“And what kind of sacrifice do you prefer to use?” she asked.
“That depends on what I’m trying to accomplish.” He propped a hip against the side of the table. “Generally, more powerful spells require a greater sacrifice. A personal sacrifice has the greatest effect. If the caster choses something that has great value to them, no matter how seemingly insignificant, that can have more power than a meaningless death.”
She looked briefly up at him. “Like something that has sentimental value?”
“Yes. Or someone.” He studied his claws. “Sacrificing a person the caster has bonded to is one of the most powerful offerings in all of magic. This is why an experienced practitioner avoids personal attachments. Because the moment they bond to someone, the object of their attachment becomes a powerful ingredient in a spell. And if the desire for the success of the spell is great enough, they will utilize it. If they do not, all their other sacrifices will never measure up to that potential potency, and they will unknowingly cripple themself.”
“That’s cold,” Suyin said.
He met her gaze. “Power always comes at a cost.”
She looked back at the grimoire and muttered, “And knowledge is power.”
He smiled thinly. “Sheolic magic isn’t what humans have made it out to be. Where Temporal magic uses the power of nature and celestial bodies, Sheolic requires personal fortitude. You must ask yourself, what are you willing to give up to progress?”
Her eyes lifted back to his. “What did you give up?”
He studied her for a moment, considering his answer. “Everything. I gave up everything, even my own mind.”
She swallowed.
He tracked the movement of her throat, oddly transfixed by that slender column and the hollows above her clavicles.The fire was warm, and she had removed her sweater, revealing more of her skin.
She didn’t have the typical woman’s shape of curves and softness. Her body was lean and slender with sharp angles—her jawline, her shoulder blades—and yet, she was graceful and lithe. Like a dancer.
A little dark dancer, with her black hair and piercing gaze.
Unsettled by his bizarre thoughts, he shook himself, pushed off the desk, and headed toward the door. There was work to do, and no time to waste in idle thought and conversation.
“Wait,” she said, and for some godforsaken reason, he actually stopped and turned back. This was the third time he’d heeded that request, and it was starting to vex him.
He arched a brow.
“Are there any books on necromancy in the pile?” she asked.
He shot her a look. She was either clueless or an evil genius, because that was the one topic sure to gain his interest one hundred percent of the time.
“You want to learn the art of the dead?” he asked. “If Sheolic magic is dangerous, necromancy is even more so.”
“It can’t be worse than demon summoning.”
He smiled. “And you wish to learn that as well, I presume? The risks are high.” A demon resisted a summoning with every ounce of their being. The slightest mistake in the sigil or casting process and the demon would escape and slaughter the caster in retaliation for attempting to enslave them.
“Not really, to be honest,” she replied. “And I don’t know if I want to learn necromancy so much as understand it. I’m curious.”
He pursed his lips and studied her with indecision for another moment. And then that cursed impulsive voice whispered at him again to give her what she sought, and like a fool, he heeded it.
He crossed to the opposite side of the room. Sliding a ladder over, he climbed several rungs and pulled a familiar grimoire from the shelf. He carried it over and set it on the table in front of Suyin.
“There.” He tapped a claw on the cover. “This is the first in my own collection of texts and serves as a suitable overview of the fundamentals of the practice.”
Her eyes widened. “You wrote this?”
He gave her a look. “There is an entire section of this library full of my grimoires. Yes, I wrote it.”
Her brows shot up, and he was almost offended.
“I am calledtheNecromancer. Of course I’ve written grimoires, and of course I am the best source of knowledge on the subject. Who else would you expect to know more than I?”
