Page 46 of Orc’s Grimoire

The mating mark pulses between us—not painful, but intense. Present. I feel her pulse beneath my palms, her breath warm against my wrists. The scent of ink and blood that clings to her skin fills my lungs, and beneath it, her own scent. Warm. Female. Mine.

The mark says she’s yours. The magic doesn’t lie.

“Midori arrives at dawn.” My voice has dropped to barely above a whisper. “She’ll burn everything. Everyone. Including you, including me if she learns about the mark.”

“I know.”

“We have to deal with the Author before she gets here. Find a way to destroy him, to end this, before the Order tears through the Archive with fire and iron.”

“I know.” Her hands rise to cover mine, pressing my palms harder against her cheeks. The contact grounds me—solid, real, inescapably present. “And the grimoire? What do we do about the grimoire?”

“It burns too.” The words scrape against my throat. “After we use it to destroy its creator.”

“Can we trust it? After everything⁠—“

“No.” I don’t soften the truth. “We can’t trust it. But we might be able to use it.”

The grimoire’s voice fills our minds.

Not sound—impression. Words that arrive without traveling through ears, settling directly into thought with the intimate violation of uninvited guests. The book on the lectern hasn’t moved, hasn’t opened, but its presence expands until it’s everywhere, filling the Stacks with borrowed consciousness.

“You want to destroy the Author.” Not a question. The grimoire already knows. “You want to end him permanently. Burn him from existence the way you’ve burned so many of my siblings.”

I release Thyra’s face, turning to face the lectern. The chains holding the grimoire have gone slack—not broken, but surrendered, as if they’ve given up trying to contain what they never truly held.

“You can hear us?”

“I can hear everything that happens in my domain, spell-burner.” The grimoire’s voice carries amusement, spite, centuries of accumulated resentment. “I’ve heard every secret whispered in these halls. Felt every drop of blood spilled on my pages. Known every thought that brushed against my binding.”

“Including the Author’s?”

“Including the Author’s.” A pause, heavy with bitter satisfaction. “He made me. Trapped me. Uses me as a prison for his consciousness, a vessel for his immortality. Do you know what that’s like, spell-burner? To be created as a tool? To exist only for someone else’s purpose?”

“You’re trying to make me sympathize with a sentient book.”

“I’m trying to make you understand.” The grimoire’s presence intensifies, pressing against my thoughts like fingers probing for weakness. “I hate him. I’ve hated him for three centuries. Every moment of my existence has been spent in his shadow, serving his needs, furthering his goals. I want him dead more than you can possibly imagine.”

Thyra steps forward, positioning herself beside me. Her shoulder brushes mine—deliberate contact, shared strength. The mating mark responds with a pulse of warmth that spreads through my chest.

“What are you offering?” Her voice is steady. Her expression is unguarded, all performance stripped away, the calculating mind she doesn’t bother hiding from me anymore. “What help can you provide?”

“Information. Access. The pathway to his true location inside my pages.” The grimoire’s voice drops lower, more intimate. “The Author can project himself into the physical world, but his core consciousness remains in the Inner Codex—the space inside my pages where reality bends to his will. To destroy him permanently, you must enter that space. Face him where he’s strongest. And burn him from the inside out.”

“And why would you help us do that?” I don’t bother hiding my suspicion. “What’s in it for a hungry book?”

“Freedom.” The word resonates with three centuries of longing. “When the Author dies, his hold on me dies with him. I’ll no longer be his prison. I’ll be⁠—“

“A threat. A danger. Everything the Archive was created to contain.”

“Perhaps.” The grimoire doesn’t deny it. “But I’ll be free to be those things. Free to choose my own path, my own purpose. Isn’t that worth the risk?”

Thyra and I exchange glances. Her expression is guarded, calculating.

Can we trust it?

Do we have a choice? / And yet—the warning sent me straight to the Elders. Straight into the trap. Whether the grimoire intended that or not, it served the Author’s purpose. I should remember that.

“The binding.” She turns back to the lectern, to the book that’s been drinking her blood for six years. “If we help you kill the Author—what happens to the binding between us?”