Chapter Thirteen #2
At last, thievery—something she’s familiar with.
“And you need two people for this.” She smiles wryly. “One to distract, the other to steal back the book?”
Lowell’s gaze remains on the road, but his eyes narrow. “It’s a two-person job in case one of us doesn’t return.”
The heavy silence resumes. Lowell reaches for the radio, fiddling with the dials until he finds a crackly station. The muffled sound of a jazz singer floats through the car, and it must be satisfactory because Lowell doesn’t move to change it again.
After the estate sale, Cassandra had burned with questions.
Why Lowell would be so desperate to take Chiron’s bookshop when he has one of his own that he clearly likes.
Why Chiron had chosen him to be the bookshop’s fail-safe.
How he knew Chiron at all, when by every account Chiron was a recluse.
But now, alone together in the car, she suspects she’d have better luck prying answers from the dead.
After what feels like an eternity, the car rolls to a halt outside of a wrought-iron gate. Neither of them get out.
“Ah,” Cassandra says.
“Ah,” Lowell agrees.
The driveway leads up to a beautiful Georgian estate, with expansive gardens behind its high brick walls and formidable gate.
Or rather, it’s supposed to. But where the gate starts, thorny tendrils have laced dark serpentine leaves along the lattice ironwork.
Every few seconds, the tendrils shiver, as new growth probes outwards, the vines a brackish green.
Beyond the gate, Cassandra catches the arterial red of budding flowers splashed against the driveway. Roses.
“Come on,” Lowell says, pushing the car door open.
The walk up to the estate would be magnificent, magical foliage notwithstanding.
But even though this should be a beautiful sight—greenery run rampant, abundant with roses—there’s something about it that doesn’t sit quite right.
Curious, Cassandra bends down to pluck one of the tiny rosebuds, and it disintegrates in her hands, leaving a black sticky residue.
“Ink.”
Lowell’s forehead pinches in a tight frown. “So they did try to read it, then. The bloody fools.”
And what a story they have conjured. A castle in slumber, protected or trapped by its thorny enclosure. The white knights—two of them in this case—rushing to the rescue. Then she thinks of the roses, the thorns, the deathly still in the air. She knows a Sleeping Beauty tale when she sees one.
“I imagine it was supposed to imbue the reader with the qualities of the protagonist,” Lowell is saying, a continuation of a lecture he probably thinks she’s listening to. “Health, wealth, happiness, a prince—whatever. But in a clumsy reader’s hands—”
“They asked too much,” Cassandra says.
Crack open a book that’s been dipped into the river, and theoretically there’s very little stopping a reader from drawing on its power, or bestowing it on another. Theoretically.
But ask for too much, or with vague intentions—well, the river still obliges. Take it all. The wealth, the glory, the prince and the happy ending. The nightmares, the blood, the carnage. And there’s so much of it in fairy tales.
Lowell looks at her, surprised, and she can’t quite repress an exasperated sigh.
Then she thinks back on the way he said reader, as though it came with a capital letter.
Not just a reader, but a reader—silver-tongued with the water of the river.
Versed in its language, by greater or lesser extents. So much power in a handful of words.
The right book in a person’s hands can change their life. But any book in a reader’s hands can change… everything.
“Who is it?” she asks sharply.
“The daughter. Her great-grandmother was a bookseller, I believe.” He picks his way through the carpet of roses. “Not particularly gifted, but then, I don’t suppose it takes a lot.”
No, it doesn’t take a lot for a reading to go so disastrously wrong. And the last time she’d been involved in a reading like this one—a little over six months ago—with powerful magic and an even more powerful narrative at her disposal…
It turns out that although there are plenty of readings strong enough to kill a man, they can’t bring back a dead one.
Cassandra sucks in a breath, too sharp. “You didn’t think the reader was worth mentioning to me?”
He pauses, his mouth lifting as though he’s about to say something in response, then stops. An impenetrable wall of thorns is creeping over the estate, entombing its occupants within. The brambles shiver as Lowell and Cassandra close in on the front door.
“We have to hurry,” he says. “The reading is taking hold.”
Cassandra picks up the pace until they reach the front door, both slightly breathless. Despite the disaster unfolding behind them, Lowell straightens his cuffs before ringing the bell. The sound echoes into the depths of the estate.
No answer.
“I said it was a two-person job. The reader was implied.”
“A warning would have been appreciated,” she says.
“Well, consider this your warning.” Lowell glances at her. “Are you ready?”
He already looks like he’s regretting the decision to bring her along, but it’s too late now.
Even if Cassandra wanted to retreat to the car, the driveway is choked with thorns; in the next few moments, it’ll be entirely impassable.
And as tempting as it would be to watch Lowell struggle on his own, she recalls his warning.
They’ll both go in—and they’ll both come out.
“Of course,” she says.
Grimly, Lowell pushes the door open.