Chapter Twenty-Three
The Grimoire du Mage
We tuck ourselves back behind the wall, just as the shopkeeper passes by us, her heels tapping diligently against the wooden floors. She resumes her station at the counter, a giant key glinting from her neck. Looking over at Tu, I realize she’s forgotten the part about the key.
Kinda like she forgot the part about the demon bird-arrows in Stillwood.
“I’ve got this.” Tomorrow saunters to the counter, her exchange with the woman muted from behind the shelves where we wait.
Nik frowns. “What’s wrong? Can’t we use the rune again to sneak by?”
“The bookkeeper has a key that’s conveniently hanging around her neck,” I explain.
The shopkeeper’s voice rises with agitation, her words thick with an accent. “No unaccompanied witchlings. No exceptions.”
Shocker, not letting the underage witches have access to the dangerous books.
What follows is a deathly quiet silence in which I imagine Tomorrow is trying to accomplish Murder by Glare, and then the undeniable stomping of her combat boots as she rounds the bookshelf and fixes her eyes on us.
“What’re we going to do?” Sabbath hisses.
Nik’s shoulders slump in defeat, and Soren pinches the bridge of his nose.
A glimmer lights up Tomorrow’s eye. “We don’t have an adult, but we do have two of us.”
Tu’s expression brightens. The two of them are twinning—reading each other’s thoughts. “No, you look more like Mother,” Tu insists.
“She’s already seen me. It’s not that easy to change a face, Tu!”
I don’t know what the Jones sisters’ unspoken plan is, but I do know they’re identical and this seems to be something they’re forgetting.
“Can one of you explain what you’re scheming?” Soren interjects.
“I’m going to transform her face so that she looks like our mother. Over here.” Tomorrow herds us into the depths of the book maze and whips a big book from the shelf. “Hold it.”
Tuesday’s made subject to her sisters hands as she props the book up in front of her face, inconspicuously blocking our secret activities. Tomorrow sets to work carving wrinkles into her twin’s skin, narrowing Tu’s button nose, widening her lips to bulbous proportions.
“Mother took a bad lip plumping potion a few years ago,” Tomorrow explains. “Her face has never been the same.”
“It’s not exactly right, Morrow.” Tu pushes the skin of her face up and down. “She has a frown line right here that never goes away.”
“Well,” Tomorrow throws her hands up, exasperated, “this isn’t like an imaginary princess dress to fool a unicorn. It’s a face. To trick a person!”
“The eyes will be the hardest part,” Soren nods.
“Windows to the soul?”
Sabbath nods in reply to Nik. “Yeah. Did Thorncaster teach you that?”
“Nah, heard it somewhere once.” An amused smile plays on his face as Tu swats Tomorrow away.
“Enough, enough. My whole face tingles!”
Tomorrow’s nostrils flare as she looks at her twin. “Not my best work.”
“Nice, how you avoided the tail this time, though.” Sabbath still sounds a little bitter.
“Mika, give me your sweater.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s baggy and mom-like.”
“It’s Sabbath’s sweater.”
Sabbath scoffs. “My sense of fashion is—”
“Conservative,” I nod.
I wrangle it off and Soren desperately reaches to hold down the bottom of my shirt. I raise a brow at him as if to ask if he’s sure he didn’t want my shirt to come up, and I’m sure I see his face turn a faint shade of the pink he’s made my hair.
Tomorrow steals a hat from the wrack. “Lovely and dramatic,” she says. “Quite like Mother. This’ll do.” She pops the hat on Tu’s head.
She has undergone an entire costume change. When Tomorrow steps aside, her sister looks nearly unrecognizable.
She tugs the rim down over Tu’s eyes. “Okay, don’t make eye contact.”
“Soren, you should give her some sort of rune to change her voice, don’t you think?” Sabbath asks. “She and Tu sound too much alike.”
Agreeing, Soren quickly sketches an invisible rune against Tu’s throat.
“Oh, my,” Tuesday utters in a low, gravelly voice.
“We’ll let you in after we get the key. Don’t want to be too suspicious with so many of us.” Tomorrow shuffles her sister forward, and the rest of us peer around the bookshelf, holding our breath.
“Voilà, ma mère,” Tomorrow says sarcastically as she approaches the shopkeeper. Tu stumbles forward awkwardly, straightening her back in an attempt at poise. I worry it’s too late.
“Please, Mother, will you tell this woman that we want to see the grimoires?”
“The grimoires, madame.” It’s a forced command from Tuesday, but I admit that the sultry voice at least helps.
The shopkeeper eyes them suspiciously, withdrawing a book.
“Oh là là,” Tomorrow groans. “You’re going to ID us? Really?”
The woman ignores her, pushing a book across the counter and gesturing to Tuesday, who lays her palm flat against the blank page. “Spellwriting Brood,” Tuesday claims.
A magic streak outlines her hand, and when she removes her palm from the surface of the book, the shopkeeper whips the book back to examine it. I imagine it’s a basic hieroglyphic answer like the one the crystal ball showed us, confirming Tu hasn’t just lied about her Brood.
“Bien,” the woman concedes, not sounding very pleased, and leads them back to the room while the rest of us stay hidden between the bookshelves.
With one last disapproving look, she unknowingly leaves the Jones twins to their own devices, the door clunking to a heavy close behind her. Once she resumes her post at the desk, Soren, Sab, Nik and I sneak toward it. Just as I’m about to knock, the door swings open for us.
“Hurry, hurry,” Tuesday ushers. Wasting no time, Soren paints a rune against it, so that it closes silently behind us.
The room itself seems to exhale with our collective sigh of relief. This chamber is nothing of notoriety, just another small room with shelves and books. The books look older, though. Thicker. I realize we must be where they keep the family grimoires from the ancient witching bloodlines, the ones that’ve been made public.
There’s got to be a catch to this room, though, because aside from us it’s empty, and the three people we saw enter earlier have definitely not left.
“That magic scan won’t clue them in that we’re underage, right?” Nik asks, staring at the door like at any moment the shop keeper will reappear.
“Thaw, worrywart,” Tomorrow shakes her head. “The scan only verified that she’s a spellwriter. It didn’t spell out that she’s Tuesday Rose Jones, seventeen years of age, total liar.”
“So, what’s next, Tu?” Sabbath asks, inspecting the room as if she expects a secret passageway like the one we found during detention.
Tuesday is busy scanning the shelves, her face dropping back to normal as the glamor slides away. “Spellwriter legend was the witch Belinda Cromwell—” She tips a book down on the shelf, “Though bloody his name, Bloodstone wrote a big spell.” Surveying the section under B, Tu finds a book by someone named Solemn Bloodstone and tips it down, too.
She recites the next verses and, finally, we catch onto her antics.
“Poe just like poet cause he was good for a rhyme. But the most famous of spellwriters is Gemmaline Grime.”
I’m standing next to the G’s, so I wait for Soren to tip over Poe before turning The Grimmest Grimoire by Gemmaline Grime over.
“What was that little rhyme, Tu?” her sister asks.
“The four most influential spellwriters. I made it up when Mother brought us here, so I would remember. Helpful, don’t you think?”
“My clever sister,” Tomorrow grins, leaning up against a bookshelf.
When nothing immediately happens, Soren’s jaw drops open to protest. Before argument has the opportunity to escape him, the whole room begins to shudder, shifting beneath our feet. The sensation of dropping comes over me and I realize we’re sinking, the chamber lowering under Bracco & Briggs. After a bumpy crawl, the room lurches a few feet. Sabbath yelps and Tomorrow grabs hold of one of the shelves until the room jolts to a stuttering halt.
“They really should update that descent charm,” Tomorrow groans. “It’s not like smoother ones haven’t been invented in the last century.”
She gives a good revenge kick to the bottom corner of one of the shelves, and it pops away from the wall like a door. Hefting it open wide enough that a body can slip through, we peer down the long mouth of the dark passageway.
The Catacombs.
It’s cooler down here, and I wish I hadn’t left my scarf back in the shop. “We need to be careful,” I remind everyone quietly as I peer down the narrow, forked path. “We’re obviously not supposed to be down here. So, stay quiet and keep your ears peeled.”
“Don’t worry,” Tu assures, taking the lead. “I remember the way.”
“No enchanted flying spears down here, right?” Tomorrow asks dryly.
Tu shakes her head. “Perhaps some crabby bones, but just brush them away if they grab at you.”
Sabbath balks when Tu gives us a devious look that makes her fleetingly indistinguishable from Tomorrow.
We edge along in the darkness, Sabbath and I taking up the rear, squinting through the flickering torchlight. The path we take is slender, skeletal remains stacked in deep crevices carved out of the walls on either side of us. Sabbath creeps toward me, fearful of brushing up against them.
The long white phalanges of a skeleton reach out just in front of us and she leaps back. Before I can warn Nik, the bone fingers curl into his jacket, tugging him toward the wall. He jumps, looking disgusted as he shuffles out of their grip.
Another reaches out to Soren, looping around his arm like a child drawing a parent nearer. I skip up behind him and try to whack it away, but hesitate at the last minute. I try again, thwacking it halfheartedly. Soren looks over his shoulder, giving me an amused look, and disengages his arm from the skeleton’s. The arm shrinks away bashfully, returning to the disjointed bones of its owner.
“Omens.” Sabbath mouths at me, frozen in place, but I pull her forward just as fingers reach out to ensnare her.
We make slow progress through this part of the catacombs. Ahead, one rather needy set of fingers has stalled our progress, determined to take Tomorrow back to its final resting place. Tuesday peels the fingers off of her sister, clasping the hand gently. “Stop now,” she hisses, tucking it back into its tomb. “Go back to sleep.”
Finally, we spill out into a wider section with more light where the passage forks yet again. Voices emanate from the left tunnel, and as I make for the opposite path, Tuesday swats at me. She motions silently, lifting a finger to her lips and tiptoeing toward the voices. I give Sabbath a wild look, but she shrugs, and Soren pushes me forward briskly.
Rude. I flash my eyes at him and he rolls his.
A series of ossuaries hang off the main passageway. Tuesday yanks us into one, the walls inside made of the skeletons of Seers know how many witches. I move closer to the archway so I can get a look down the long hallway from inside, and then realize my face is positioned right next to the gaping, eyeless stare of a skull. Soren presses up against me from behind, clamping his hand down over my mouth before I can cry out in shock. His hand is so big that it covers half my face, and when he finally removes it, he does so cautiously. The scream escapes me as a long sigh.
I should move away from him, put some space between us, but I don’t. It’s strange to feel his chest, crushed up against my back. It’s just so cold down here, and he’s a warm body in a place where warm bodies are severely outnumbered. His heart thumps a frantic rhythm against me through his wool sweater, and I look over my shoulder.
Soren’s face has drained of color. I don’t realize why until I listen more carefully to the man and woman arguing farther down the Catacombs.
“—it grows less every year,” the woman finishes.
“Phaedra. Instead of a third, we can source more.”
“And rear generations of witchlings, weaker and more defenseless than those before?”
“It’s a perfectly logical thing to do. No one will suspect one generation of much, and if it’s believed that magic is waning, our schools will strengthen. Besides, you know as well as I do that we return the magic at the Claiming.”
We? My heart stops. Peering out through the narrow sliver of space that cuts down the hallway, I catch a fleeting glimpse of a tall man with a long face and greying blond hair.
“A practice you will remember I have never supported,” the woman protests. “Taking from our own children! It’s appalling!”
“We’ve been over this, Phaedra. The practice sustains the infrastructure of witching society, and it has for centuries.” The man’s voice sounds strained, as though he’s barely holding on to reason. It’s a familiar sort of restraint, and I’m beginning to understand why...
“And yet it would only take one swayed, one easily misled High Council to abuse this power, Cain!”
I turn to Soren with the question in my eye and he nods, tightlipped.
Unholiest of all cauldrons, we’ve followed the seerforsaken High Council to the most powerful public grimoire in the witching world!
I look helplessly around, wondering if it’s time to scram, or if waiting the Council out is really a risk we’re willing to take.
“Easily misled?” Lathan Cain snaps. “Is there something you need to discuss, Phaedra, or are you going to find the spell for us so we can get back to it?”
“This deal you’re cutting with them is barbaric—”
“It’s yet to be put to a vote!”
“We were not chosen like the Councils before us, Cain, lest you forget. It simply isn’t viable to hold power as we do. We need to hold an election. Otherwise, our community is vulnerable. We are in an age of mistrust, and this scheme of yours only proves—”
“You can thank Carrow for the mistrust!”
My breath catches in my lungs and I’m sure I’m never going to breathe again, until I feel Soren move infinitesimally closer. For some reason, this gives me just enough courage to take another gulp of air. Probably because it reminds me that if I pass out, he’s the one who will have to catch me and that would be...
Well, the worst. Obviously.
Across the archway, the other four stand wide-eyed, pressed against the wall. Sabbath’s mouth falls open like she wants to whisper something to me, but she’s also trying very hard to listen. I think she’s starting to like the adrenaline rush of doing bad things.
Meanwhile, I’m starting to regret all of my life choices.
“It took one rogue witch to disrupt our entire governmental body,” Phaedra argues. “One. Imagine what would have happened if she had wanted that power!”
“Pandora went mad spending so much time in Andromeda,” Cain says dismissively.
Phaedra scoffs. “And now you want to invite Andromeda through our door!”
“It’s coming for us, Phaedra. One way or another, that thing will come. Whose side would you rather be on when it does?” The silence that follows seems to prove Cain’s point. “Do you see now why such a deal is crucial?”
“Phaedra is right.” The deep, accented voice of a second warlock finally joins. “But we will need the spell as collateral, at the very least.”
“Go on, hurry up then,” Cain insists. He’s clearly in a foul mood at this point, but I’ve found that being wrong will do this to a Cain.
There’s a humph, followed by the clacking sound of heels on stone. They pause as the spellwriter grumbles to herself, something about repulsive skeletons and unattended to cobwebs.
“You cannot take the book, Phaedra,” the accented voice warns. “The book will take you. That is why it is sealed to this tomb.”
“Fine. I don’t need the whole book, I just need—this.”
Horror seizes Tuesday as the long, slow sound of ripping echoes through the cavernous tombs. The High Council is stealing a spell from a grimoire that’s meant to belong to all of witching society.
“You know that the only thing that allows you to do such a thing is the power we draw from them,” Cain points out. “The power of the next generation of great spellwriters flows through you.”
“Then let this be a small benefit of it.”
“Right, then. Now, close the book.”
I lock eyes with Sabbath, withholding my groan. We’d been depending on using the freezing rune on some unsuspecting witch who thought it might be the book’s will to stay open, but we can’t very well trick the High Council, not when they seem determined to cover their tracks.
This quest is going just about as wrong as it possibly could.
The book slams shut with a thump, and several pairs of feet beat against the cobblestone pathway, nearing. We stand flush with the wall, willing ourselves to be thinner.
“The Carrow girl’s Claiming is this year. Michlynn, I believe her name is.”
“She didn’t have much power to begin with, maybe we needn’t worry over her.”
“None of us worried over Pandora and look where that landed us. Mark my words, Carrow’s daughter is going to be trouble.”
A small gasp escapes Tuesday and she realizes too late what she’s done. The voices in the hall cut off sharply.
“Who’s there?”
Footsteps close in slowly, deliberately, until Lathan Cain peeks his head through the archway. He’s a gaunt man, but the family resemblance is strong—especially up close. He has the same long face and high cheekbones, the same piercing eyes. His nose curves into more of a hook, and the grey eating away at his temples makes him appear older than his late forties.
His eyes begin to swivel toward me and Soren just as my body erupts with tingles. Slanting my eyes down, I find that it’s disappearing, becoming an optical illusion of brick and bone. I hope Tomorrow can hold the illusion long enough to save us.
Cain’s eyes search the darkness, landing square on me. Then they slide to the place where Soren stands at my back and steady there for a long moment.
No one moves. No one dares even breathe.
“What is it, Lathan?”
“Nothing,” he responds to the other warlock, peeling his eyes away from Soren’s invisible face.
“Not them?”
“No. But we should leave these matters to discuss in the Council chambers, not where prying ears could overhear if wished.”
As soon as their voices fade, we blast back to ourselves, Tomorrow gasping. “I think I got the color wrong.”
“You did well,” Sabbath smiles, patting her on the back.
Soren’s jaw tenses. “I knew it. I knew they were stealing power.”
“While I’m delighted to be right about your uncle’s character flaws, we need to move,” Tomorrow growls. Taking her twin’s hand, she enters the little quarry where the book lies.
Tu protests. “But the book’s closed—”
And there it is, a long rectangular coffin made of stone. The skeletal remains of a long-dead warlock peer up at us with an eerie, doltish grin. Held tight against his chest is a thick purple book.
“He has his finger in the pages!” Nik points.
We all lean our heads to the side to look. Indeed, this is true. The mage’s skeleton has marked a page by means of a single phalange.
Sabbath creeps closer, peering at the bones with a morbid degree of fascination, cocking her head to one side. I can practically hear her wondering what sort of necromancy could train an ancient warlock’s remains to double as a bookmark.
“That’s wonderful and so very sweet of him, but the grimoire still won’t open,” Tu laments. “You have to be a great spellwriter. One of the greatest of your time.”
Tomorrow ridicules her twin with a single look. “What is that, Tu? You haven’t even tried. You’ll definitely never be one of the greats if you aren’t even willing to open a book when it’s right in front of you.”
Soren comes up behind her, a look of resignation on his face. “At least try,” he says.
Stepping forward hesitantly, Tuesday reaches her fingers out to graze the Grimoire du Mage. As soon as her fingertips brush the surface…
Nothing. Nothing happens.
“Sorry,” she mumbles, peering back at us.
Sabbath looks between the mage and Tuesday. “Maybe it’s like the unicorn, Tu. You have to believe.”
“Yeah,” Tomorrow agrees. “What were you thinking about when you touched the book?”
Tu’s eyes wander the tomb longingly. I can feel her grief swelling to the surface, manifesting in her eyes. “I was thinking about death. Because there’s a skeleton in front of me, and I can’t open its book. And maybe I can’t open it because Zach is dead, and I couldn’t bring him back.” Her voice cracks into a sob, and Tomorrow pats her sister roughly.
“Well, that’s not the power of positive thinking, Tu.”
A smile creeps onto my face. Tomorrow Jones giving a pep talk about the power of positive thinking? That’s not something I thought I’d witness in this life.
“Why don’t you say a little rhyme,” she continues. “Even if it’s not a spell. Tell yourself how brilliant you are.”
Tuesday sniffs and, her brow furrowing in determination, she closes her eyes. “Witch of the Covenant, please let me see, the powers trembling all through me. Witch of the ages, crumbling to bones, know the power of mine to move stones.”
A draft whispers around her, voices stirring from the deep. I huddle closer to the others, looking around. It feels like All Hallows’ Eve, with the ancestors’ spirits drawing near again. Maybe it’s the voices of all these skeletons, waking up.
Tu’s fingers stretch out instinctively—cautiously—as she repeats the words to herself over and over. The book issues a soft glow in response, fluttering like the draft is trying to grip the pages and flip the tome open.
I begin to quietly mutter the words, too. Soon, we’re all uttering Tu’s incantation. Hearing us, her voice grows bolder until it reverberates through the Catacombs like a command.
The book whips open.
“Tuesday!” Soren breathes. “You did it!”
We all step forward in wonder, Soren pushing through the rest of us to get a glimpse. His body comes to a tense halt. “Why is it blank?”
Flicking her magic toward the grimoire, Tuesday spins through the pages.
“There’s nothing,” he states slowly, horrified.
Peering around his shoulder, I see that Soren is right. Not a single word remains in the entire grimoire.