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Chapter
One
Halizanth Brightminer was having a thoroughly wretched day.
It had started with a hangover from one too many mugs of mead at the auction the night before, where she’d had to haggle and fight for every last one of the late Madame Bellerose’s books. Then there was the matter of the estate auction manager, who seemed to think that just because the terms of the sale clearly stated the books needed to be collected by the end of the week, that he could name any hour he pleased for her to come and retrieve them. (Six in the blasted morning. She’d given him a withering look and informed him that it would be closer to nine before she arrived, nursing her headache and the dregs of her coffee.)
As a result, she’d arrived at Folio & Fancy all of ten minutes before opening time, committing the unforgivable sin of having to rush through her opening procedures and the even more grievous offense of having to endure the smug satisfaction of her teenaged assistant Sooty, who’d actually beaten her to work for once. It all gave her barely enough time to throw open the shutters, flip the “Closed” sign to “Open,” swipe a flat palm over the register to dislodge the ever-present raft of dust that her shop seemed to generate at a prodigious rate, and begin the interminable task of sorting through the new acquisitions.
Except that the grimoire she’d been so desperate to get her hands on, the one that had served as the crown jewel of Madame Bellerose’s collection, was proving to be an unmitigated disaster. The cover was scuffed, the pages were water-stained, and worst of all, someone had used a pencil to mark up every single blasted page. Not actual notes, mind you—Hali would have been hard-pressed to reject a book merely because it came with a previous owner’s annotations. No, these were just circles around every fifth letter, as if the previous owner had been struck with a sudden and uncontrollable urge to vandalize the book according to some Blight-blasted divine pattern known only to them.
She’d been so engrossed in her examination of the tome that she didn’t notice Sooty come up beside her until he let out a long-suffering sigh.
“Problem, Miss Brightminer?”
It was Sooty Spriggins, the teenaged gnome carrying a box of printed books as large as he was—the latest Carmilla Belvediere blouse-ripper. Hali had hoped to spend her morning reading it herself in between tending to customers, but she supposed now that was forfeit, seeing as how she needed to perform emergency surgery on her latest acquisition before it would be in any state to recoup her expenses. “Quite.” Hali groaned. “Fetch me that box of restoration supplies, would you? I need to work a miracle on this grimoire.” Hali held up the leather-bound book with gloved hands.
Sooty sighed, dropping the box onto a handcart so he could move it to the front display. The young gnome had black hair that flopped over one eye, and Hali didn’t quite understand how he wasn’t constantly running into things with his hair like that, but with her simple trousers and blouse and messy auburn bun atop her head, she could hardly call herself a maven of fashion.
“You do know it’s almost time to open, right?” Sooty asked. “Not that the masses seem to be beating down our door.”
Hali made a noncommittal noise as she examined the damage once more. Yes, her assessment had been right: they’d circled every fifth letter throughout the book, the pencil markings harsh and angry. “I just don’t understand it. Why every fifth letter? Was it some kind of meta-spell laid atop the grimoire itself?”
“Or maybe it’s a code,” Sooty said.
Hali blinked. “How do you mean?”
“You know. Secret message. Ciphers. Spy stuff.” He shrugged. “Not my business either way.” With an impertinent screech of under-oiled wheels, he set off with the handcart for the front window display.
Hali considered it, biting her thumbnail in thought. Her life was almost never so convenient as to drop a ready-made mystery into her lap. But then, the universe did have a fondness for irony. Perhaps it was a test of her skills. Surely Madame Bellerose, wherever she was now, would appreciate Hali’s efforts to unlock the secrets of her book.
“A code . . . yes. Perhaps. But is it a simple substitution cipher?” Hali tried counting out each of the circled letters on the page. “Z D A . . . Oh, but this is Old Ghastian, isn’t it, they usually combine ‘th’ . . .” She unearthed a scratch pad and ink pen to start jotting out possible permutations. “I just need to know what I’m dealing with here. The possibilities are endless.”
“Or I’m wrong, and they just really liked circling letters,” Sooty said.
Hali shot him a withering look. “I prefer my explanations to be a bit more, oh, what’s the word?—”
“Magical, I know. But maybe if you actually got the books out on the shelves, you’d have a better chance of solving the mystery of the Circly Book. Ooh, or maybe you could sell them, that is the point of running a bookshop, right?”
Hali gasped, clutching a hand to her heart. “How dare you suggest such sacrilege! These books are not just for anyone. They are for someone special. Someone with an appreciation for the esoteric, the arcane, the?—”
“Someone with a fat coin purse, you mean. I’ve seen our books, and I have a vested interest in making sure you can actually pay me.”
Hali reluctantly set the grimoire down and removed her gloves. “Fine, I’ll try to get some of the other books in the lot priced. But I think you’re on to something with this code business, mark my words.”
Sooty made a face at her and disappeared into the stacks. Hali turned her attention back to the grimoire, but before she could come up with a suitable plan of attack, the door to the shop creaked open, and a pair of elderly elves shuffled in.
“Hali, my dear, how are you this fine morning?” Mr. Thistledown asked, his frizzy white hair and beard haloing around his face.
“It’s always a fine morning when I see you, Mr. Thistledown,” Hali said. “Still looking for more poetry, Mrs. Thistledown? I’m afraid I haven’t come across much in the way of Elvish verse lately, but you know I’ll move the very mountains to find what you’re looking for.”
“I know you will, darling. I’m still working on my treatise on the last Viridelf collection you found me to present at the university’s symposium in a few moons, but I wouldn’t say no to a fresh addition.”
“Then I’ll continue the hunt,” Hali vowed, sealing it with a low bow.
The Thistledowns browsed the shelves as Hali chattered on, Sooty trailing behind them to collect any books that didn’t meet with their approval, which they had a bad habit of simply tossing over their shoulders.
The bell over the door jingled, and Hali hastily bustled forth to greet the new arrival. “Good morning! Is there anything in particular you’re looking for today, or are you in the market for a pleasant surprise?”
