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The spell, so consumed with hunger, was nothing like the ones she’d written. She could feel the danger in the absolute want, in the way the words made demands of the magic, whereas her spellwriting tended to make… politer requests.

Maybe that was her mistake—writing spells that were too soft when searching for her mother’s book.

And as she read the spell again, Fia wondered if it would really be so terrible to cast it, and she tried to convince herself that she wasn’t selfish, that maybe… maybe something in her mother’s spellbook could break Penbrook’s curse. That she would be careful. That she would sacrifice no one but herself.

Because she thought she understood what the grimoire might want in offering, and though the cost was much too personal and precious, she would give it.

A well of sadness sloshed inside her, just waiting for her to touch its waters—the complicated grief of missing her mother, the continual absence of her father, the thrumming fear of losing Andromeda and Penbrook.

This last worry might have haunted her most of all, because these two people were here and present, coloring her world in ways that had gone rather dull. And they had so much more life to live.

Silently reciting the spell, and nervous beyond measure, Fia let the book’s magic rush through her, thick and tarry. Black dust ashed eerily at her fingertips as she bowed her head over the book and let her sacrificed tears fall onto the page.

CHAPTER 25

The grimoire drank thirstily, absorbing her tears.

It didn’t feel natural, casting this dark spell she hadn’t written herself. As her cries leaked out, magic moved through her veins in staticky bursts, and instead of the golden dust she was used to, ash speckled the air. Fia hadn’t ever felt this much want, but it was all her own. She could not blame the book for bleeding this desire.

Perhaps this was why her magic was so often unpredictable—she had taken her mother’s advice to heart so completely. Watch that you don’t reach for too much.

In regard to magic, but everything else too. Like how she ran the spellshop and interacted with people and thought about love. Always so carefully guarded, she’d never let herself truly want.

And now she pushed her magic harder, insistent that it obey. Sweat beaded on her brow. For all she was taking, she was giving. So much of herself fell in the rush of tears, and she couldn’t see past them, the blur of the room and what might happen in the next moment and the next…

Whatever the outcome, Fia had no regrets. She let her emotions spill out, and unknowingly, she needed the release. It was not exactly saying goodbye to her mother or accepting that her father would never be a real part of her life, but small steps toward letting them go. Maybe… she needed to find her mother’s spellbook if only to let it go too.

So she could let other things in.

Wrung dry, the casting complete, Fia let out a ragged breath. She lifted her hand from the page, unaware she’d ever set her palm to it, placing skin to skin. A belated shiver coursed through her body.

“My… my thanks,” she whispered to the grimoire, just in case it demanded that sort of thing.

It released a contented moan and closed itself almost sleepily.

And she was spent too. As the sparks of ash dispersed, she sat in the quiet a moment, looking at her fingers, waiting, waiting, unable to tell if the spell had worked—but feeling, in some inexplicable way, that it had. Or rather, that it would.

Tomorrow finds what today hides.

Tomorrow. That was what the spell seemed to promise.

Fia sniffed, wiping her still-wet eyes with the back of her hand. She longed for sleep, like Penbrook, like the songbird high up on the frame. Like the grimoire.

She hoped it would let her tuck it away now.

Careful not to wake him, she reached into Penbrook’s coat pocket, relieved when she found the warded bag still there. As well as one of the downy feathers she’d shed from that haywire flying spell. With a small smile, she placed it back in his pocket, wondering that he’d thought to keep it.

Even more carefully, she slipped The Book of Ribs into the bag, then cinched it closed, knotted the cord twice, and looped the twine around her wrist. With the grimoire secured, she crawled into the marigold armchair, a perch from which she could keep an eye on Penbrook.

He had no one else.

“I’m here,” she murmured, tipping her head to the arm of the chair and blinking in the firelight glow.

It didn’t seem like a good idea to leave him alone, not when the curse threatened to pull him under at any time. For all the other things she was prepared to let go of, he was not one of them.

“I promise, I promise,” she vowed. Somehow, she would do the impossible. She would break an unbreakable curse.

Determined to stay awake the whole of the night, she watched him sleep for as long as she could, but eventually her eyes grew heavy, and she slept too.