I looked down at the book, half expecting it to take on its human manifestation. Instead, it lay there. Inert. Cover face-up. Innocuous looking.
Too bad I wasn’t the inexperienced vampire from when we’d first met.
Fae artifacts were never benign.
I edged closer as letters appeared one by one on the cover.
“H.U.R.R.Y.U.P.D.O.L.T.”
An insult. How terribly original.
“Do you realize what you’re covered in? I’m not touching that.”
The letters faded, new ones appearing an instant later.
“WATCH IT, DUMBASS.”
“You’re not very good at negotiating, are you?”
Despite my words, I reluctantly picked up the book, trying to limit contact as much as possible. My gag reflex kicked in the moment the slime coating its surface touched my skin.
“Oh God.” I gagged. “So gross.”
“DON’T YOU DARE. I WILL END YOU.”
I dry-heaved a couple more times before I got myself under control. Breathing lightly through my nose, I tried to ignore the viscous gunk smeared all over the cover as I opened the book to a random page. It didn’t really matter which one. I’d discovered through trial and error that the information in the book wasn’t set. It shifted and changed based on the relic’s mood.
As expected, an entry appeared on the page I flipped to. Along with a photo featuring my father’s siblings.
My gaze lingered on the medusa, my aunt Callie, the friendliest of those I’d met. She looked out of the page with a dangerous expression. Her head snakes reared back to strike.
The rest of those in the photo were equally menacing. Don, horns curling from his head and tentacles falling like locks of hair around his face. Astrid, as beautiful as a star in the sky. Owen who dwarfed the rest of his siblings, two tusks protruding from his lower jaw.
As interesting as the photo was, it was the words beneath that caught my attention.
“The most influential of Noctessa’s first generation still living.”
“You’re forgetting Brin. I’m disappointed Book. I thought you guaranteed accuracy.”
“I’ve forgotten nothing. Brin, the youngest, the betrayer, the lonely hero. His image hasn’t been captured since the realm’s fall. As such his status as alive or dead cannot be confirmed.”
“It seems your information is out of date. Brin is very much alive. I’ve seen him. Spoken to him.”
He was my father.
That part I kept to myself.
I’d always sort of thought Book was omnipotent, knowing everything as it happened. It seemed that wasn’t the case which had me wondering how he got his information.
Leaving aside my doubts, I tilted the book to read further. Halfway down the page, I found something relevant to my situation.
“Shadow slipping—the method of using the shadows to slip from one place to another. A rare ability thought to have developed due to the dangerous nature of the realm.”
Now we were getting somewhere.
“Only the first generation is thought to have possessed this ability. It’s considered the primary reason there is a kill-on-sight order out for any Scattered.
“Noctessa’s dungeon is one of the few places impervious to this ability’s use.
