Grimoires and Where to Find Them by Raconteur, Honor (best affordable ebook reader .TXT) 📗

spot on the bookshelf, which I noticed was predominantly blank. A very telling thing, in this room crammed with books.

“Lady Radman gave us a chance to read some of them before selecting who to sell them to. It was very kind of her to do so. Practical, too. She wanted each grimoire to go into the right hands. Hang on, you said a volume was stolen from a book faire? What in dark magic was one doing at a faire, of all places?”

“The broker had acquired it through an estate sale.”

“Which volume?”

“Four.”

“Oh,” he said in a deflated voice. “That would have been Secilia Bardoff. I hadn’t heard she passed. Shame, that. Quite a brilliant woman.”

I made a note of the original owner. “But truly, Leor, you can’t think of when it might have been stolen? I have no timeline to work from.”

“I know, I’m quite vexed as well. But I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. I don’t really use the back kitchen door much, you see. I’m quite depressed over the grimoire’s theft, to tell the truth. There was so much more for me to learn from its contents.”

“I’ll try to find it, along with the other stolen volume,” I promised.

“Thank you, Henri. I did report it, but the police officer I spoke to didn’t seem to grasp the importance of it.”

“I’ve heard this complaint before. I’ll straighten the record out, I assure you. For now, tell me more about the set. I don’t know much about it.”

“Ah, well there are fourteen volumes in total.” Leor hesitated, then corrected himself. “Fourteen official volumes. There is one more people like to include in the set, but it was a diary, not a grimoire.”

I waved him on, taking notes quickly on the arm of the chair, as Phil had no intention of moving from his spot.

“The entirety of it was written by a brilliant magician in the late Revolutionary period, Lord Kerey Radman. He’d actually enclosed the volumes in one of the walls in his home to keep them from being used during the war. Of course, he died on the warfront, and it wasn’t until decades later—when his home was bought and renovated—that they found the volumes.

“To be precise, the volumes’ protections were long since faded, and it was warping the building in some astonishing ways. They had to excavate them in order to be able to renovate and put the building back to rights. The new owner very kindly handed the grimoires over to Radman’s descendants, who eventually decided to sell them—but not as a set. Frankly, we were all very aware of how much they were worth, and the community as a whole couldn’t have afforded to buy the full set. Pieces of it went in every direction.

“My own volume wasn’t something purchased, but received as a gift. I’m a friend of Marvella Radman’s, and she gave it to me as a graduation present. It’s what twists the knife in the wound. I do not look forward to telling her it was stolen.”

This was excellent information, and it gave me something of a lead.

“Marvella Radman, you said. Did she or her family keep any part of the set?”

“Yes, the diary. That, they wouldn’t part with. I can give you her address, if you’d like to speak with her?”

“I would dearly love to. She might know of someone who’s trying to lay hands on the set. Or a volume stolen, as the case may be.”

“Now that you mention it, there was a broker who contacted me a while back, trying to buy my volume. Sasson Walcott, I believe his name was. Said he was trying to collect them all.” Leor snorted. “I have no idea who’d have sufficient wealth to manage the entire set. It would cost a king’s ransom. Even the royal library was only able to afford one.”

My interest was piqued. “The royal library has one?”

“That’s what Marvella told me. Or, at least, they bought one. Who knows if they still have it.”

I made a note to check on it, and wrote down the name of the book broker, too.

“Henri.” Leor put his hands together in a praying fashion, mouth pursed in discomfort. “It truly disturbs me to hear another volume has been stolen. While brilliant, the spells in those grimoires could do irrevocable damage. I shudder to think of them in the wrong hands. Marvella’s family was very careful who they sold each volume to. She only gave the seventh volume to me because she knew I would both put it to good use and use the knowledge inside wisely. I was not the only one gifted a volume in order to keep it in the right hands.”

“I understand,” I assured him, and I truly did. Knowledge misused was often the downfall of people. Not to mention civilizations. “I’m not keen on this myself. What kind of spells were in yours?”

“There weren’t many, really. As I said, it specialized in magical theory. Which, if you understood it, I suppose could be used in the wrong ways. But most of the set had spells best used for interrogations, compulsions, even seeking spells that bordered on unethical.

“I read through parts of the other volumes, you see. And, frankly, they were disturbing. I could see how easily they could be misused. I have nightmares about mine falling into the wrong hands, much less anyone else’s.”

After hearing that list, I knew I’d have nightmares, too. I’d seen what happened when a magician was careless in his craft—he’d started an epidemic in the city. But someone with cutting-edge spells crafted by a genius some claimed was mad? I had to assume the epidemic would look mild in comparison.

“I assure you, we’ll do everything we can to find them quickly. Especially since the volume at the faire was stolen without its protective box.”

Leor’s head jerked up, and he stared at me with jaw dropped. “No! Great dark magic, that’s even worse!”

“No one was happy to have that reported.”

“No, you don’t understand,