Taming Demons for Beginners (The Guild Codex: Demonized #1)(20)

I grimaced at the absurdity of the comparison. This was hardly as terrifying as anything Celestina had done.

The cabinet drawer slammed shut, making me jump. Footsteps retreated, and the door banged. When all was silent again, I crept out and grabbed the mouse. A few quick clicks, and the printer hummed to life. A page slid through the machine.

I cleared my search and closed the inbox, then locked the computer. Printout in hand, I escaped the office and returned to the second floor. Only when I was back in my bedroom did I take a full breath.

Mission accomplished. Sort of. At least I’d made it safely out of enemy territory. Celestina had too, but a decade after she’d sold the Carapace to a British guild, the vengeful Xors Druid had tracked her down and murdered her. Maybe I should pick better role models.

I smoothed my stolen printout and stared at Zylas’s likeness. This page had come from an antique book, which Uncle Jack had scanned and sent to Claude four months ago.

My parents had died six months ago.

I closed my eyes, fighting the heavy sickness rising in my stomach. If summoning ran in my family, and if my mother had kept important summoning details from Uncle Jack, chances were the grimoire was related to Demonica. And two months after my parents’ deaths, Uncle Jack suddenly had two new, rare demon names.

It looked like Uncle Jack already had my mom’s grimoire. He’d had it for months.

Fury, despair, and painful betrayal closed my throat. Uncle Jack had been stringing me along since the beginning. He knew what I wanted and he would never let me get it.

Fighting for composure, I glared around the bedroom. My gaze landed on the dresser, where my books were stacked. Shifting Bronze Age History aside, I picked up a worn textbook: The Complete Compilation of Arcane Cantrips. Pages were marked with bright stickers, corners were dog-eared, and a brown ring on the cover forever mocked me for setting a mug of hot chocolate on it.

My fourteenth birthday gift. “This,” my mother had said after I had opened it with a delighted gasp, “is all the magic you’ll ever need.”

The memory of her voice intensified my grief and doubt. I opened the book to a page with a large rune drawn in dotted lines. Cantrips were the most basic form of Arcana sorcery, and a paragraph of text described this one’s purpose, power, pronunciation, and the proper method of drawing it.

Slipping a pad of paper from the back of the textbook, I rooted around for a pen, then drew a swift but small rendition of the rune. Holding the paper up, I whispered, “Luce.”

The rune blazed white. It glowed for twenty seconds, then faded.

With the stroke of a pen and a short incantation, I’d created magic. That simple. That easy. Not all Arcana was easy. In fact, most of it was painfully intricate. I knew, because from my fourteenth birthday onward, I’d read every book on magic I could get my hands on. Yet, despite the years I’d spent learning about magic, I’d never used it.

Stay away from magic and it’ll stay away from you. My parents had etched that rule into my soul, had reinforced the fear of magic’s power again and again.

But why? If our family included a long line of sorcerers dedicated to demon summoning, why had my parents been afraid of magic? If she’d wanted nothing to do with summoning, why had my mom cherished and protected the grimoire?

My only claim to fame was being the biggest, dorkiest nerd I’d ever encountered, yet for all my reading and studying and nerding out, I knew nothing. I had no idea why my parents had feared magic. Whether my family was a line of summoners. How summoning even worked—aside from a now pedantic understanding of the nuances of summoning rituals. I didn’t even know what sort of contract Uncle Jack wanted to negotiate, or why Zylas was dead set against it.

Knowledge was power, and I needed more of it. I needed The Summoner’s Handbook from the library.

I laid the grimoire printout on the light cantrip description, then pulled the stolen MPD forms out of my pocket and set them on top, covering the faded sketch of Zylas’s doppelganger. I closed the cantrip textbook, the papers hidden inside, and stacked it with my other books.

One quick and silent trip through the house later, I entered the library, leaving the lights on their lowest setting. Ebony filled the summoning circle, nothing but silence inside it, and the soft thump of my socked feet was uncomfortably loud. Zylas didn’t speak as I crossed to the sitting area, but the back of my neck prickled, warning that a predator was observing me—hunting me.

I pulled The Summoner’s Handbook from under the coffee table, then said stiffly, “I can feel you watching me, Zylas. I’m not here to pester you. I’m just getting something.”

As I headed back to the door, his low voice slid out of the circle. “Getting what?”

I should’ve kept walking. Should’ve gone straight to my room with my prize. Instead, I returned to the inky dome and held out the book in answer.

The darkness swirled, then faded. Zylas sat in the circle’s center, looking bored. “A book?”

“A book about demons.” Crouching so we were at eye level, I tapped on the cover. “I’m learning how summoning and contracts work.”

He appraised me, suspicion creasing the corners of his mouth.

I lowered the book to peer more closely at him. His eyes were no longer what I’d call crimson—they were dark red, like cooling coals with only a hint of heat left. He watched me with dislike, but his snarling rage was gone. He seemed … tired.