It was like the drawing guides in school when kids first learn how to write their letters. Each line is taken separately, one at a time. Spellbooks did the same. The added bonus was that normal people never realized what, exactly, they held in their hands.
Right in front of me, the curio shop guy was showing me a spellbook filled with what looked like dozens of new spells. I didn’t trust myself to hold it, but I stared at the words, translating in my head.
“Crazy looking, right? But I guess I can see how Dad saw something in this book, y’know?
It’s just a bunch of doodles, but it almost looks like a real language. See? There’s spaces between the words.” He pointed to a particular page where there were indeed spaces, but I didn’t feel like explaining that those weren’t separate words, but simply beats between syllables.
“Yeah,” I said, only half-convincingly. I forced myself to look away—there was something that looked like a beacon spell—to find your way to something that wasn’t there anymore. “That’s crazy.” I turned away, forcing myself to stare at one of the paintings—one of a woman seated primly on a bench surrounded by a garden exploding into spring.
Sherrod Daggett’s spellbook. Just the idea of it was crazy. If the Congress had known something like this existed, they would have snatched it up and destroyed it in a heartbeat. If they knew I had seen it—and hadn’t reported it—there was no telling what they’d do. If they found me with it, that might be enough to force their hands. A fatal move to be sure.
He was a traitor—a warlock and a terrorist. All true. Sherrod Daggett was everything the books said and worse. But people who met him—even those who hated him with a passion—
still spoke of him with reverence. Like even in Hell, he still knew who was talking behind his back.
But was he evil in high school? Or was he like me? The thought soothed as much as it terrified. I remembered that night in the hotel room on our way to Carrow Mill, telling Jenna with certainty, “We could never be like them.”
If it was just a normal grimoire, it wasn’t illegal to have. But it was where the spellbook came from that was the problem. Just because they wouldn’t teach us anything but the most basic magic didn’t mean we weren’t allowed to learn it. They got to decide what scraps to teach us, because we didn’t have any other alternative.
This might be one. Jenna was right when she said we needed to defend ourselves better.
Our protection was up to us because there was no guarantee Quinn or anyone else was going to be around.
There was a clatter further on in the building. “Oh Dad,” the man muttered. “I’ll be right back.”
He left, and I glanced at the book. Really stared at it. Do it. Take it. My hand trembled. It was the first spellbook I’d ever actually seen—live and in person. The owner didn’t have a clue what it was. All I knew was that I had to have the book. It belonged to me, or it would have, in a different world.
But this wasn’t something the man had out on the shelves—it was his father’s. The irony wasn’t lost on me. Just take it. It was like a growing compulsion in me, something hot and hungry that needed to be satiated.
“Oh Dad, what did you do?” I heard faintly over the sound of a television talking head discussing POWs.
You wouldn’t be starving for knowledge anymore. If there’s anything bad, you can just get rid of the book. If Sherrod really was bad from the beginning, it’ll be obvious. The call to darkness will be there.
Almost before realizing I was doing anything, I was heading for the door. The book slid perfectly into my jacket’s inside pocket. I threw a twenty-dollar bill on the counter, and ran out into the cold winter morning and crossed the street, trying to duck down and stay out of sight.
I stayed slunk down in the passenger seat, my eyes glued to the side mirror and the door of the curio shop (which never opened) when Quinn threw open the driver’s side door and scared the crap out of me. My head nearly hit the roof.
“You look guilty,” he said.
My blood froze in my veins, and I could feel the book burning against my chest. I’d checked my reflection once I’d gotten into the car, but you couldn’t even tell it was there.
“No, I don’t,” I said automatically, speaking almost too fast. Which only made me sound more guilty.
Quinn just looked at me. He tossed a bag over the back of his seat and climbed into the car.
“Okay, then.”
Whatever weird thing I was on today, he clearly didn’t want any part. “Yeah. Okay.”
“How about no more caffeine for you? What’d you get, extra shots of espresso?”
The tension drained out of my body. I mustered up a fake smile. “Two.”
As we pulled off Main Street, I glanced in the mirror and instantly froze. Meghan Virago was crossing the street, arms linked with Mrs. Crawford. What were they doing together? I knew
Meghan hated us, but was she really friends with the teacher? Or had they bonded over my outburst? They were coming from the same direction Quinn had gone. I couldn’t tell for sure, but it looked like they were smiling.
“So how was the bank?” I asked lightly, while my thoughts ran and tried to come up with explanations. I had to keep it together, to show that everything was okay.
“Fine,” he said, his words clipped. “Long line.”
“Ahh,” I said, although I had no idea what I was ahh’ing over. He took the long way back to the house, driving through one residential neighborhood after another. I didn’t enjoy the drive much, barely listening to Quinn chatter about small towns—he’d been born and raised in the big city—and how it was a nice change of pace.
Now that I’d actually done it—actually stolen the book—I couldn’t believe myself. I wasn’t a thief. You left money, I reasoned, but it still didn’t change the fact. The worst part was that, underneath it all, I felt a rush of satisfaction. For once, I’d been the one to break the rules and get away with it.
“I said, what do you think about a magic lesson today?” Quinn’s voice was louder, interrupting my train of thought as we passed yet another church, Saint Anna’s, which had a giant steeple poised over the church building.
“What? Seriously?”
“Yeah,” Quinn said, leaning back in his seat and resting his head against the back of his seat.
“Besides, maybe it’ll do you some good to have something new to focus on for a while.”
The icy knot in my stomach was only getting stronger. It was like Quinn knew something—like he was just stringing me along and messing with my head. He probably knew everything—the old man in the shop must have called him as soon as I’d left.
You’re being crazy. He doesn’t know anything. I forced myself to look at him, just a quick glance as I started to shift in my seat. He wasn’t paying any attention to me at all, his attention was solely on the road.
It wasn’t much longer until we were turning onto our street, and I could see our houses in the distance. “Sounds good,” I said, trying to sound more even and relaxed. Remember, it’s okay to be excited. “I’m always up for learning something new.” Apparently, I was also up for a round of grand-theft spellbook.
Twenty-One
“There is no war. There’s only the slaughter.
Every time we try to regroup, they push us even harder than before. There is no opposition.
We have no leaders. They’ve won before we could even strike back.”