Page 16 of Orc’s Grimoire

I strengthen the wards as we pass. Subtle adjustments—a drop of blood on a rune here, a whispered reinforcement there. Nothing he’d notice unless he knew exactly what to look for. But every ward I touch holds firmer by the time we move on.

Preparing defenses he can’t see. It’s not much, but it’s something.

“The grimoire catalogues spells by drinking them from living practitioners,” I say as we approach the sealed door to the Restricted Stacks. “It doesn’t just store the magic—it absorbs the knowledge of how to cast it. Every spell it consumes becomes part of its library.”

“Drinking them.” Korrath’s hand rests on his brand. “You mean killing them.”

“Not always. Some practitioners survived the extraction. Most didn’t.” I pause at the door, reaching for the knife at my thigh. “The grimoire offers access to its knowledge in exchange for payment. Blood, usually. Sometimes more.”

“And people accept this bargain?”

“People accept many things when they’re desperate enough.” I open the cut on my palm and press it to the door. “Knowledge is power. Some power is worth dying for.”

The wards taste me, accept me, and the chains fall away.

“After you,” I say. “Unless you’d prefer I go first?”

Caution flickers across his expression. Not fear—he doesn’t seem capable of fear. But respect for a threat he can’t simply burn away.

“Side by side.” He positions himself at my shoulder instead of behind me. Our arms brush as we step through the doorway.

The contact sends heat racing through my veins.

Distraction. That’s all it is.

But I don’t move away.

The grimoire is awake.

I feel it the moment we enter—that immense awareness turning toward us, bearing down on my consciousness with familiar appetite. But a new edge has emerged today. An eagerness that wasn’t there yesterday.

The Author. It mentioned the Author waking.

The central lectern waits at the heart of the chamber, chains still vibrating, cover gleaming in the pale light. The grimoire hasn’t been fed since this morning. It’s restless. Wanting. The pages rustle without wind, revealing glimpses of script that writhes and changes.

“It knows we’re here,” Korrath says unnecessarily.

“It knows everything that happens in the Archive. Every conversation. Every secret. Every lie.”

FIVE

THYRA

Ifeel him tense behind me. Good. Let him wonder what the grimoire knows about him that he hasn’t shared.

Let him wonder what it knows about me.

I hold my bleeding palm over the cover. “Watch.”

The binding answers— containment runes pulsing hot beneath my blood, the pages turning with that hungry deliberateness I have spent six years learning to read.

Script crawls across the exposed parchment—not the ancient languages of the original text, but words meant for us.

KEEPER. BURNER. HOW DELIGHTFUL. A MATCHED SET.

Korrath makes a sound low in his throat. His hand moves toward his brand, then stops. He’s learning. The grimoire feeds on reaction, on emotion. Showing nothing is the only defense.

Smart. Smarter than I expected.