The Glamourist (The Vine Witch #2)(24)
While contemplating the scrolls, it occurred to Elena she might also benefit from their visit to the library. If she were quick. Yvette would be waiting for her at the same time and place where they’d met the day before. The prearrangement was the only way to coordinate their next meeting since the girl was too ignorant to know how to receive a dove. First things first, she’d need to teach her the spell on how to talk to birds.
Elena and Jean-Paul approached the reference desk, where they were greeted by a petite redheaded woman in a green-and-white-striped blouse, matching green hobble skirt, and button-up ankle boots that peeked out beneath her somewhat immodest hem to reveal turquoise silk stockings. The woman smiled coolly at Elena, then appeared puzzled when her gaze sailed over Jean-Paul’s head, expecting to find an aura.
“We’ll need a dispensation,” Elena said. “For a mortal. Can you help us with that?”
“I . . . give me a moment.” The woman searched through a filing cabinet embellished with the astrological signs for Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus. She flipped through a few files until she pulled out a parchment, holding it up triumphantly. “It’s been an age since I’ve done one of these,” she said before instructing Jean-Paul to put his hand flat against the parchment.
“Why?” he asked.
“Think of it like a fingerprint,” she said. “We’re required to keep a record of each mortal hand that’s allowed to touch the books so we know where to look when, or if, something goes, um, awry.” She smiled as if to reassure him, though there was too much deception in her expression.
Jean-Paul reluctantly did as he was told. When he lifted his hand again, a perfect imprint of his palm remained on the parchment. Several of his palm’s lifelines had been denoted: head, heart, health, fate, and love. The librarian cocked an eyebrow and aimed an improved smile full of charm at him. Elena felt a twinge of jealousy, but then what woman wouldn’t swoon at the combination of intelligence, faithfulness, and sexual prowess revealed by the indentations and angles of the man’s palm lines.
“Right, you’re all set. You’re allowed to look at anything on the first floor. I’m afraid everything upstairs or under glass is off-limits, but come to me if you need assistance and I’ll see what I can do.”
Jean-Paul brushed his hands together as if to rid them of whatever supernatural substance had been used to copy his palm. “Which way to the overly complicated treatises on witch law?”
“Right over there,” she said and pointed to the bookshelf lined with dozens of identical-looking leather-bound books. Then she twitched her nose, as if she’d detected something beginning to rot, and turned to Elena. “Books on potions and poisons are kept in the back room under the old gaslights.”
“I’m not . . .”
But the librarian had already moved on to helping a young man inquiring about enchanted atlases featuring sea monsters.
While Jean-Paul settled into his familiar territory of books and legal notes, his glasses perched firmly on the bridge of his nose, Elena went not to the potions and poisons section but to the archival birth announcements. There she flipped through the book of clans, searching for the Lenoir name. She had to guess at Yvette’s year of birth, but the document wasn’t so enormous that she couldn’t explore the difference of a year or two either way if she were wrong. She found Yvette on her second guess, though the last name had an asterisk beside it for no discernible reason. Below was a picture of a young blonde woman with pale eyes and skin and a distinct scar on her left cheek. It was customary to keep the personal information updated with notable events, and so the photo was from her arrest at Le Maison de Chêne, with her prisoner number stamped on the bottom.
Beside the photo of Yvette was Elena’s own somewhat angry mug shot as well, with the words “known accomplice” and “exonerated” written below in cursive script. Not her best likeness, yet a fair representation of her mood that day. After scanning further through the documents, however, she discovered that nothing else had been kept up to date. In fact, there was little else in the file besides a birthdate. She’d hoped she might find a notation on Yvette’s designated magical discipline based on her bloodline, but there wasn’t even a mention of family relations. The space where her parents’ names ought to have been filled in had been smudged out with a blocking spell, not unlike Yvette’s book. The traces of the spell’s bond to the paper still shimmered around the edges.
Perplexed by the missing information—not merely omitted through dereliction but deliberately hidden—Elena closed the book, but not before she removed the photo of herself from the corner tabs holding it in place and dropping the image in her purse. If no other information was deemed important enough to include in the young woman’s file, then neither was the addition of her likeness. Besides, she had a better use for the photograph.
Elena ensured that Jean-Paul was comfortably ensconced in his corner of the library before leaving to make her way to the butte for her appointed sitting with the artist. Thank the All Knowing Marion had a previously arranged engagement with her Union Pour le Suffrage des Femmes group and did not accompany her.
An hour later, the artist Pedro greeted Elena in the hallway of the shabby collection of rented rooms, his charcoal already in hand. The black cat was there, too, slinking around her ankles, rubbing his silver collar against her leg, eager to escort her to Yvette’s location. “Patience,” she said to the cat and then proceeded to enter the artist’s work space. But before Pedro could place one finger on Elena’s chin and tilt her face to the light to check the angle of her cheekbones, she presented him with her photograph. He was confused, naturally, so she had him stand before his easel while she explained by way of an incantation.