Page 54 of The Spellreader and the Phoenix

Rory clapped excitedly, his face lit up with child-like glee. “Ooh, is there a secret passage? This is so exciting!”

Once the book was tipped, there was a click, and the whole bookshelf swung in without a sound.

Mr. Jones intoned, “You may come in, Maximilian March. You may come in, Rory Brand.”

Max felt the pressure of the wards as he passed, meaning they were strong. The room was dim, with only the light filtering in from the exterior library, with the secret door half open, held ajar by Peter.

“I will need to cast,” Mr. Jones told them. “Hold on. Peter.”

The man produced another spell, this one written out on paper, and handed it over. Max’s quick glance at it confirmed that it was for the wards, a way to spell in new people so that they could pass without Mr. Jones.

As the spell instructed, Mr. Jones reached out one shaky hand and clasped Max’s.

“Are you certain you want to do this?” Max asked.

Once the man cast this spell, Max could theoretically enter this room whenever he wanted.

The old man smiled a little. “Yes, I’m certain. I wasn’t until I met you and the bright one, but I’m certain now.”

Max blinked at that way of describing Rory, but… Mr. Jones wasn’t wrong. He’d certainly brought a lot of brightness to Max’s life.

So Max nodded, and the old man sketched the ward spell, then infused it with his magic. It filled slowly, like he was reaching the end of his reserves of magic. Max didn’t know if that was actually a thing, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever met anyone as old as Mr. Jones was. He looked like he had to be at least a hundred—and if he looked like that, then he was likely older still. With a familiar, witches could make it to 120 or 130. Was he older even than that?

Max held his tongue. It was only curiosity that made him want to know, and he was more concerned with the books he’d wanted to see since he was a child.

Max’s mother had come out once, but she hadn’t been allowed into this room. Mr. Jones had needed a second opinion on a spell, and he seemed to have been happy with Max’s mother’s work, but he’d never invited her to return. Max’s parents had been trying since then to convince him to share the knowledge, but to no avail.

Had he… been waiting for Max and Rory?

It was a wild idea, but… not the weirdest thing Max had ever heard.

Mr. Jones intoned Max’s name, and Max felt a shiver go through him as the wards adjusted to accept him. Mr. Jones waited for a few moments and then repeated the spell for Rory.

He looked wan and pale in the dim light, and Max couldn’t help but worry about what would happen if he expired right here. Max really wanted to look at all of the spellbooks, but he didn’t want anything to happen to this fierce old man who had apparently been waiting for just the right people at just the right moment to allow them to look at his spellbooks.

Once the spell had been cast on Rory, Peter allowed the door to swing closed. There was a moment of complete darkness, and then lights switched on.

Peter pointed. “If you’re permitted to pass through the wards, you can get out by pressing the latch here.”

Max and Rory both peered at the latch and nodded.

The spell Max had looked at had detailed how to add someone to the wards and not the actual wards themselves. Hopefully, they weren’t being lured in here to be killed.

And then Max turned around and saw the books.

The room wasn’t as big as the library it was attached to. But it wasn’t some teeny bolt-hole, either. It was a library in its own right, just on a smaller, more everyday book lover’s scale rather than a rich guy who lived in a gigantic house that could have a handful of Max’s buildings inside of it and they’d still rattle around.

This room had soft, recessed lighting and floor-to-ceiling shelves on every wall. It was long rather than deep, and they’d come in on one of the ends, so when Max looked to his left, he could see that it stretched on for quite a while.

There were no windows, obviously, and it wasn’t as lofty as the library, but it wasn’t so cramped that he was in danger of feeling claustrophobic. The ceilings still had to be eight or nine feet tall, though there was only one level. There were several comfortable arm chairs that had been placed to make a little reading nook, and there were a couple of tables and desks, like this really was intended as a place for people to study… just hidden in the wall because witches hadn’t made it this far without learning a thing or two about hiding.

“This is amazing,” Max breathed.

The books were the sort of array that he’d come to expect, though it did seem to skew a bit towards expensive and older books from the look of them. He’d really expect nothing less from Mr. Jones’s collection.

But he could see sheafs of paper bound in twine, some raw edges, some hand-bound tomes. He even caught a glimpse of a few totally modern-looking books—including a few that looked like they’d been perfect bound as regular paperbacks. Please let that not mean that someone had had an actual spellbook print-to-ordered online.

Sometimes, people were such fools.