Page 22 of Florescentia

They said some texts were protected, sacred. A charm could hide entire paragraphs to keep secrets safe from those not meant to see them. They presented themselves accordingly, different people being able to read different sections.

I pinched the edge of the book, flipping through the rest.

Blank. Blank. Blank.

Perhaps the talk of charmed invisible text was a gimmick.

Then, something caught my eye.

A page completely filled black.

“Odd.” I slapped the book shut.

A squirm under my hand.

When I removed my palm from the front cover, a vertical line appeared down the cover.

The mark was raised, agitated. There were no pens on the table, so it wasn’t from anything on my workbench. I didn’t even use ink.

It seemed to move.

“I swear, if this is book larvae—”

The line parted open into a marquis shape, a white, glassy material underneath.

Was it rude to stare if the inanimate object was somehow sentient? No, don’t be silly.

It didn’t do anything. I thought maybe . . . a gem of some sort?

Then, it blinked.

I screamed, slapping it off the table and stumbling back, landing on the ruined carpet. The splinters stuck straight into my palm.

When I saw the book again, it was back to its plain self.

No glow, no eye, no movement.

The ink burned into the back of my eyes. When I closed them, I could see it practically glow within the dark.

I splashed my face with cold water, blinking away the droplets. The slashes on my temple tingled, dirt carried away by the water before it joined the small washbasin.

With a tender touch, I rubbed the scabbing away to clean the area before it got any worse. After, I slipped into a clean nightgown, the silk soothing as it swept over my skin. I pushed my hair back into a twist, even if some coils escaped the hold no matter how tight I pulled it.

I stuck two fingers in my mouth, and a loud whistle shrieked through the house. Some scattering noises on the floor above, then far off, down the stairs, and my Peculiars returned to me eagerly.

“Hungry, aren’t you?” I sighed. It was easy to tell when they sensed my exhaustion, hungering for the therapeutic outpour, yet they kept away.

Absinthe jittered around my leg, while Tonic tucked itself under my skirt. I joked that they were not dissimilar to cats; the things even purred. Like the thrumming of voltage.

After the day I’d had, it was time to decompress.

In the hallway, the telephone looked lonely on its table, the calling card box open and ready.

I wanted to call Dorian. To cry, to have him tell me my luck would turn around. To listen to him mumble possible troubleshoots under his breath, despite none of them being viable since he did not know of my particular talents for harvesting. He was a man of fixing—there wasn’t a single broken thing he couldn’t make new. He entertained each of my outlandish inventions and ideas with as much enthusiasm as the last. He always found a way.

Which was why I wasn’t worried about the current road bump. Even without extra luck, he was smart.

Then why hasn’t he called with news?