Page 55 of The Spellreader and the Phoenix

But the majority of the books were more like those outside of this room, bound in leather or cloth, and probably not bound in the twentieth or twenty-first centuries.

“This is quite a collection,” Max said as he found his voice.

“It’s been in the family for generations.” Mr. Jones sounded proud. “Most of us added to it over the years. There were a couple of generations where we had Spellreaders in the family, and that’s when much of the work was done. In other generations, non-family Spellreaders helped. But there was an… incident”—he glowered—“and it’s been hard to figure out who to trust.”

Because unfortunately, having magic and living longer didn’t necessarily make witches smarter than the average person.

Max explained matter-of-factly, “My goal has always been to make spells safer and more accessible to everyone. And I wouldn’t gatekeep at all except for those asshole Spellsmiths who’ve created awful spells over the years.”

Mr. Jones laughed his creaky laugh, though this made him cough again. Peter produced a snowy white handkerchief for him, and he coughed into it.

Once he’d recovered, he agreed, “Yes, as with so many things, humans are very good at inventing without asking whether they should. And perhaps there are even reasons why a spell was invented that made sense at the time but could be misused. Why don’t you take a look around? All the books have preservation spells on them, so you don’t have to wear gloves.”

Max couldn’t resist the lure of the books with that invitation, and he immediately approached the nearest shelves, pulling a book bound in brown leather out and carefully opening it. The spine creaked slightly, but it did indeed seem to be well cared for, and nothing cracked.

It was a compilation of spells from the Argyle family back in the 1700s. The spells were hand drawn as well as identified by hand, and it looked like that had been done at the same time. Rarely, there were notes added in pencil that amended the original explanation. It looked like in this case, at least, nothing had been hidden deliberately or maliciously; there were simply a few spells that must have been so matter-of-fact to the family that they hadn’t included all the nuance.

Max looked at another book and then another. Like the books and compilations that he reviewed at the shop, a number used a cipher and didn’t have the correct explanation on the correct page. Several were just plain wrong. In those cases, he would probably never know if the error was deliberate or not. (A Spellsmith could have given them a spell they said did what had been written down, only it didn’t do that at all. Or a Spellreader might have lied about what the spell could do.)

The collection had been grouped based on verification; there was a section for fully verified, one for labeled but not confirmed, and one for unverified. Each section was sorted either alphabetically by family or by theme, if there was one. That wasn’t the most common type of book, but it was the sort that Max would like to see a lot more of.

Wouldn’t it make sense to be able to look up a collection of spells on cooking if that’s what you were interested in? Or gardening or mending or training?

But that only worked if spells were actually accessible. Otherwise, it was just one witch hoarding a bunch of spells from everyone else.

With the advent of the internet, surely there were better ways to do this now. Yes, they needed something secure, but they didn’t have to be restricted to one handwritten book.

The Spellsmiths might hate Max if he undercut their business, but honestly, if the spell had already been created, why should anyone have to ask a Spellsmith to make it again? There were still going to be people who wanted genuinely bespoke work. There would still be new circumstances that sprang up, with nuances no one else had encountered. That was what a Spellsmith should be for.

Otherwise? Spells that existed should be available for everyone.

Max wanted to share them with the world—as soon as he’d gone through to ensure that the spells were correctly identified, the dangerous ones were stored away, and the bad ones were destroyed. And as long as he had a way to stay afloat while providing that service.

His mother had begun this task, and Max wanted to continue her mission. He wanted witches to always be able to find the spells they needed. He admired Mr. Jones’s collection, and he understood why it was hidden from normal people—but it really wasn’t doing very many people any good from this location.

Max was pretty sure that the rumors had been right, though, and it was one of the biggest private collections of spells that existed. (Although he supposed there could be other witches who weren’t even letting rumors out.) This was a fabulous start, though, if Mr. Jones really was willing to let Max do more with it.

Actually, they hadn’t clarified any of that, had they? Max was imagining sharing these spells with the world. With this many books that he didn’t need to purchase, and with some luck if he could convince Mr. Jones that they needed to invest in infrastructure to make it possible—Rory could do the talking—Max might be able to realize his dream of a library of shared spells. Mr. Jones might not be imagining anything of the sort, though. He might simply be imagining getting Max’s help for his own needs.

Much as Max wanted to share the collection, he did accept that these books belonged to Mr. Jones. He wasn’t quite so much of an anarchist that he intended to share them without permission. He just… really wanted to get permission.

He looked around… and that was when he realized that he and Rory were alone in the hidden room. Max’s situational awareness really was crap when he got lost in spells and books. Mr. Jones and Peter were gone, and Rory was curled up in one of the comfy chairs reading one of the books.

“Where did everyone go?” Max asked.

Rory looked up at him and smiled, closing his book, though he kept a finger in his spot.

“Peter took Mr. Jones off when it became clear you would be absorbed for a while. Honestly, I think that’s why Mr. Jones asked for this early meeting, so that you’d still have plenty of time today to examine all the books. There’s a snack set out for us in the library, and we’re to have an early dinner with Mr. Jones and Peter.”

At the mention of food, Max’s stomach rumbled hungrily. He looked at his watch. It was almost three.

“What time is dinner?”

“Five thirty,” Rory said.

It wasn’t even that long until dinner, but now that Max had heard his stomach, it seemed to have decided to stage a revolt. There was no way he was going to be able to wait more than an hour and a half for food.

The rumble was so loud that Rory laughed and rose to his feet, setting the book carefully aside.