Page 1 of The Spellreader and the Phoenix

Chapter One

Max

“The problem with a job in customer service is the customers,” Max grumbled to Nōwē as he watched the annoying man stalk out of his shop, nearly slamming the door and setting the attached bell jangling violently.

Max hated that bell, but it turned out that not being aware when customers entered his shop was actually worse. Max had a habit of getting distracted, and the bell was essential.

If only there were a way to own a bookshop and not have to deal with people.

Nōwē didn’t have anything to say about Max’s profound observation, just flicked her ears and continued to stare judgmentally from her position in the window, catching the late afternoon sun. Some people had told him that shop cats were supposed to be friendly, and Max then gave them his best judgmental stare. (It was pretty good, but Nōwē was a master.)

Nōwē liked pets on her own terms, and strangers trying to grab her was generally not her terms. (She made the occasional exception for small children, but even that wasn’t universal, and Max had long ago recognized that he would never be able to fully grasp the multitudes of his feline companion.)

“Just because I work in customer service doesn’t mean it’s alright to be rude to me.”

Max was extremely capable of being rude, but he did try not to take out his feelings on unsuspecting strangers unprovoked. The person who served him coffee or answered the phone at City Hall were just doing their jobs, and Max had come to accept that a certain amount of human interaction was necessary in order to function in the world.

Some people apparently hadn’t learned that lesson, or seemed to genuinely believe that anyone in the service industry was there to serve them, full stop. Which was ludicrous. Business practices, logic, and basic tenets of human decency came into play before “the customer is always right.”

“Whoever came up with that saying should be shot,” Max griped.

Nōwē’s tail lashed, but she turned her head back to the sun and closed her eyes. Apparently, she didn’t think much of Max’s grumbles. She was probably inured.

Max sighed and went back to quietly muttering about fools who didn’t understand that second-hand bookshops dealt in second-hand books. No, Max didn’t have a copy of the most recent bestseller the man wanted.

Max preferred his words to have been written in a different century, generally speaking. (There were exceptions. He had a whole shelf of queer indie authors because representation mattered.) But if you could find it in a drugstore or big chain, it probably wasn’t going to be in Max’s store.

His sister, Evie, regularly told him that he would probably make a better profit if he tried catering to what the general population actually wanted. Max didn’t care about that. He enjoyed hunting for obscure books that someone desperately wanted. He liked having affordable options for that kid who loved reading and wanted something that wasn’t available in their local library. He had a little “by donation and free for kids” table up at the front with items that he acquired and didn’t feel that he could usefully sell. So even if someone was really stuck, they could always get a book.

He made most of his money thanks to his back room. Normal people might get second-hand gems and the occasional antiquarian book, but witches got obscure spellbooks and the exact spell they were searching for.

His phone rang, and with a sigh, Max picked it up. “Read for a Spell. Max speaking.”

His mother had thought she was so hilarious. She’d been big on the idea of hiding in plain sight, which was why they had a bookshop that catered to normal people and witches. With puns about the word spell.

“I need a spell! It’s urgent!” The words were practically screeched.

Max rolled his eyes, since there was no customer in front of him to complain. Where had common courtesy gone? Was he everyone’s lackey today?

Max tried to school his tone to basically polite. “Why don’t you tell me exactly what you’re looking for, and I’ll see what I can do.”

The frantic caller told him all about the spell they needed to regrow cut plants. There’d apparently been a lawnmower incident, and it was critical that the plants be fixed. Max was definitely charging extra for foolishness, but the witch assured him she’d pay whatever it cost, could he just be quick.

After he hung up, Max headed into the back. He passed through the first beaded curtain into the hallway which led to the back door of the shop. There were stairs on the left, one set going down to the basement and the other leading up to Max’s apartment. On the right was a storage closet near the back door, a tiny bathroom (which was technically for staff but effectively for anyone who really needed it), and closest to the front, Max’s back room, where the magic happened (literally, in some cases).

Although it looked on this side like the back room was separated from the store solely by another beaded curtain, there were plenty of protections on it. No one could get in without Max’s invitation. Sound was muffled, so people outside couldn’t easily hear what he was doing, and he wasn’t bothered by anyone in the shop. (He’d quickly undone the charm that had muffled sound completely, since it turned out he needed to be at least a little aware of his customers.)

If he had his way, he’d spend all his time in the back room—except sometimes witches were entitled jerks, and it was nice to ensure normal kids found the books they needed. If only he could trust people to just leave him money without his ever needing to interact with them…

Since Max hadn’t yet found a spell that could make that happen, he split his time between normal humans and witches who were typically seeking specific spells. Occasionally, they wanted whole spellbooks or to study a specific type of spell. But most often, they were seeking a spell to serve a specific purpose, and they were always hopeful that Max could find the spell they needed already in existence.

Unlike Spellsmiths who could create a custom spell, Max could read what an existing recorded spell did—a special talent a select few were born with, because spells weren’t written in a language. No one could parse the drawing of a Spellsmith and figure out how to divvy up its components to make a new spell. (Many had tried over the years. It generally resulted in disaster.) Despite the fact that it didn’t entirely make sense, Spellreaders could look at that drawing full of interconnected lines and know exactly what it would do when a witch sketched it out and powered it with magic.

Spellsmiths and Spellreaders didn’t always get along. Part of this was due to the fact that the Spellsmith family was a bunch of entitled, stuck-up jerks. (Yes, they’d taken the last name “Spellsmith.” They acted like it were a title. Enough said.) Spellsmiths tended to look down on a Spellreader’s ability, claiming that it served no useful purpose. Spellreaders tended to keep Spellsmiths on the straight and narrow, reviewing spells and confirming if they actually did what they were supposed to do. If you were an unscrupulous Spellsmith, you definitely didn’t want a Spellreader nearby.

Spellsmiths also tended to charge exorbitant fees for their services, whereas Max was much more reasonable. Depending on how hard it was to find what someone was looking for, it could be pricey, but he wasn’t outrageous. He also used a sliding scale that ensured he could still help people who didn’t have abundant funds. (And there was absolutely an asshole charge for people who had money and were jerks.) He had an excellent record—and memory—of the spells that he’d found and catalogued over the years, so he could usually answer a customer quickly. If it was within his repertoire, he was going to be reasonable about the price, unless someone really pissed him off.

Max was always looking for new spells. He kept his eye out for witch estate sales, or sometimes family members brought in books they didn’t need anymore. Occasionally, a normal family sold off books they didn’t realize the importance of. The World Spell was responsible for ensuring that witches and shifters didn’t come to the notice of normal people, and while it had been struggling for years to keep up with the advances in technology, it was still doing its job. Those normal people thought the books were junk or nonsense, or somehow never quite got around to looking at them carefully.