Crow’s cologne mixed with it too, bergamot and cinnamon, and something that reminded me of copper and burning sand.
He took a small breath, then changed his mind and closed his mouth. He shook his head and chuckled softly. “I’m going to tell you something. It’s not a secret but it happened so long ago, it might as well be. Forgotten days, those, but now…now I think it might matter.”
I didn’t dare say anything, not wanting to jostle him out of this mood. An honest Crow, a Crow who would share something he said wasn’t a secret, but probably actually was, was a rarity.
So I waited, and hoped the fast beating of my heart didn’t give me away.
“There are spells,” he started, like he was picking his way through a language he’d never spoken. “God spells.” He glanced at me, but I kept my eyes on the road. I nodded to let him know I was listening.
“I won’t go into details of how they are made, but you should know they are rare. They take a sacrifice from the god. From the god’s power. Many…” He paused. “There are some deities who refuse to even…explore them. The power a single god spell carries is…” He just huffed a small laugh and drew another line in the imaginary dust on the dash.
“It’s almost unimaginable,” he finally said. “So many of the spells were experimental. Deities asking of their powers:what if? Some of those answers were horrifying. Some were… transcendently beautiful. Some were just very, very dangerous.
“Or tricky. Twisted reality, unraveled time, space hooked like lacework. It’s…well, it’s all very impressive.”
He dropped his hand into his lap and rubbed his palms across his jeans.
“As I said, some gods pursued the spells, thewhat ifs, and some, finding no use in their complexity, abandoned them altogether.”
We were almost at Jame and Ben’s place. I slowed a little, giving him time, not wanting him to stop telling me the point of the story.
“Someone, I don’t even remember who.” He narrowed his eyes, searching though memories. “Well, I’m sure I could find out, but it would take time. Someone decided the spells shouldn’t be lost. That they might one day do great good. Or great destruction.
“God spells that powerful probably should have never been written down. God spells that powerful should have remained memories, no more than flashy little threads in the massive, chaotic power of any one deity.
“But others, well, the others liked the idea of preserving these co-experiments in power. And so we did.” His hands were still now, each palm braced on his thighs as he looked straight ahead.
I thought he was still looking back through his memories, still seeing things that would probably melt my brain if I got a peek at them.
We were at Jame and Ben’s place, and I parked alongside the curb and killed the engine. The heat lifted from the metal making the hood click and snap as if some creature with needle sharp claws padded across it.
“Where are they written?” I asked softly, not wanting to startle him out of this mood.
“It’s a book. That seems like so little to describe it. The pages are Strange weave, the ink stolen blood. And each spell is cast into the book with a deity’s intention.
“It is unfindable, unbreachable, unusable.”
It sounded like prophecy. It sounded like a promise. It sounded like magic. God magic.
He finally turned to look at me again. “So of course someone found it, unlocked it.”
“And used it?” I asked when he fell silent.
He frowned, and his eyes glowed a very soft yellow for a moment. “It was said, and this is rumor, that a page was torn from it. A single page. But no one knows how that could have happened.”
“And if it happened? If a page were taken from the book? The spell book of the gods? What does that mean?”
“If it happened, then maybe…maybe I could believe there would be a spell that allowed entrance into any realm. Even a god’s realm.”
“Are you sure there was a spell like that in the book?”
“More so than most.”
“Why?” I asked, my heart racing but this time out of more than excitement. This time out of fear too.
“Because I wrote it.”
Chapter Sixteen
