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“Your spellbook. Let me see it.”
“Why should I?”
She gave him a look, sharp and pointed. Still, she didn’t know if he’d part with his personal spellbook even for a moment. Yet, with a sigh of resignation, he plucked the book from the pocket of his coat and placed it in her waiting hand.
“Thank you,” she said, admiring the black cover, which was wonderfully soft under her fingertips. Elegant filigree swirled along the spine and at the corners of the book. She longed to open the cover, to fan through the pages and pore over his spells, but that felt too intimate, something she’d never do without asking. And besides, that wasn’t why she wanted the book.
Without another word, Fia strode to the fireplace and dangled the precious volume above the flames.
Penbrook leapt forward, and even now, all frantic and wide-eyed, he moved with grace, coattails streaming, one long arm extended.
“You’d miss your spellbook, wouldn’t you? If I fed it to the fire? Well, that’s how I feel about my mother’s.” Fia brought the book closer to the flames, felt the lick of heat rising toward her fingertips, and just as quickly as her emotions had crested, they swept out of her. She might have taken things a tad too far. “Sorry.”
“No harm done,” he said sourly, snatching the spellbook back from her. “I take your point.”
“Well, I didn’t mean to make it quite so hotheadedly.”
“Hot-handedly, one might say.” At that he grinned, then returned them to topic. “Anyway, your spells aren’t at fault. They’re…” He paused, searching for the right words, then settled on “wonderfully inventive.”
Fia curled her hand to her chest, felt the pluck of magic warm in her center, and the gargoyle charm under her dress. She knew she had talent—in spellwriting, if not in casting itself. All the same, it was nice hearing it from someone else, whose magic she’d quickly come to respect. “Inventive,” she repeated, trying not to sound so pleased.
“And I’d gladly use any one of your spells to search for The Book of Ribs, but perhaps we don’t want such a dangerous grimoire sprinting its way to us.” He gave her a knowing look, reminding her of last night’s debacle. “I have another idea.”
“A safer idea?”
“Less mayhem.” He grinned. “If I could have a blank sheet of paper and a pen?”
The quill she usually left on the counter seemed to have gone missing, likely knocked aside the evening before while the books were careening around the room. Or maybe batted down and stolen by Finnick. Either way, she’d find it later, and for now, Fia slipped his requested items from a drawer, pushing them toward him. All the while wondering what he was up to.
“I’m looking, not finding,” he said in answer to her unspoken question, although that didn’t clarify much.
Lifting the pen with long, elegant fingers, Penbrook dipped the nib into the inkpot and held it over the page without a single errant drop falling. And then he cast his spell, just as fluidly as he’d mended the crack in the window of the shop. Like drawing the magic through his body was as simple, as reflexive, as breathing.
She felt his spell shimmer through her too.
Looking.
It searched soft as the wind, the ends of her dark hair stirring before it flitted away from her, the invisible tendrils of magic stretching through the shop.
And then faltering.
CHAPTER 12
“Something’s not right.” Penbrook rubbed his forehead, a hint that the trouble lay somewhere at his core and not with his spell, which was something Fia might expect from herself. But not from the Madbury.
“You’re not… you can’t give up,” she said, not quite able to keep the plea from her voice.
He hesitated, teeth clenched in some indecision she couldn’t understand, then relented. “Of course not. I just can’t see far enough from here. The walls of the shop are stifling.” His gaze traveled to the window and the storm-gray sky beyond. “This spell sometimes works better outdoors.”
Perhaps in part, the problem also stemmed from the curse and his unrelenting fatigue—which Fia did not mention, remembering the magician’s stubborn rejection of his own fragility. But this looking spell of his might be altogether more complicated than most, especially if he needed to bypass any wards that had been placed around The Book of Ribs. And it was true—some spells worked better in the light of day, or under a waxing moon, or with a drop of blood. (She hoped it wouldn’t come to that.)
“Let’s go, then.” Fia was on her feet, stool rattling back, before the words had even left her mouth.
Penbrook stood, brushing his hands against the nonexistent wrinkles of his suit coat before rolling up a few spare sheets of paper and placing them into his pocket. “An open space would be best. And somewhere private.”
Centered around the district square, Wakesend didn’t have many open spaces, what with all its sundry shops and pubs and rowhouses and, farther west, the ever-busy wharf along the Fateful Sea, but Fia knew a place. And for all the times she’d visited, she’d hardly ever seen another living soul.
She took up the pen he’d dropped, and dashed off a hasty note for any customers who might stop by.
