Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Acknowledgement
Acknowledgements
Report 01: Never Take Henri to a Book Faire
Report 02: An "Easy" Case
Report 03: Digging Up Clues
Report 04: Henri Has Friends
Report 05: Interviews
Report 06: Henri Has More Friends!
Report 07: The Game's Afoot
Report 08: Brilliance and Insanity
Henri's Additional Report 1.5: Frustrations
Report 09: Rabbiting
Report 10: Why Do They Always Run?
Report 11: I Don't Want More Complications
Report 12: No
Report 13: An Evening In
Report 14: Plot Twist
Report 15: Walls Should Not Do That
Report 16: Melting Walls are Not for the Faint of Heart
Report 17: Damage Report
Report 18: Stupid is Costly
Report 19: Aliases
Jamie's Additional Report 3.0: Strawberries!
Report 20: Aftermath
Report 21: The Scheme
Report 22: The Plan
Report 23: Uh, Are We Ready for This?
Report 24: A Very Long Night
Final Report: Strawberry Extravaganza
Jamei's Notes to Herself
Thanks for reading the latest Case Files! Interested in more Honor?
Other books by Honor Raconteur Published by Raconteur House
Dear Reader,
Published by Raconteur House
Murfreesboro, TN
THE CASE FILES OF HENRI DAVENFORTH: Grimoires and Where to Find Them
Case Files 6
A Raconteur House book/ published by arrangement with the author
Copyright © 2021 by Honor Raconteur
Cover by Katie Griffin
Clockwork spare parts by donatas1205/Shutterstock; male man toilet WC by yougifted/Shutterstock; Orbits of Destiny series. Abstract design made of sacred symbols, signs, geometry and designs on the subject of astrology, alchemy, magic, witchcraft and fortune telling by agsandrew/Shutterstock; Shiny yellow leaf gold foil texture background by janniwet/Shutterstock
This book is a work of fiction, so please treat it like a work of fiction. Seriously. References to real people, dead people, good guys, bad guys, stupid politicians, companies, restaurants, cats with attitudes, events, products, dragons, locations, pop culture references, or wacky historical events are intended to provide a sense of authenticity and are used fictitiously. Or because I wanted it in the story. Characters, names, story, location, dialogue, weird humor, and strange incidents all come from the author’s very fertile imagination and are not to be construed as real. No, I don’t believe in killing off main characters. Villains are a totally different story.
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A lot of people made this book happen. In no particular order – my editor, Ash, who bore with my many, many timeline errors. Caitlin, who caught the timeline errors we both missed and offered invaluable corrections. Sally, who helped me promote the book while I was in the madness of moving across the country. And last but never least, my team of beta readers who caught the other silly inconsistencies I create while writing on the fly. You’re all amazeballs. What would I ever do without you?
Let’s not actually test it, okay. I don’t really want to know the answer.
I strolled arm in arm with my lady fair, relishing our outing immensely. It was the first day off we’d both enjoyed in well over three weeks, and when I’d mentioned to Jamie that a large faire would take place today on the Kingston Fairegrounds, she’d instantly perked up, ready to go. In truth, I was just as excited.
This was no ordinary faire, oh no. It was a book faire.
We stepped into the first of many, many large tents that covered the fairegrounds. Book vendors lined all sides with their wares displayed on tables, signs proclaiming the rarest books in their collection. I spied quite a few old favorites in their literature, a part of me pleased books I loved were still in high demand. The air smelled of leather and old paper, and really, is there anything more delightful in this world?
The place was crowded, more than a few people jostling us on all sides as we entered the main thoroughfare. Jamie stayed close to my side, her arm linked with mine, Clint at her heels and Tasha riding on her shoulder like a trained parrot. Phil was on my other arm, his eyes bright and curious as he looked all around. I enjoyed having Jamie close like this, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. We’d only been dating a short time, just through the summer season, but it still felt new to me. Wonderfully, sweetly new.
“Oh, they have a stack of children’s books over there.” Jamie tugged me that direction, her eyes devouring the titles.
Her skill with Velars was growing steadily, and she could read things well enough now. It still took her a great deal of concentration to devour the written word, and it wasn’t comfortable for her yet. I still read to her regularly in the evenings so she could enjoy a book. Storybooks and things meant for the youth, those she could read handily, and she enjoyed doing so to the young Felixes in her charge.
Both Tasha and Phil lifted their heads, then maneuvered onto the table with light taps of their paws so they could more closely examine the thin books on display. Jamie flipped through a few of them, some recognizable to her, others not.
Phil batted at one. “This one.”
I looked over his head to see the title. Trains, Lanes, and Automobiles?
“What is it about boys and things with engines?” Jamie asked. It was clearly a rhetorical question, as she lifted the book carefully out from under him and handed it to the vendor. “This one, please.”
“Of course, miss.” The vendor kept eyeing her as if trying to place her but failing to do so. Likely because his attention kept deviating to the young Felixes dancing about his table.
I wasn’t about to enlighten him. Jamie’s fame sometimes made it difficult to be out without gathering unwanted attention. Most people still seemed to fall into the categories of either being behind in the gossip, or bad at facial recognition, which gave us grace. If not for the populace’s ignorance of who this stunning woman in the light blue dress was, we would not be able to take our ease in Kingston at all.
Jamie selected two other books and then paid. This vendor wasn’t one who dealt with vintage books, fortunately; otherwise, it might have cost her a small fortune. Taking the cloth bag, she thanked him before we continued on our way.
“What are you looking for?” she inquired of me.
“Nothing in particular,” I admitted. “I just enjoy browsing and discovering new titles. And the selection at these faires is always so much more diverse than you’ll find in a bookstore.”
Lifting the bag in illustration, she agreed. “I’ve already proven that. I’ve not seen these three books before, which is why I bought them so promptly. Is there anything you’d like to find?”
It was a good question. I had to think about it for a moment.
“Another good mystery wouldn’t be amiss. And if you see any history books, alert me.”
“That I can do.”
I linked arms with her again, lost in another one of those perfect moments. They came more often than I’d anticipated. Our lives weren’t pe
rfect or without stress, but this remarkable woman had a way of giving me these special times. Moments when I was perfectly, incandescently happy for no particular reason.
I liked to think I gave her the same sort of happiness in return. She certainly sought out my company often enough and gave me those blinding smiles to indicate she liked our change in relationship. I dearly hoped our emotions kept in step with each other. My heart sometimes seized in fear, dreading it wouldn’t always prove to be the case.
The fear never lasted long, however. Jamie always seemed to sense it and would give me one of those bone-melting smiles.
Her pad chimed, and she drew it out of her handbag, lips pursed. Then she sighed.
“Ellie again?” I didn’t even need to read the screen.
“I really shouldn’t have given her that Kindle,” Jamie mourned. “She was just so excited.”
Sherard, Felix, and I had recently poured our magical energies together to perform a short transfer of objects from Earth to Kingston. I’d sent Jamie’s journal to her family, and in return they’d sent several electronic devices to her. Three of them were electronic books that held thousands of titles in their slim packaging. It had been a technological marvel, truly, seeing the many books a single Kindle could hold. I’d been initially stunned, then aggravated, that so many books were outside my reach.
I’d immediately started in on a translation spell so I could rectify the situation. It had not been going well. The stubborn devices refused to cooperate with magic.
The reminder of my failed attempts last night made me burn with frustration.
Jamie patted my arm consolingly. “You’ll get it, Henri.”
“It won’t even take magic, not even a base coating like a protective ward,” I complained.
“Have you talked to Sherard about this yet? The two of you seem to work best when you bounce ideas off each other.”
I hadn’t. Simply because I hadn’t had much time to work on this puzzle. We’d only had the Kindles a few weeks, after all.
“Not yet, but I will later today, I think. I’ve run out of immediate ideas.”
She nodded in encouragement. “Do it. You know how he loves a puzzle, and you two have fun working together. I might be stuck reading something to Ellie this evening, anyway. She’s going cray-cray.”
I blinked at her, not understanding. Only context and tone hinted at the meaning.
“You mean she’s going crazy trying to decipher something?”
“Yeah.” Jamie made a face at the pad and then scribbled back a response. “One of the manuals has caught her undivided attention. She’s really keen on building a better telephone. I can almost hear her banging her head against the table in frustration. The numbers are thwarting her.”
Ellie was worse than a child in a candy store. She kept bouncing between projects, lured in by the Kindle’s many shiny ideas. These frustrated messages to Jamie were frequent and often coupled with a demand for help deciphering the pages. Some of them had diagrams and illustrations, which helped, but the rest were incomprehensible to the engineer. And the frustration showed.
I empathized. Or I would have if she wasn’t constantly demanding I do something to fix the situation.
“Granted, the world will improve if she can build these things here.”
Jamie snorted. “And then some. I’m really looking forward to some of the things she’ll build me, which is why I’m willing to help. Alright, I’ve placated her for now. Let’s continue shopping.”
We did. I hadn’t seen anything that caught my attention in the first tent. When we entered the second, I spied something immediately: a lovely, beautiful edition of a book I’d not seen since my grandparents died. I immediately went for it, shifting Phil up onto my shoulder. He went readily, freeing my hands to lift the book.
It was a first edition manual of rare botany that could be used for both medicine and poisons. An incredibly rare find; they’d only made a few hundred copies. The information alone was priceless.
I lifted it to my nose and inhaled deeply. Ah, the perfect scent of aged paper, and not a hint of mold. The illustrations were legitimate, drawn with slightly crude lines. This was not a forgery, but an original.
“Henri, do I need to be jealous of the book?”
The teasing broke into my admiration and I shot Jamie an exasperated look. “Don’t be absurd.”
Her dark eyes twinkled with repressed laughter.
“I don’t think you realize what a picture you just made. I thought you only reacted like that to fine chocolates. For a second, I thought you’d start kissing the book. Or licking it. I take it this is something you’ve been looking for?”
The vendor also seemed worried I might do something rash. To a book. Absurd, both of them. I fell into an explanation, my voice rising in excitement.
“I’ve not seen this book since my grandparents died and their estate was liquidated. It’s an excellent volume of botany used for magical work, either for making medicine or poisons. There’s very few like it, and this one has the information I use in my profession. I’ve been searching for even a forged copy of it for years, but this is an original. A first edition.”
The vendor—a stately man with a trim figure and neat grey hair—perked up. “You can tell, sir?”
“I can, easily. The illustrations are a little crude, obviously done with a pen and brush, not reproduced by an artist.”
“Yes, yes, that’s the mistake the forgers always make. They try to pretty it up and give it a hard binding.”
“But it never had one. It’s always been bound with soft leather and a protective sheath.”
I lifted my eyebrows, hoping he had the case.
With a grin, he produced it out from underneath the table and displayed it in both hands for my perusal.
I may have whimpered. He had the sheath too.
Jamie looked the book and sheath over with an interested eye. “That one looks pretty, too, same kind of illustrations as what’s in the book. Same maker, I take it?”
The vendor gave her a nod and smile. “Correct. You’ve got a good eye.”
“My dear sir.” I had to pause and swallow, a half-wince of anticipation on my face. “I’m afraid to ask how much this is.”
“One hundred fifty crowns,” he said, almost in apology.
That amount could pay my rent for the next three months. I wanted to cry. I felt like I might, in fact.
I rarely ever dipped into my savings account, the one maintained by my parents, but for this? I most certainly would. I just didn’t have the checkbook for that account on me. And the book might well disappear if I ran back to my apartment to fetch it. It was a wonder it hadn’t sold in the first hour of the faire. My mind spun with the logistics of how to work this out, as I dearly wanted the book. I didn’t want to miss out on what might be my only chance to obtain it.
Jamie eyed me sideways. “That’s his ‘I must have this’ face. I can tell right now. Alright, Henri, how much do you have on you?”
“Not that much,” I admitted, the words sour and ashen in my mouth.
“I’ve got my checkbook on me.”
The words were like music straight from heaven. I looked at my lover with rising hope. “Do you?”
“And more than enough to cover it, I think.” She gave me a smile as she offered, “How about I pay for it now, you pay me back later?”
Impulse seized me. I put the book back on the table long enough to catch her head in both hands and kiss her soundly on the mouth. “I love you.”
She laughed, alight with joy. “Well, you’re easy. I just have to buy you rare books. Sir, who do I make the check out to?”
I had Tasha climb onto my other shoulder so Jamie could bend over the table and write out the check in her scrawling, cramped handwriting. She blew on the ink to dry it and handed it over with a flourish. The vendor accepted it, then paused as he blinked down at the name.
“Jamie Edwards?” he repeated, as if the name had jus
t pinged recognition. He looked up at her, and I could see him put the pieces together. “The Shinigami Detective?”
“That’s me,” she responded patiently, as she always did.
“I’m ever so glad you’re here, Detective.” He leaned forward, his tone falling to an urgent whisper. “We’ve had some trouble here, but the local cops won’t help us. It’s very hard for us to report a book theft. To them, it’s just a product that’s worth a few coppers. Who cares if one’s stolen? They don’t always realize the value a single book can hold.”
I certainly did. The books around us could total in the thousands of crowns, if they were rare enough editions.
“What was stolen?”
Jamie belatedly indicated me. “This is my partner, Doctor Henri Davenforth, Magical Examiner with the Kingston PD.”
The vendor’s expression lit up in relief. “Then you, Doctor, can truly understand what I’m about to report. The vendor behind me, Charles Ferrington, deals in grimoires. He reported to me not ten minutes ago one was stolen from his table.”
Alarm shot through my system. “A grimoire? What type?”
“That I can’t tell you; it’s not my specialty. He tried reporting it to no avail. He’s rather shook up about it, I can tell you that. He said it’s not something you want to fall into the wrong hands.”
This did not bode well. I didn’t want a grimoire in the wrong hands, true enough, but it was the theft of a book that outraged me. And I’d have a strong word with whichever young cop hadn’t appreciated the value of books.
“Package my purchase, please. Then I’ll speak with him.”
“Thank you so much.” The vendor promptly turned and did so, taking care with the book, his movements quick and efficient.
I belatedly realized we were on a date, and I probably shouldn’t have volunteered us for work. I gave Jamie an apologetic look.
“I’m so sorry, my dear, it’s just….”
She held up a hand. “It’s fine. I know books are your soft spot. And if they’ve already tried reporting this and failed, the least we can do is file the report ourselves and get someone on it.”
Grimoires and Where to Find Them Page 1