Page 10
Another mug sat in front of Fia. She ran her finger along the rim. “How’d you know I’d come?”
“I never once doubted Grace could convince you.” And then, more seriously, he said, “It’s been a while.” He lifted his arm, and Grace and Fia followed suit, clinking their glasses together. “If I may?” His voice lowered. “To Sable.”
Fia’s heart skipped a beat—the thrumming gladness of hearing her mother’s name woven so closely with her sadness.
As hard as it was to think of her, the acknowledgment was a reminder that her friends hadn’t forgotten how hard it had been for Fia since her mother had died. She gulped down the cider, knowing she was safe with Grace and Montrose, as if they were a ward between her and everything else. The knot of grief that hadn’t lessened. The enormous pressure of running her beloved spellshop alone. The weight of her failure to find her mother’s spellbook. And this new twist of anxiety at the thought of all the rumors about her swirling around the room.
Grace patted her hand. “We brought you something.”
From the pocket of his coat, Montrose retrieved a small book and slid it across the table.
Fia lovingly stroked the cover, which was so worn she couldn’t read the title, not even when she tipped it toward the light and squinted. Carefully, she opened the book, examining the yellowed pages where they parted.
“I found it at the bottom of an old trunk stuffed full of the most beautiful folds of Fantillian lace,” Grace said. “It will make a gorgeous dress.”
“The book?” Fia asked distractedly, envisioning a bodice stitched of leather spines and a skirt made of delicately calligraphed paper. A dress that would rustle like turning pages with every step.
“The lace!” Grace laughed, and took another swallow of the cider.
Fia lifted her head, offering a sheepish grin. “Right, well, that makes more sense.”
“Much,” Grace agreed, then leaned to the side, all the better to peer at the gift in Fia’s hands.
“What do you think?” Montrose asked. “Is it anything special?”
He and Grace knew Fia had been searching for a finding spell, so whenever they came across an old spellbook they weren’t familiar with, they brought it to her for inspection.
Maybe this awful day could turn around yet.
Fia thumbed forward, and as the pages fanned, she sniffed, a familiar dusty scent tickling her nose. Of old paper. Of the Lus’ antique shop, Miscellany. And of Grace herself, who always seemed to catch cobwebs in her hair for how much time she spent hunting antiques in other people’s attics. That was probably where she’d made this latest discovery.
“Let’s see,” Fia said, turning back to find the cover page. Her finger struck the slanted script. “Cottingham & Wain: A Collaboration of Spells. Oh…”
Grace, noticing the defeated slump of Fia’s shoulders, frowned. “You’ve read it already, haven’t you?”
Fia didn’t want to disappoint her friends and admit she had, not when Grace and Montrose had been so eager to show it to her, but she handed the book back and confessed, “Yes, the library has a copy in special collections.” She’d raked through every last manuscript in that wood-paneled room—a place that held rare spellbooks but not dangerous and forbidden grimoires like the archives.
“Sorry to get your hopes up for nothing,” Montrose said with a regretful sigh.
“Thanks anyway.” Fia gave them a small smile, and Grace returned it, changing the subject in an effort to lighten the mood.
“So the book is kept in special collections? Not a complete waste then.” She was probably mentally sliding the book onto the glass-doored shelf behind the counter at Miscellany, where the Lus kept their rarest volumes.
“What book is ever a waste?” Fia asked, her smile growing wider.
“I can’t think of a single one,” Grace acknowledged.
Montrose looked up at the ceiling, likely rolling through a catalogue of books in his mind. “Not that I’d consider it a complete waste, but after reading Walton’s Compendium of Mushrooms, I still can’t tell a fawnbright from a winterhail.”
Grace nearly spat out her mouthful of cider. “You would if you ate one!”
“Well, yes, the fawnbright is supposedly quite deadly.”
“It’s the winterhail that’s poisonous.”
“Are you sure?”
“Are you?”
