Stone ground against stone, and the floor at the room’s center shifted.
“God, please don’t let this be an Indiana Jones-like thing with a pit of snakes.” She’d never survive the massive heart attack.
From the earth emerged a pedestal, and once in position, the tinted glass dome over the contents parted.
Her heart seized. Not from fear of snakes but from what the stone altar contained.
“The Liber Inchoatus,” she breathed.
“Yes, miss.”
“How?”
After being compelled to close the distance, she reached for it, but immediately pulled back.
It could pass for an antique-store find, but it was actually much older. The leather had gone almost black with age, its dark surface swallowed light rather than reflecting it. Faint lines cut across the entire cover—thin cracks running in different directions—but it held up and had yet to fall apart.
Her gaze landed on the symbol carved into the center. It was deep enough to create shadows, and they magically seemed bottomless. The lines themselves were sharp, looping into each other in a way that made her eyes work harder to follow them. A barely detectable glow ran through the design, and she wondered if Thamiel could detect it from where he stood.
Nadia cast a glance his way, but he stood still as a statue, looking at her, not the priceless object.
“Are you okay, Thamiel?”
He gave a slight, discernible nod.
Dismissing him for the pleasure of exploring the book, she turned back to her find.
There wasn’t a speck of dust on it. No wear along the edges where hands should’ve touched it. Even the vellum pages—what she could see of them—looked clean, pressed tight together.
Though she wanted to, she didn’t reach for it right away. It had a presence about it that made her hesitate. Not in fear, exactly, but more like… awareness, or respect for what she beheld.
“I can’t believe this is real,” she said. “I have so many questions.”
“I can answer your questions at another time, but for now, I must leave, miss. Will you be all right if alone?”
Luc!
She’d forgotten about him in light of the discovery! She’d horrified herself by the slip.
“Oh, Christ! Yes?—”
His face contorted, and Nadia winced.
“Sorry.”
“You are not to worry. I will be back shortly with the master.”
And then he was gone, leaving her with the find of the century.
Dare she open it? Part of her felt compelled to. The wiser half urged caution. The tome in front of her was an unknown entity. One possibly laced with toxins. Touching it could find her dead.
But Luc and Gabriel believed she was a triscelene. Didn’t it give her the ability to withstand any of the book’s protective measures or enchantments? Previously, she’d have said she didn’t believe in things like magic spells or charms, but a whole new world had opened to her recently. The unreal now existed.
Nadia gathered her courage and brushed her fingertips along the cover’s edge.
Ringing began in her ears, not dissimilar to the type one gets after a particularly loud concert. It gained strength, but cutting through the noise, distorted whispers drifted to her. A tremble swept from her lower limbs, up along her torso, and into her hands. A slithering sensation traveled along the skin of her forearms up to her shoulders, gliding along her neck. The fine hairs lifted there, and she shivered.
Why did it feel like a warning?
