How to Claim an Undead Soul (Beginner's Guide to Necromancy #2)(5)
“Is fascinating a good thing?” Right now, it sounded like a polite way of saying Maud had been right to condemn me to a life as an assistant rather than as a practitioner.
“Mother was wrong about your blood,” he said distractedly. “It’s not just that, it’s this too. Your mind…” He shook his head then tucked the papers away, no doubt saving them for later deliberation. “I’m starting to understand why Maud kept us separate even when we studied the same lessons.”
“She didn’t want anyone else to see what I see.” A frown sank into place. “Do you think this is the reason she enrolled me in human school?”
As much as I longed to hear him say yes, that her decision was a protection and not a condemnation, I couldn’t shake those engrained insecurities that came from being told by one of the world’s most gifted practitioners that I wasn’t enough.
“No one can know for sure, but it seems likely given what we’ve learned.” He crossed the room, and I lost track of him behind the trunks. “I wish we had access to her library. She must have made notes about your condition. She could never leave a good puzzle unsolved. Reading those would help us understand how your brain functions, how your blood works. We could save time building on her knowledge.”
“The basement won’t open for me.” I hammered my heel against the nearest chair leg, but it did nothing to dispel the frisson of unease shivering through me. “It’s the one room Woolly can’t manually unlock.”
Going down there hadn’t ranked high on my priority list until the Grande Dame explained what it meant that I was goddess-touched. That’s when it hit me that whatever Maud had known, I had to know too. I hadn’t tried breaking the wards. Yet. Assuming they could be jimmied. Given how determined Maud had been to hide my nature from me while she was alive, I was willing to bet the extra layers of security activated after her death wouldn’t crumple under a lock-breaker sigil and a few swipes of my brush.
Odds were good Linus could batter his way into her inner sanctum. He was an apt pupil, after all. But once the wards came down, I had nothing to replace them, and I couldn’t afford to leave the library vulnerable.
“That’s too bad.” Wood scraped over metal in the direction Linus had gone. “We can add that to our to-do list.”
Mentally, I scratched that right out. There would be no witnesses when I descended those stairs for the first time post-Maud, and that meant I had to figure it out on my own.
“I hope you don’t mind.” Linus reappeared with a rectangular bundle wrapped in butcher paper. A wide burlap ribbon banded around its middle, and a white wax seal had been pressed to its seam. “I brought you a gift.”
“What is it?” I accepted the parcel and weighed it in my hands. “It’s heavy.”
“Open it.” He leaned a hip against the table. “I commissioned it for you a few months ago.”
Startled by his casual mention of the timeline for my release, I forgot what I had been about to do.
“Mother lobbied for over a year to have you exonerated,” he explained. “I had time to prepare.”
Too bad I hadn’t been given the same forewarning. A spark of hope goes a long way in the dark.
“You can always save it for later.” His hands sank deep in his pockets. “You don’t have to open it now.”
But he had put time and effort, and likely a good bit of money, into buying this for me. The way he kept pushing his glasses up his nose before they got a chance to slip told me he was excited to see my reaction. He had done the same thing as a boy each time he picked up a new mystery novel from the library.
“I’m curious what’s put that look on your face,” I admitted as I tore into the package then froze with numb fingers. A shudder of revulsion rocked me, and I had to fight my instinct to drop the thing onto the table. “This is, um, wow. You shouldn’t have.”
I stared at the grimoire, and the grimoire stared right back.
Exposure to light caused its nine eyes to squint after so long in its wrapping. The cover was a patchwork blend of black and brown leather in varying shades that had been stitched together with broad thread. The hide was smooth in places and rough in others. I peeked at the underside and found it sewn from similar scraps, these covered in lumpy warts. Cracking open the cover, I flipped through the hundreds of pages of crisp, white paper awaiting my mark then set it back on the counter.
“What’s it made of?” I rubbed my finger between two yellow eyeballs with slitted, vertical pupils, and its lids fluttered with pleasure. “It’s…livelier than the ones Maud used.”
Crimson leather with gold inlay was more her style. Even in that regard, she had been a traditionalist.
“A number of things I imagine.” He tapped the corner. “A goblin who consults for Strophalos makes them from creatures who have been condemned to death by Faerie.”
“You know an actual goblin from actual Faerie?” The fae were ruled by the Earthen Conclave in this world. That was the governing body the Society brushed against when fae caused issues for necromancers. But the location of their home realm, and how they accessed this one, was a secret fae immigrants guarded with their lives. “Have you ever seen him without glamour?”
“Yes, and no.” Linus straightened. “Contact with the fae is forbidden outside contracts negotiated between our solicitors, so I’m not allowed to speak to him directly. I’ve never actually met him.”