“Snarky—very snarky, Princess. I think I’m rubbing off on you.”
“Maybe you are,” I said, grinning at him. “You’re helping me unlock my inner bitch-witch.”
“Speaking of unlocking,” he said with studied casualness as we continued to climb. “That’s a very interesting key you just happened to have with you. You say you found it in a flea market?”
“Yup. In Tampa,” I said, just as casual as he was.
“Mm-hmm.” Avery nodded thoughtfully. “And did you know it had magical properties at the time? Because that is clearly no ordinary key.”
“Well,” I said carefully, waiting to see if the key would react to being talked about. “I know that once I put it on, I couldn’t take it off again. Maybe…maybe it recognized something about me,” I said. I was still determined not to talk about the lock it matched—the one Griffin had around his neck.
“Maybe so,” Avery said, frowning. “Or maybe there’s more to it than that. Maybe someone or something wanted you to find it.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “How could anyone know—Oh!”
My exclamation was because we had finally come to the very top of the tower and I had carefully pushed open the black wooden door labeled Library in flowing golden script.
Inside were rows of books on shelves but not just books—tomes. Great, thick, leather-bound things that had to be centuries old. Several of them were open on stands around the room, showing beautiful, vibrant colors and illustrations which I could see even in the dim golden glow from the few overhead lamps which were still on.
“These are illuminated manuscripts,” I said excitedly, stepping into the room. “I got to study a few of these at University of Seattle’s rare manuscript section about a year ago.”
My English Lit teacher, Mrs. Sorenson, had sponsored me and written a letter of recommendation, explaining my interest in Chaucer and Fourteenth Century English Literature to get me in to see the rare volumes. I’d had to put on a pair of white gloves to make certain the oils in my fingers didn’t hurt the ancient tomes and handle each page as delicately as though it was a fragile butterfly’s wing, turning every one with great care.
But as impressive as the University’s collection had been, this was ten times better. The manuscripts looked newer somehow—the leather bindings oiled and supple and the colors fresh and vivid. Maybe they had been preserved by magic against the ravages of time or maybe there was something special about the air in this room. But for whatever reason, the books were in gorgeous condition and there were so many of them!
“Hey, don’t lose your focus, Princess,” Avery said sharply, when I started drifting through the room, wondering if they might have an original Canterbury Tales in the tower library. “I get that you’re a rabid bibliophile but there’s only one book we’re interested in up here. And this…is…it,” he finished triumphantly.
I turned and saw him standing on the far side of the round stone room. Beside him, on an elaborately scrolled wooden reading stand, was a book as big as my torso. It had an oxblood leather cover worked all over with curling, golden designs and I estimated it was at least four inches thick.
I could tell this because the book was closed tight and bound with heavy brass bands—two along its breadth and two enclosing its length. They met in the center in a kind of golden lock.
Avery tried to open the book and winced, pulling back his fingers as though he’d been shocked.
“Let’s see if your key can handle this one, Princess,” he said dryly. “This time I’m sure it’s a magic lock and no ordinary tricks are going to open it.”
64
I came to stand in front of the reading stand, looking down at the massive book. The golden curving markings all over the oxblood cover almost seemed to spell something out—something in a language I could almost but not quite read. Down in the bottom right-hand corner was something I could read, however—the initials C.L. were inscribed there in flowing, golden script.
“This is gorgeous,” I whispered reverently, reaching out to touch it.
“Be careful!” Avery hissed. “Touching it really hurts.”
But when my fingers made contact with the bindings of the book, I felt only a gentle hum. It was like the book was acknowledging me—welcoming me in some way. Suddenly, the room was filled with whispers.
“Welcome, descendant of the first Latimer,” a hundred echoing voices murmured—like a choir singing all around me. “Open the lock and claim your birthright.”
“Crap!” Avery jumped and looked around, as though he expected the choir of whispered voices to suddenly appear in the flesh. “That’s strong magic, Megan,” he muttered to me. “Can’t you feel it?”
Actually, I could. It was like a tingling which started in my fingertips where I was touching the book and ran though my entire body, making the short hairs on the backs of my arms and at the back of my neck stand up like static electricity.
“Megan!” Avery whispered, looking at me in an awed way. “Your hair—it’s floating.”
I looked to the side and noticed that he was right—my long auburn locks were rising into the air, almost as though the book I was brushing with my fingertips was full of some weird energry and it was charging me just to touch it.
“It feels…strange,” I admitted, not moving my hands from the book. “Strange but really good too—like I’m charging up like a battery.”
“Yeah, you’re looking charged up, for sure. Well, what are you waiting for?” Avery demanded. “Open the grimoire!”
I tried but though I tugged gently at the brass bindings, the book remained locked and shut. So apparently just being a descendant of Corinne Latimer wasn’t enough to open it.
“Try your key,” Avery said, indicating the keyhole in the center of the bindings.
I squinted down at it, frowning. The keyhole looked strange. Instead of having a round top and then a triangle bottom like I might have expected, it was simply a perfect circle, barely bigger than a pinhole.
“I don’t think it’s going to work,” I said, pulling the black key out of my shirt anyway. Sure enough, the barrel of the key was much too big to fit into the tiny lock. And the lock didn’t seem inclined to grow, nor the key to shrink, to fit each other.
“Oh,” Avery said, sounding disappointed. “Well, now what?”
“I suppose we could try an opening spell?” I asked, looking up at him.
He shook his head.
“I very much doubt any opening spell I could come up with would open Corinne Latimer’s grimoire. And you still don’t have access to your magic.”
“Yes, I do,” I said, frowning. “Just because I don’t have the kind of access everybody here considers ‘normal’ doesn’t mean I can’t get to my magic.”
The black key had sharpened in my hand again, as though it knew what I was thinking.
Avery’s eyes grew wide but before he could protest, I had stuck the pad of my right index finger with the needle-sharp point at its end and allowed a single ruby droplet of blood to fall into the tiny keyhole.
65
For a moment, nothing happened. The drop of blood just sat there—long enough that I began to consider with horror that I had probably stained a priceless manuscript with my blood and left DNA evidence of the crime into the bargain.
But then the ruby droplet was suddenly sucked down into the lock. There was a faint but distinct clicking sound from within and the brass bindings began to move, drawing back and telescoping in on themselves like some kind of ancient puzzle being solved. After a moment, they had disappeared entirely and I was able to—very gently—pull back the front cover of the grimoire.
Written on the inside cover in a flowing, feminine hand in faded ink was the inscription:
Herein lies the journal and spell book of Corinne Latimer—being her most private thoughts and those spells which she has found to be most effectual to general use.
Under this was something else, written in Latin. To my surprise, I saw i
t was the same motto I had seen at the bottom of my acceptance letter to Nocturne Academy:
Qui Dominatur in Omni Noctem.
“The Night Reigns over All,” I murmured, tracing the motto with my eyes. “But…isn’t that the Nocturne motto? Why would it be in a witch’s grimoire?”
“Who knows?” Avery said. He was staring wide-eyed at the open book in front of us. “Go on, turn the pages—maybe you’ll find out.”
Delicately, being careful only to touch the very edge of each page, I turned the yellowing parchment. There were pages of spells—big ones like love spells and revenge spells—as well as little ones that told how to make a wart disappear or cure a cow of milk fever.
Drawings of plants and flowers and notes on the different uses of herbs took up many pages as well. There were also lots of healing spells, I noticed, all written in the same flowing script as the inscription, which must be Corinne’s handwriting.
There were also notes about her daily life—journal entries interspersed with the spells. Many of them seemed to talk about day-to-day things—the fabric she had bought for a dress or how many eggs her hens had laid that morning. The language and spelling were a bit obscure, but thanks to my interest in Old English, I was able to translate well enough for Avery.
Towards the middle of the book, I came to an entry which caught my eye.
“The plague has come,” Corinne had written. “We think a traveling tinker brought it with his wares. John Cotton and Goody Cotton, his wife, already are dead. Their three boys sick as well—may the Goddess have Mercy!”
“Oh, no,” Avery whispered, as caught up in the ancient narrative as I was. “How awful!”
“It gets worse,” I said grimly. “Look at this.”
I pointed to an entry further along where Corinne had written,
“Half the towne is now beplagued. Seven funerals alone today with twice as many again tomorrow. If I cannot find a spell to cure this illness, we all shall die.”
Her flowing hand was shaky in this entry and there were blotches on the ink, as though tears had fallen while she was writing. I felt a great surge of pity for my long-ago ancestress. I knew the bitter pain of not being able to save people you loved—of watching them slip away from you while you were helpless to keep them safe.
“Do you think they all died?” Avery asked as I paged through the book, seeing many more healing spells which Corinne must have tried, one after another, with little to no success.
“I don’t know,” I murmured. “I hope not. Oh, no!”
For Corinne’s next entry said,
“I have taken ill myself. Today I woke with the aching joints and feverish ague that betokens the first stages of the malady. I pray the Goddess to spare my life, if only that I may go on seeking for a cure. But I fear that soon I must join her, in the Glade Beyond the Woods.”
I looked up at Avery.
“The Glade Beyond the Woods?”
“The afterlife,” he murmured. “She must have thought she was going to die. Oh my God, Megan—this is worse than one of those stories on that What’s Next? app. Hurry and turn the page! What happened to her?”
I thought about pointing out that we knew Corinne had lived—if she hadn’t I wouldn’t be there. But I understood his sense of urgency. Somehow we had both gotten caught up in the ancient history of my ancestress and I wanted to know what had happened to her as badly as Avery did.
I turned the page and was disappointed to see just another healing spell. And another and another—wow, she kept on working right up until the last! Corinne was definitely a fighter.
“What’s all this?” Avery demanded peevishly. “Where’s the next journal entry? I have to know what happens!”
“Take it easy,” I said. “I’m sure we’ll find out in just a min—”
I stopped abruptly because I had come to a new entry—one written entirely in red.
Not a faded red, like the rest of the ink in the book was faded. No, this red was rich and vibrant—as crimson as newly spilled blood. It blazed off the ancient parchment page, the letters almost glowing. The first three words read:
“He has come.”
66
“We are saved,” the entry went on and the handwriting was much stronger now, still in that glowing, vibrant red. “He has come and saved us.”
“He, who?” Avery demanded.
“Keep reading,” I said and then took my own advice.
“He is one of Night’s People—a Nocturne, as they call themselves,” Corinne’s journal entry went on. “I was frightened of him at first but he told me had had dreamed of me and come a long way to find me. He has surpassing long teeth—fangs almost, like a beast of the forest. He used them to bite his own wrist and then he gave to me of his blood saying, ‘Drink and be healed.’”
“Can Nocturne’s cure illness with their blood?” I asked Avery, looking up.
He shrugged. “I suppose if it was one of their hereditary gifts. Though I’ve never heard of one who could do it—it must be a rare ability.”
We both looked down to read some more.
“He is both fair and dark with skin as pale as milk and hair like the sky at midnight,” Corinne had written. “His eyes are silver ringed in deepest black and they glow betimes.”
I felt my heart catch in my chest.
“Griffin,” I whispered. “It’s like she’s describing Griffin!”
“Well, to be fair, lots of Nocturnes have black hair,” Avery said, but I thought he looked a bit shaken. The description of the Nocturne’s eyes was really exactly like Griffin’s. “Oh look,” he continued. “It seems that your ancestor had a thing for her Nocturne too.”
“He is my own dear love,” Corinne had written. “He has said that he will be my Blood Knight and I shall be his Witch Queen, just as in the days of old. I have taken his mark and have marked him in my turn. The spot where his blood entered my flesh glows like a star at my forehead when he touches me. And when we come together, I feel my power multiply and grow as never before! Indeed, I no longer need to work spells at all—I need only prick my finger and let a single drop of blood fall to bend the elements to my will. Truly I am most blessed by the Goddess.”
“Just like Griffin and me!” I exclaimed, looking up at Avery again. This time, he didn’t even try to pretend he wasn’t spooked.
“This is getting weird, Megan,” he murmured in a low voice. “It’s almost like you’re repeating your ancestor’s life or something.”
“Except I didn’t have to get the plague to meet Griffin,” I said.
“Yes, but your life was threatened—by Sanchez,” he pointed out. “And then you marked each other…and you’ve been doing Blood magic. Just like Corinne Latimer—so weird!”
“It could just be a coincidence,” I said doubtfully.
Avery snorted. “Yeah, right. When magic is involved, coincidence flies right out the window. So what comes next? Did they live happily ever after?”
“Let’s find out,” I said, though I didn’t see how it was possible. After all, at some point Corinne and the Windermere Coven had enacted the Edict and also banned all Blood magic. I didn’t see how she could have stayed with her Nocturne lover after that.
But when I turned the next parchment page, there was nothing written. And there was nothing on the next one or the next or the next. I flipped and flipped but I couldn’t find a single other entry or spell or drawing.
There was no ending—every single page to the very end of the grimoire was blank.
67
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Avery exclaimed, as I flipped through the book. “Where’s the last part? I hate novels that end on a cliff-hanger!”
“It’s not a novel—it’s my ancestor’s life,” I reminded him, but I was upset myself. It sucked not knowing what had happened next. I had really begun identifying with Corinne—almost feeling like I knew her. And now she—or rather her grimoire—was leaving me hanging.
Forgetting to be a
s careful as I should in my irritation, I pressed my fingers to the fragile parchment instead of just touching the edges of the page. To my dismay the pad of my index finger—which was still oozing just a little from the small wound I had made to open the lock—left a crimson print on the upper left-hand corner of a page.
“Oh, no!” I exclaimed, drawing back in horror. “Oh, Avery—I marked it!” I looked around anxiously for something to clean the ancient grimoire off—though it wasn’t likely there was anything handy that was going to get blood out of parchment. But just then I heard an inarticulate noise from Avery.
Turning, I saw him staring down at the book again. And when I looked myself, I saw why.
Color was swirling outward from the bloody print and washing over the page—over all the pages, I saw. Lines in that same crimson script were appearing by magic—it was like a note written in invisible ink suddenly being revealed.
“They have said that we cannot stay together,” Corinne’s journal entry informed us. “The Elders of the Coven—which I helped to found after the plague—have pronounced that we must be apart for they say when Witch and Nocturne meet and join, the power born of the joining is too strong and it must be curtailed. Because of this, they say our love is unnatural and wrong.”
“They tore them apart,” I whispered, thinking of how awful it would be if someone said I could never see Griffin again. “How terrible!”
“There’s more,” Avery murmured. “Keep reading.”
“The Elders have joined together to make a pact—an Edict—that no Other shall be joined to one from outside his or her race,” Corinne had written. “Thus did they separate me from my love. And I am to go back to working spells in the regular way—no more may I simply prick my finger and let a drop of blood fall to make the magic do my will. I did protest this at the tribunal but the Coven Elders will not hear reason.”
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