In fact, I was too young to remember the pagan uprisings. The pagan war had been my great grandfather’s war. And before him, it had been centuries since magic had been practiced in the Nine Kingdoms.
The Marble Wall had put an end to magic. And the small pagan rebellion that happened before I was born was hardly anything to think about.
Yet here was a spell book. In what once belonged to the king and queen of Elysia. The suites of the rulers of the realm.
The door snicked open. “Wait a minute,” said a deep voice from the corridor. “I heard something.”
Oliver and I shared a brief glance before he toed the secret drawer closed, and we soundlessly slipped inside the massive fireplace, each pressed against an opposite wall, praying to the Light the guard didn’t realize the door had been unlocked.
The burnished glow of a lantern flickered over the stone floor and across the plush rug in front of the hearth, brushing over Oliver’s dark boots and the hem of my black skirt. I held my breath. And I knew Oliver did the same.
The nameless and faceless guard swung his lantern widely around the room, stoically searching for the origin of whatever he’d heard. A second set of boots entered the room.
“I wouldn’t be caught in this suite alone,” he announced. “These rooms be haunted.”
The first guard scoffed. “Haunted by what? You’re a senior officer of the Royal Guard, Leib. What is in this room that could possibly spook you?”
The lantern light flooded the hearth. Oliver and I pressed even farther back into the shadowy corners. I closed my eyes and wished they would search for their ghosts in any other room.
Leib cleared his throat. “The past is its own kind of ghost, is it not? What happened to this family...”
“What happened to this family was an act of malicious violence, but long since—”
A distant crash silenced both men. The sound of glass shattering and tables being overturned. Then curses by the two men who rushed to see what the problem was.
Oliver and I waited until the door closed once more before both of us breathed a sigh of relief. What would have happened to us should we have been found? Probably nothing. Although it wouldn’t bode well for my uncle’s trust in me.
“You should put it back,” Oliver whispered, nodding toward the grimoire.
It seemed alive in my grasp, buzzing against my skin, against my chest where I held it tightly. But he was right. An ancient grimoire would only get me into trouble. It was still official kingdom policy to kill witches. Although a lifetime prison sentence was far more widely practiced.
Still... had it been my mother’s? Had it belonged to my family? Had my father known of its existence? Was it simply a nod to the past? Or something that had been actively practiced?
I longed to open it once more, to scour the pages for signs of why it had been secretly tucked away in a suite that once belonged to my family.
Oliver gently kicked the secret drawer in an effort to open what he’d only just closed. The drawer did not move. He bent over and picked at the stone wall with his fingernails, looking for the opening.
“It was more complicated than that,” I whispered. Lifting a hand, I pushed the original emerald stone in until it made a satisfying click. I paused for a few seconds, waiting, but the whirring and clicking failed to sound. I moved on to the ruby. Then the diamond. When the drawer didn’t open, I repeated the same path of gemstone buttons.
The drawer remained firmly shut.
“Open it, Tess,” Oliver ordered, panic lacing the command.
“I cannot.” I made a show of pushing the buttons in order once again. The result remained the same—no whirring, no clicking, no drawer popping open. “It does not budge.”
There was a commotion outside the door. More guards had been called to attend to the broken glass. It was time to go. Or we’d be trapped inside this room until the morn when the guards changed watch.
Oliver stared hard at the door. “We’ll have to come back. After the ball.”
I nodded. The book seemed to jump in my arms. Excited for the opportunity to escape its cage? Or terrified of it?
Or nothing but my imagination?
Probably that.
“You’re right,” I confirmed. Tucking the grimoire under my arm, I followed him to the door. We pressed our ears against the solid wood and listened until we were sure the hallway was free of guards. Then we slipped from the royal suites and slunk back to our wing, ignoring the clatter of guards discussing what could have knocked the vase off its stand.
Oliver and I split paths closer to our rooms with an additional warning to me about how dangerous the grimoire could be. I nodded politely and promised to tuck it away until the festivities ended in a fortnight.
