Chapter 9 The Book
The Book
Late-night strolls to the museum weren’t unusual for Sage.
It was not a rarity that she would wake up at some godforsaken hour in the morning with a sudden thought about a note in a margin or a miscalculation that she’d made, and there was simply no point in even attempting to return to sleep.
She had been known to throw a coat over her pyjamas, shove the bottoms into her wellies and trudge across town to put her mind at ease while there was still stardust lingering across the constellations.
The museum flickered to life as Sage turned on the lights, then blew into her hands to try to warm them after the walk.
“You can do the honours,” Casimir said as he took a seat on the pin-striped sofa in the foyer. He flopped down, threw his legs over the arm and nestled against the cushions. “I’m just going to rest my eyes for a minute.”
“That’s good of you,” Sage said, dropping her bags heavily onto his stomach as she passed by.
From the archive, she soon pulled out the box she was so desperate to open.
It looked entirely unassuming, and she couldn’t help but feel a tad frustrated with herself for being so consumed by the thought of it.
She could never just have a nice time, never truly relax.
But they were here now, and once it was stowed away, she’d be able to concentrate properly on the rest of the work she’d taken home.
She gave a “hmm” of surprise at the weight but recognized the familiar density straight away as she lifted it.
Casimir was right, there was definitely a book inside.
Her books were the main reason she hadn’t moved house in seven years—the mere thought of lifting the entirety of her collection into boxes.
Well, that and the housekeeping ghost, whom she had grown rather fond of.
Sage carried the box through to the exhibition hall, placed it carefully on the floor, then swiped the dust from her hands.
It was a little grimy and cobwebbed, but that wasn’t unusual for donations.
They were often uncovered in long-neglected attics or damp-ridden basements, cleared out of private collections when people passed away.
Taking a seat on the carpet, she curled her legs underneath her checked skirt and slid a letter opener through the tape.
A cough of dust exhaled through the gap the moment she opened it, and she had to fan away the unpleasant stale air with a splutter.
Casimir peeped one eye open and rose languidly from the sofa. He strolled over to the gilded mirror they had hung opposite Lilara Mournfell’s cloak.
“Where did you say this came from?” Sage’s voice was quiet.
“Damned if I know. I don’t think there was a note on it. Do you think my hair is getting a little too long?” he asked, more to his own reflection than to her.
“Casimir!” Her volume rose. “Where did this box come from?” she repeated, more forcefully.
Casimir’s brows shot up as he made eye contact with her through the mirror. “It just turned up while you were out on your tour. I did tell you that it had arrived; you can’t blame me for this one. Why, was there food inside?” He suddenly looked devastated. “We didn’t miss a cake, did we?”
Sage only shook her head and took a hard swallow. “It’s not cake.”
Casimir sauntered over and peered down into the box over her shoulder.
“Leather-bound. Dusty. Looks suitably haunted. One for you, I reckon.” He turned to leave her to it, but she seized him by the fabric of his trousers and yanked him down to her level.
Without a word, she pointed at the emblem stamped into the top corner of the large book that lay inside the box.
A star, no bigger than a penny, with three small words that wrapped around the embossed shape.
“Tonitru, Fulgur, Pluvia,” Cas said, his brows knit together as he traced the letters with his forefinger to clear the dust from the divots in the leather. “Thunder, lightning, rain,” he translated. “You don’t think…”
Sage felt a little faint. “I do think.”
“Wow…” Casimir gasped. “Another bloody record of freak weather changes in this town? Really? How many damn books do they need to fill with tellings of the rainfall during an unseasonably warm June? Well, at least this can go straight to deep storage. Do you want me to…?” Casimir reached to grab the underside of the box, but Sage batted his hands away.
“Casimir, that is not a blasted weather document! That’s a witch’s emblem.”
“Oh…Oh!” His facial expression changed to intrigue. “You don’t say. Now that you mention it, it’s not totally unfamiliar. I recognize it.”
“You’re right. We’ve seen it before.”
Sage knew exactly where. She rose to her feet, feeling a little shaken, her brain whirring faster than she could keep up with.
It was a feeling she battled often when it came to her work—and in social situations, for that matter, as though she couldn’t make her pen or her mouth form words quickly enough to match the rate they were forming in her mind.
She tugged Casimir by the hand and stopped in front of the cloak’s cabinet.
Without a word, she pointed at the small stitched tag at the nape of the fabric.
Cas, for once, seemed stunned into near silence. “Well, I’ll be…”
The very same logo and the very same words: Tonitru, Fulgur, Pluvia threaded into the cloak of Lilara Mournfell.
“Sage, this is extraordinary. This is big. This is…Crikey, are you okay? You look a little peaky, and I’d rather not add ‘collapsing under my watch’ to my list of crimes for tonight.”
Sage had to grab his arm to steady herself. The museum went hazy, a flash of black thrown across her vision. And of course, her magic mirrored the feeling, making every spotlight across the room flicker in unison. Casimir threw his other arm around her waist to hold her up as she folded.
“It can’t be…” She curled into him to press her face firmly into his chest. She just needed everything to stop for a second so that she could gather herself. Put the thoughts into order. Understand them more clearly.
“You’re okay,” Casimir said into her hair, the words muffled by her curls as he held her. His hands moved to her shoulders to steady her, and she took a deeper breath than she’d taken for a while. It helped.
“That book…It’s another piece of her. Maybe this is…Maybe this is going to show me everything. How to do it.”
“Now hold on a moment, Specs. We don’t know for certain that it’s definitely hers. Could be a fake or a duplicate. We’ll have to spend some time on it, send it off for proper analysis. Someone could be playing a joke on us.”
“Who would do that?”
“Well, they’d be an exceptional loser, I’ll confess.
Any prank related to a large dusty book is not exactly a rib-tickler, is it?
” Casimir said. “But an artefact like Lilara Mournfell’s lost grimoire just showing up, as if sent by magic itself?
This town harbours more than its fair share of strangeness, and normally we can manage to explain it all away with fact.
But this? It’s almost stranger than fiction. ”
He was right. Embarrassed, Sage shook herself from Casimir’s grasp and turned back to the box with the book still lying inside.
It looked so unassuming, so unimportant, but often the most otherworldly discoveries did.
Almost everything that they were showcasing in the exhibition had been thoughtlessly discarded as no good, until the right pair of hands picked it up and handled it with care, shined it with a rag and recognized it for the treasure that it was.
She should probably be wearing gloves, but…
With trembling hands, she reached in to lift the book from the old newspaper wrappings.
The brittle, aged paper crackled at the movement, and the worn leather of the book between her fingers felt unexpectedly cold.
Moving in what felt like slow motion, she carried it to the welcome desk and laid it carefully on the mahogany top.
She went to turn on the lamp beside it, but her magic took the reins and did so on her behalf. For once, she didn’t mind.
Under the illumination, she could see the cover more clearly. There was barely any detail, simply a scruffy and scratched dark brown leather and the star-shaped emblem with three words. She went to open it, but a hand appeared over her own and squeezed it gently.
“I understand what this means to you, but let’s just take a moment, Specs. I’ve been your friend for long enough to know that nothing about your magic is ever just a coincidence. Something about this doesn’t feel right.”
“What do you mean?”
“The arrival of something like this in perfect tandem with your magic being such a troublemaker.”
“Oh, come on. What do you think is about to happen, exactly? That there’s some kind of practical joke lurking between these pages? Some age-old jinx that’s ready to jump out and cover me in green scales?”
“I hope not. You’re enough of a dragon as it is. We’ll come back tomorrow, though, hey? Let’s sleep on it, approach it in the light of day with clear heads. I’m two glasses of red in, for the stars’ sake. Is this really the—”
“Casimir,” Sage interrupted, locking eyes with him.
He frowned, then gave in. “You’re right. Maybe I’m overestimating the homicidal tendencies of literature.” He patted her on the shoulder with another small squeeze. “I’ll wait in the back, give you a moment alone.”