Chapter 14
Fourteen
June passes as time often does—slow and surreal. Yet in a blink, the last week of the month arrives.
Before Hiram can settle into a routine, free from Simran, it’s almost time for the three-week school break that marks the end of the quarter. He doesn’t have a plan for how they’ll spend it, but he has time to figure it out, and he’s looking forward to sleeping in.
A soft meow from the living room reminds him that won’t be happening. He peers over at the still unnamed kitten, confined to its toy-filled play area, and sighs before chugging a foul-tasting elixir to keep from sneezing on everything.
Up early, he’s reading research papers on the Sanguis Curse on his newly delivered office desk, highlighting bits for Veda to review when they finally meet.
It will be their third attempt at scheduling after each of them canceled, Veda after the school was overwhelmed with orders, and Hiram when he spent hours waiting to be sworn into the Washington State Bar Association.
He’s just finished highlighting when there’s movement from his son’s room.
Hiram leaves everything as is, grabs the note he wrote last night, and places it on the table where Antaris usually sits.
He starts breakfast, eggs, toast, and chopped fruit, and by the time Antaris emerges, dressed and hauling his book bag to the door, everything is ready.
Normally, Hiram would shower, but today he makes a plate for himself and joins Antaris at the table. At first, Antaris focuses on the note. Then he notices Hiram is staying, and his eyes go wide.
Breakfast fluctuates between staring and eating.
If Antaris is happy, sad, confused, or anxious about his presence, he can’t tell, because all his son gives him are owl blinks.
Bits of eggs fail to make it from Antaris’s fork to his mouth, landing on the napkin tucked into his shirt or back on his plate.
The second time it happens, Hiram realizes he needs to break the silence.
“We should finish up.”
It doesn’t make Antaris eat any faster, but it’s a start. Hiram shifts in his seat, and Antaris freezes; he understands the issue now.
“I’m not working today. I wanted to have breakfast together.”
Only then does Antaris eat in earnest.
Breakfast settles into something between normal and strange. When they finish, Antaris pockets the note and takes his plate to the sink. He begins searching for the stool he uses each night to help wash up, but Hiram shakes his head. “I’ll do it later.”
Before Antaris can scoop up the kitten for a goodbye cuddle, Hiram waves him over. Antaris pauses, curiously tilting his head.
“I’m . . .” The words die in Hiram’s throat. He tries again, turning in his seat. He hesitates, just once, then asks, “Can I show you a word?”
Slowly, Antaris nods.
Hiram moves his hand to the side of his chin, then brings it forward with his thumb up, signing as he says, “Tomorrow?”
It’s not perfect, but they practice after dinner each night.
Letters. Basic signs. Last night, Hiram taught him the signs for each ingredient they used.
Emboldened by the progress, Hiram stays up after Antaris goes to bed, poring over the book Veda gave him well into the night.
He doesn’t know if this will work until Antaris signs the word for himself.
They sign it again, together. Sheer determination has carried Hiram to this point, where he finally asks for something simple yet monumental to him. Inconsequential to anyone else.
“Tomorrow,” Hiram says and signs again. “I’d like to start eating breakfast with you. I think—”
Antaris doesn’t let him finish. He makes a fist and signs one word. Yes.
Then he’s off to play with the kitten.
Hiram’s smile lingers while he makes tea for Antaris. After pulling the thermos from the dishwasher, he nearly jumps out of his skin when he finds his son standing there, holding both the kitten and another thermos. For Veda. That’s right, they’ve been having tea before school.
“What tea do you want to make her?” Hiram asks.
Antaris looks down at the kitten in his arms, thinking.
He chooses mint.
The walls of the downtown library are high, arched into a painted ceiling.
A grand staircase leads to the upper level, but the sight of endless floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and tall ladders brings Hiram to a halt.
The scent of magic is heavy, comforting.
Books float from shelf to shelf until they find their way home.
Hiram is early for an appointment he scheduled reluctantly, but first . . .
“Mr. Ellis, the Authorized Book Room is available for the requested hour,” says a meek librarian behind him. “Thank you for your family’s patronage.”
The Ellis family has funded the library’s rare-book acquisition, restoration efforts, and translations for decades. Hiram never has to join the monthslong wait list for access, only walk in, ask for what he needs, and watch them scramble to oblige.
“The talisman will reactivate in an hour,” she adds.
The lights are dim until he enters the Authorized Book Room, and only then do they brighten. It’s spacious, lined with more floor-to-ceiling bookcases centered around a table with four chairs. The books are old but impeccably cared for. Hiram puts on his reading glasses, hoping to find history.
The book describes how Sanguis consumes from the inside, shows pictures of the ravaged bodies of its victims, and outlines the brief but excruciating agony it causes.
There are survivors, and their cases are inconsistent.
The clearest note in the entire book is: The longer Sanguis resides in the body, the harder it is to extricate.
Hiram removes his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose.
Veda’s life is being held together by sheer cosmic luck and Khadijah’s determination.
There’s a smudge on the bottom of the page that turns into words when Hiram puts his glasses back on.
Death will lead it out.
Hiram frowns. “What kind of direction is that?”
Flipping the page, he finds an entirely different spell.
“Sight Unseen . . .” he reads aloud.
The words act as an activation spell, breaking the letters apart and sending them flying around the pages, bouncing off the edges of the paper.
Hiram sits back and checks his watch. The timing couldn’t be more perfect.
He can ask Clinton to unscramble both hexes, but first, he has questions for the librarian.
It may have nothing to do with Sanguis, but this scrambling hex is too specific to be a coincidence.
When he calls the librarian back in to notify her about the hex, she’s flustered, terrified of getting into trouble.
The book, she tells him, is irreplaceable, the only one of its kind in the country.
“Is there a record of everyone who has been in this room?” Hiram asks.
“There is,” she replies shakily.
“May I see it?”
She leaves and returns with a book almost as thick as the tomes kept in the room, and just as dusty. “It automatically registers the Imprints of whomever walks into the room, staff excluded.”
There aren’t many entries for this room. Aside from his name, there are five others. Nadir Christianson, Sybil Brice. Ariadne Byers, Nicholas Dobbs. Deanna Gibbs. Hiram scans the names again, returning to one.
Ariadne Byers.
The name isn’t one he knows, but he faintly remembers it being whispered a few times when no one thought he was listening.
He can’t remember when or by whom, but he checks the date of entry.
Fifteen years ago. Asking the librarian, who barely looks thirty, if she remembers one name is a waste of time. “May I borrow this book?”
She looks like he’s asked to set it on fire. “I’m sorry, but you can’t. This book—”
“Is useless unless you break the hex.” He shows her the page, the letters ungrouping and regrouping in nonsensical words.
“You’ll need to report this and explain why no one noticed the spell.
They’ll run audits on your process, notify the owners of the rare books, and I know what will happen if they find discrepancies or if the owners want the books moved. ”
Judging from the librarian’s ashen face, she knows, too.
“How about this: Allow me to leave with this book, and I will fix this without taking it out of the building. You can’t tell anyone it’s fixed, and if anyone comes into this room after I leave, you’ll have to notify me.”
She looks stricken but relents. “Okay, Mr. Ellis.”
“Thank you.” He pulls out his wallet and offers her his card.
Hiram leaves the room soon after she retreats. With ten minutes left before his meeting and armed with an extra book, he walks to the last room in the row—only to find it occupied.
By Clinton.
He’s dressed like he’s on his way to give a lecture at the closest college: tweed sports coat and khakis, walking cane in hand, glasses covering his eyes.
“Punctual as always, Mr. Ellis.”
“I’m fifteen minutes early.”
“To be early is to be on time.”
Hiram leans heavily on tenacity to propel himself forward.
Dialing Clinton’s number was difficult, but talking to him long enough to schedule today’s meeting was an exercise in endurance.
He closes the door and sits at the table across from the blind man.
The talisman hanging next to the door flashes blue, and the glass instantly frosts.
For privacy. Hiram places the tome from the Authorized Book Room on the table with Grace’s book on oddities.
“These have scrambling hexes on them. I was told that you were skilled at undoing hexes.”
“Ah, how is your father?”
“Alive,” Hiram replies. “And not the subject of today’s meeting.”
How Clinton’s expression is probing without looking at him is a mystery, but finally he touches the cover of the first book, then the second. “Very well. In the spirit of alliance, I will assist.”
“We don’t have an alliance.”
“What do you think this is?” Clinton smiles.
“A favor.”