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

the covers were leather and in a right mess. I had a devil of a time restoring them. And the protections I had to put up until I could get the boxes made—argh, it gives me a headache just remembering it all. With everything going on, it took a year for me to complete boxes for the full set.”

I didn’t like the sound of this.

“The grimoires are that magically potent individually?”

Jere waffled a hand back and forth, making a face.

“Depends on the volume. Some of them, no, not so much. Leor’s, for instance. His barely gives off a magical aura, as only a few of the spells were written with magical ink. Most of it was quite normal, more a notebook than a grimoire. Thank anything you care to name. I had the hardest time beating it into his head that he should put the book back in the box after he was done reading it.”

Knowing Leor, I believed that wholeheartedly.

“And the one you have?”

“Also not as magically potent. Mine deals more with crafting things, including the best way to bind a new grimoire. Which is ironic, since the author failed to take his own advice for most of the set. But I kept that book for a reason. I can make you a full list, if you’d like. Rank them on a scale of most dangerous to least.”

“That would be supremely helpful.” He might be the only one able to give us that information.

Jere pursed his lips in thought. “You say the fourth one was also stolen?”

“Yes,” Jamie confirmed, looking up briefly from her notebook.

“That’s really not good. It wasn’t the most potent of the lot, but it definitely had some power to it.”

I almost didn’t tell him. In the end, I felt it only fair to warn him. “That volume was stolen without the box.”

Jere stared at me, a man waiting for the punch line of a joke in poor taste. “Come again?”

“The grimoire was taken out of the box at the faire,” Jamie reiterated, also sounding pained.

Jere dramatically flopped onto the table. “Nooooo. That absolute moron!”

“We have the box in Evidence Lockup.” Jamie glanced at me, and I shrugged in response. “I think it might need a looking over? We can try to put it back in if we can figure out where the book has gotten off to.”

“Trust me on this.” Jere lifted his head to give us a stern look. “Keep the box with you. You’ll want to immediately put the grimoire back in it. That one, especially, loved to give me trouble. It was constantly bleeding over into surrounding books and making weird things happen.”

I winced. “Noted.”

“Jere…” Jamie tapped her finger to the table’s surface to draw his attention to her. “Can you tell me where your volume is?”

“Oh, I keep mine in the house.” Jere indicated the modest house behind the barn, which had once been the farmhouse. “I can’t leave it in the workshop, too many potential disasters.”

I felt the precaution was wise.

Jamie asked hopefully, “Do you mind if we look at yours? We’ve yet to see a volume from this set. I don’t even know what it looks like.”

Jere seemed to think this was reasonable, as he popped up. “Sure, come in. All of the grimoires are a bit different from each other, but they’re also similar. Radman liked to use dark leather for the covers, and cream paper, so it’s easy to tell if a book is part of the set at a glance.”

Good to know. I had a physical description of the fourth grimoire, and Leor’s, but I hadn’t been sure if they all looked precisely the same.

We followed him down a path lined with stepping-stones. Jere had manicured the area with flowers and trees, making it very appealing to the eye. The house itself was a two-story with a front porch just wide enough for a small table and brace of chairs. We stepped up onto it, entering the white-washed house. It smelled of baking bread, which didn’t surprise me, as Jere had a bread addiction.

We didn’t go far, just through the foyer and to the right, into what was likely his formal sitting parlor.

“I keep it in here,” Jere informed us, moving past the silk-covered couch and chairs, towards the back wall. A china cabinet hugged one corner, the top displaying breakable figurines, while the bottom was a closed and apparently locked cabinet.

“Wait.” Clint darted ahead, then lifted onto his back paws, resting one lightly against the cabinet so he could put himself at eye-level with the small lock.

I knew this behavior all too well and mentally braced myself.

Jamie leaned over him to get her own look. “What is it, bud?”

“Broken lock,” Clint pronounced firmly. His whiskers quivered, nose twitching. “Nothing magical here.”

Jere swore and lunged for the cabinet, only to be checked firmly by Jamie with a hand against his chest.

“Wait, Jere. This might have just become a crime scene. I really need you to not touch anything until I can figure this out. Henri, do you have gloves on you?”

“I do.” I fished mine out of an outside pocket and handed them over. Then, I caught Jere’s arm and eased him back.

Jere watched with open dismay as my partner donned the gloves and opened the door, drawing it down to rest on its hinges.

Nothing was inside.

“It should be there,” he whispered, expression horrified. “I never take it out of this room. I always put it back after I read it. Is the lock really broken?”

“Smashed pretty good,” Jamie informed him, eyeing the lock critically from the back side. “My guess is someone took a screwdriver to this. Jere, when was the last time you saw the book?”

“I—I don’t—I don’t know?” Jere shook his head, the shock of the theft rattling him. “It’s been a few weeks, I think. Henri, what am I supposed to do?”

I clapped him on the shoulder, trying to brace him. “We’ll find it.”

I hoped.

With Jere’s theft occurring who-knows-when, I