Chapter 9 The Book #2
He knew better than anyone what this meant to her.
Something that had possibly belonged to her ultimate heroine, that might contain reference to the exact binding spell that she had spent almost fifteen long years trying to find.
Seeing him saunter off to give her space, Sage felt her heart contract with a deep-rooted appreciation for the man who always seemed to recognize when she truly needed to be by herself.
He never abandoned her entirely; he was only ever a handful of steps away.
But he understood her deeply enough to realize when it was necessary and not personal.
Carefully, Sage placed her hands on either side of the closed book, traced the cool, cracked spine, then the edges of the thin pages with a single finger.
She wasn’t normally one to acknowledge any kind of magical intuition.
She purposefully walked on cracks and underneath ladders, made a point of befriending black cats and opened brollies indoors to defy superstition.
It all felt too close to something like trusting magic or leaving decisions in its slippery hands.
But even she had to admit that Casimir had a point.
The arrival was peculiar timing, a twist of fate almost too good to be true.
Her sister’s words from earlier popped into her head: Sage, some doors, once opened, can never be shut again.
The same was certainly true of books; so many had left a lasting imprint through her life.
Sometimes they did simply find you at the precise moment that you needed them.
There had to be answers waiting for her on these pages.
She reached her left hand to the bottom corner of the cover, hovering an inch from turning it.
One fingertip brushed the metal clasp that held the pages closed.
She would permit herself to take one look, the first page at least. But without busting open the lock wrapped around the pages, she was stuck.
And far be it from her to cause any sort of damage to anything, especially a book.
She wasn’t even a dog-earer, let alone a lock-breaker.
Sage squinted more closely at the finer details of it, pushing up her glasses as she examined the shape in the light.
There was a keyhole, but it wasn’t until she blew the dust from it that she noticed the detail.
It was star-shaped. Almost imperceptible, thanks to its size, but there were distinct points. And it was a shape she’d seen before.
For once, not allowing herself a second to consider other sensible, more likely alternatives, Sage dropped the book and shot to the first cabinet of the exhibition. Lilara’s cloak. The chain that held the sides together.
Charms of moons and…stars.
With shaking, eager hands, she opened the case and unpinned the chain from the velvet, extracting it as gingerly as she could.
She had to will her legs to move back to the desk, her stomach contorting itself into knots, but she recognized the thrill: she was on to something.
Slowly and carefully, Sage pressed the first star charm firmly against the lock.
It was an exact match. With a snap, the clasp clicked open.
The spine cracked, the front cover fell back and a punch of musty air flew outward.
Sage’s hair rose on the gust that blasted from the book, her eyes blinked shut and she stumbled backwards.
The lamp beside her on the desk flickered, and in the dim light, her own shadow stretched across the opposite wall, side by side with Lilara’s cloak.
There was a low rumble coming from somewhere.
The floorboards, the basement, even below that—a sound so deep that it rattled Sage’s bones.
Every artefact in the museum shook on its stand, the glass in the cabinets vibrating, threatening to shatter, plinths and stands almost toppling as the ground shuddered.
Sage gripped the wall behind her. A thick scent of smoke and iron bloomed, a tang beneath her tongue and a strange sort of sweetness flooded her mouth.
Through the racket, Sage heard the toll of the Lyceum bell down the street.
Three tolls. Witching hour. How was that possible?
Her gaze flew to the window and the night outside.
Were the clouds churning unnaturally quickly or was she going mad?
A stream of moonlight leaked in, and the book’s pages flew in a fury.
Then, as abruptly as it began, the air stilled.
The quaking beneath her boots stopped, and the furniture stood steady.
A page lay open, ink glistening faintly with a wet sheen, as though it had been written in that very moment.
In the flickering light, the inked letters brightened, glowing amber as her eyes passed over the page.
It had happened to Sage with magical texts before and felt like an acknowledgement that she was supposed to read them, that these words were meant for her to find.
Sage’s eyes widened hungrily.
The words were written in such a scratched, hasty hand that if she hadn’t seen their kind before, she would have dismissed it all as journal ramblings, a recipe, maybe a heartfelt poem…
But after years of study in the matter, Sage knew how to spot a traditional spell of witchery. It was an incantation.
It was so unlike her to keep rushing along with the speeding current without stepping back to measure the situation first, to weigh up her options, form notes or make sensible, informed decisions.
But how could she? Here was an answer. It had to be.
Exact instructions for banishing her magic were penned on the pages of the exact book that she needed.
She practically folded over the book, the words on the page glowing in the silver moonlight as her eyes passed over them.
Magic does not shy from those
Who cast it back to the shadows.
Her lips shaped the words silently, tasting the unfamiliar rhythm in her mind, wrapping her tongue around the verse.
Rather it will grow anon,
A tale that cannot be outrun.
Before caution could stop her, Sage was whispering them aloud, if only to discover how the scribbles felt between her lips.
But the sound was wrong from the first syllable.
There was a resonance that she didn’t recognize.
Sage’s grip on the book tightened. Her head felt heavy, but she wasn’t imagining it.
There was another voice speaking along with her, a shadow at the back of her throat.
Not just an echo, but something more. It spoke with her, stole her mouth, as though it had been waiting for this moment to share and speak as one.
Sage tried to pull away, but the book was determined to keep her.
There were four lines left, scribbled in a crosshatch of loops and lines and errors, more and more frantic as she strained her eyes through the dark to read them.
Let this witch’s power burn
And soon a town will come to learn.
Magic in heart, magic in air,
Magic forever, everywhere.
On the final syllable, the unseen voice spoke louder than she did, swallowing Sage’s own entirely.
It roared, filling her head with a pressure that made her hands fly to her ears to try to block it out.
The fierce wind picked up again, and then light suddenly breathed out of the book, catching on the lamps and illuminating the museum around every bend.
It was magic, but not her own. This was dark golden, not burgundy.
It looped back to Sage, and before she could dodge, it landed square in her chest, sending her reeling backwards hard into the wall.
She shoved her glasses back up her nose, determinedly unblinking to make sure she didn’t miss a single thing.
The book fell shut with a definitive thud.
Even the dust motes paused in the air for a moment before her hair tumbled back to her shoulders and the bow at the collar of her blouse flopped back against her chest.
“Did it work?” she whispered to herself.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she registered footsteps approaching, followed by the high-pitched whistling of her colleague. Casimir strolled back in.
“Sorry, I may or may not have dozed off there. What did I miss?”