at me, clearly the prime suspect. “You need to leave, okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, sure, on my way out.” I watch her as she walks away along the corridor, her skirt swinging.
“I’m done,” a voice whispers, and I jump. Bastian’s standing right behind me, his breath warm on my neck, and I glare at him.
“Don’t do that!” I hiss at him, stepping back, alarmed at his closeness. I look down at his satchel. “You switched it?”
“Yeah.” He nods. I push past him and stare at the book in the glass display case. It looks absolutely identical, and I have no idea how he managed it.
“Wow, it looks dead real,” I say. Still, a part of me wants to tell him to put the real grimoire back, now.
“I know.” Bastian pulls my arm. “Come on, we need to leave.”
He drags me down the stairs. The heaviness of his satchel against my elbow is the thump of a literal priceless object and I panic wildly that we’re damaging it, that by carrying it out we will accidentally turn it to dust. The shop is empty, an employee is putting chairs up on tables, and someone else is wiping down the coffee machine, and outside, the late-afternoon sun is blossoming in a golden blaze over Deansgate.
Bastian is smiling at people and saying polite things to the staff and a part of me wants to stop, to call out to them, and to turn us both in, tell them I’m not a criminal I just made a mistake, but my mouth won’t work.
The automatic doors open and we step out into the cold.
“I can’t believe we did that—” I mutter as the doors slide closed behind us. “What if we get caught? There must be cameras…”
“Only in the corridor, and they’ll just see your distracting alter ego,” he says as we walk down Deansgate. “Lando Southerns, defender of books from sticky liquids.”
“I’m not in the mood for jokes right now.” I try not to look over my shoulder, waiting for a yell or running footsteps or sirens.
“Then keep walking.” We march down the road, my heart thundering as I try to embody someone who has not committed larceny.
I can’t stop imagining the footage of me directing a staff member to an imaginary cleanup, of us rushing out of the library with surreptitious looks, Bastian’s bag hanging at his side.
Won’t they check? What if they clean the inside of the cases?
Someone knocks into me, rushing past, and it’s such a jolt I’m suddenly convinced I’ve been caught.
I wheel back away from them with a cry, stumbling over the edge of the curb.
“Lando, whoa, be careful!” Bastian grabs my arm to pull me out of traffic.
“Why are we doing this?” I gasp out. It’s absurd, I don’t even know this person and I just made myself an accomplice to a crime. “Why are we even doing this?”
A car horn honks loudly behind me, the sound assaulting my ears, making me jump out of my skin. Bastian keeps a firm grip on my arm, his fingers digging in painfully.
“To resurrect your dead girlfriend,” Bastian says urgently. “Remember that?”
I stop. Suddenly I can’t breathe. Most of the time, I know Elizabeth is dead and it’s fine.
Or not fine at all, but possible to endure, as long as I never forget it.
Because then, when I remember it, when I realize that she’s really not here and now I’m walking around Manchester with a complete stranger talking about resurrecting her, it thoroughly takes the air out of me and it’s agonizing.
I bend over and press my hands to my knees, thoughts churning: Elizabeth is dead, Jesus Christ, Elizabeth is really dead and it’s my fault.
I hear Counselor Cooper’s words in my head: Breathe deeply and slowly. How can four words seem so impossible?
“Lando?” Bastian stops beside me, one hand on my back. “Lando, what’s the matter?”
I wish I could tell him. But I can’t breathe.