Spellbreaker (Spellbreaker Duology, #1)(57)

What had been in that letter? A threat? Blackmail? Or was he letting his imagination get away from him? He’d wanted to ask her to explain herself. But her eyes had looked so worried, her mouth resolute, and she’d just broken the bonds he had unknowingly worn since adolescence. And so he’d let her go, leaving himself to simmer in unanswered questions.

Rather than head straight to London, he returned first to Kent, wanting to update the duke and see if Elsie’s promised telegram had arrived. He arrived on Sunday to find there was no telegram, and the duke had fallen into poor health while he was away. It was not the first time it had happened, but it concerned Bacchus, nonetheless. The duke’s entire family was at the end of their line, worrying over him. And so Bacchus had spent most of his Sunday pacing the long corridors of the estate, tormenting himself. He must have been a sight, for even Rainer and John kept their distance.

Early Monday morning, he returned to London, to the Physical Atheneum.

He’d written ahead to request an appointment regarding his advancement. But when he arrived, the first place he went was the library. The maze of books became an utter labyrinth once he began walking through the shelves. They hadn’t seemed so imposing in passing.

He spotted an elderly steward in one of the larger rooms and approached the man.

“You, are you employed here?” He sounded impatient. He tried to reel himself in, but the questions were boiling over. He could solve at least one of them now: What rune had marked his skin?

As for Elsie’s—Miss Camden’s—well-being, he was forced to wait.

The steward looked over his spectacles. He appeared to be frowning, but perhaps that was simply the way the loose skin of his face hung. “Never seen a Spaniard in these parts.”

Bacchus doubted he’d ever seen a Spaniard period, as Bacchus wasn’t one. He stuffed his impatience into his stomach and chose not to correct the man. “Do you know of any volumes depicting runes?”

He blinked, the spectacles making his eyes large and birdlike. “Runes? Those are spellbreaker books. Down in the basement. Why?”

“Thank you.” He stepped away. Paused. “Would you kindly point me in the direction of the stairs?”

The man did, with a crooked finger, and Bacchus crossed the floor with long strides. Bookshelves like sentinels stood in his way, but eventually he found a stairwell basked in shadow, thanks to a burned-out lamp. He took it carefully, the temperature lowering by the step. The smell of mildew snuck into his nose as he reached the bottom.

The area was poorly lit, so Bacchus took one of the lamps off the wall and brought it with him. Two others shared the space: a woman nearly as old as the steward, and a boy who could not have yet been twelve. The woman squinted at Bacchus; the boy, his hair mussed, pored over a book. Her apprentice, he suspected. Perhaps he was a spellbreaker in the making. Hopefully he did not have the tome Bacchus sought.

The man had not said where in the basement the books would be, and so Bacchus forced himself to slow down, to read spines and labels, which were severely lacking in information. He pulled out the folded paper in his pocket to again study Elsie’s drawing. The symbol looked almost Asian, but the curls on the edges lent it more of a French aesthetic. Not that it mattered. Magic was universal.

Tucking the paper away—thinking about Hadleigh, where Elsie claimed to have gone—he investigated one row of books, then another only a quarter full. On to the next shelf. At this rate, he’d have to ask the old woman—

Encyclopedia of Runes until 1804, a book spat at him. The spine was the same width as his hand, and when he pulled it free, he grunted at its weight. The thing might as well have been made of iron. He expected dust, but got little. Either the tome was used often or the stewards of the library took their jobs very seriously.

He searched for a table, but the only other one was back by the woman and her apprentice, and he’d rather have privacy. So he returned to the quarter-full shelf and set down both the lamp and the book, opening the latter.

It had three to four spells per page, labeled in alphabetical order. Fortunately, the thing was also segmented into four sections: novice, intermediate, advanced, and master spells. He flipped to the last quarter and slowly turned the pages, moving the lamp closer.

So that’s what the ambulation spell looks like, he thought, tracing his fingers over the complex coils of the spell he’d tried so hard to obtain. A spell he no longer needed, thanks to Elsie. His stomach tightened. He ignored it.

The ambulation rune would do nothing to teach him the Latin spell that would actually enable him to use it. The name had a plus sign by it. An advanced master spell, then.

He turned the page. Upon closer inspection, the ink was actually colored to match the alignment of the spells. The physical spells were blue, rational spells red, spiritual spells yellow, and temporal spells green. The yellow ink had faded, making the spiritual runes hard to read in the poor lighting, but Bacchus had a mind for only the physical runes.

He dismissed spell after spell, turned page after page. Thought he heard the woman and boy move from their table to the stairs. He neared the end, turned the page.

Saw the rune immediately.

His breath caught, and he slammed a hand onto the page as though the rune might leap away. The blue ink was faded nearly to black, and the name had two pluses by it. A very strong spell.

The letters seemed foreign for a moment. Bacchus held the lamp even closer. The word revealed itself. Siphon.