I finally opened Le Journal De La Voisin a week after I stole the wretched thing. A week's worth of listening to it whisper my name repeatedly as I tried to go to sleep. And I could somehow still hear perfectly fine no matter how many blankets I wrapped around it or how deep I buried it in my sock drawer. Seven glorious days of waking up every morning to find a gaggle of ghosts staring down at the charming little book that had moved itself while I slept to sit on my bedside table, like I'd left it there after a thoroughly enjoyable night of reading. Seven delightful days of finding different ways to lure Iroha off somewhere so Rosamund could continue her campaign to seduce Mason. Oh, and seven days' worth of waiting for a response from Lord Woodman I was beginning to think would never come.
So, setting aside my growing desire to set the bloody thing on fire, I finally peeked inside to see if that would shut it up.
It didn't.
Instead, the moment I opened the book, the whispers reached a crescendo in my mind.
Vengeance. The dead shall dance. And dance, and—
I sucked in a deep breath of air. There was power there. Rivers of power. Raw tantalizing mana oozed itself from the book, and I could feel my channels shuddering in response. I could draw buckets and buckets of power from the book. I could fill myself up, keep drawing until I exploded, and then just keep going.
I turned the first page, and let myself draw the tiniest thread of power from the book. Almost immediately my mana capacity hit its limits, my channels filled to the point of almost bursting. I dropped the book, gasping as I took a step back, away from the time.
I quickly wove a cantrip to vent the excess mana, one of the small spells I'd picked up in spell theory a few days back. A red ball of light flickered in my hand. I let it rotate, then shifted the color to green, and let the mana trail into it until I finally stopped feeling like I'd burst.
I exhaled sharply, feeling sparks of mana dance across my tongue like lightning.
My eyes watered. That, I thought to myself, was stupid. So freaking stupid. I could have easily summoned an army of skeletons or something else equally delightful.
I looked down at the first page and found… French? I used that word loosely because whatever was written in the book was wholly indecipherable. The first page was almost black, with looping cursive script crammed on a thin sheet of parchment. Just looking at it twisting across the page made my eyes hurt.
"What in the seven hells is this?" I asked no one in particular.
"What is what?" Sylas asked.
I looked up in surprise; I hadn't realized he was in the room. Sylas had seemed to have developed the ability to blend into the background of the rooms he was in since I had let my guard down around him.
"Uh—I. Nothing," I said.
Sylas gave me a concerned look. "Are you sure? You look peckish. Do you want to see if there is anything to eat in the cafeteria?"
Ever since Sylas joined our little study group, he had become a bit more familiar with me. Well, I supposed our escapade into the library also had something to do with it. Nothing really united people in commonality like a theft followed quickly by an overly dramatic escape from danger.
But I was still unsure how I felt about him. I knew it wasn't fair to think of him as "John Thorne's son," but I couldn't help it. There was something about his face, the curve of his brow and hook of his nose that immediately brought to mind the news articles I had seen over the years of Hunter extraordinaire, John Thorne, and his latest captured Irregular.
I'd made sure Sylas had never seen me shirtless, even though my Witch's Mark layers of make-up and wax that I reapplied every time I took a shower concealed it. But I still did not want to take any chances.
For his part, Sylas seemed to have relaxed with me so much that he rarely had his shirt on. Even now he sat at his desk bare chested and looked at me quizzically, well-muscled bronze skin covered in a network of small white scars that stood out sharply when he moved.
I found it all incredibly irritating. "No," I said. "I'm fine."
"Are you sure? You look like something might be bothering you."
"What could possibly be bothering me?"
"Is it your summoning homework again? I'd be happy to look at it for you if you want someone to double check your work."
"No," I said, trying not to look at a mole on his chest that I thought vaguely resembled a star. "Just having a bit of trouble with a book I'm reading. Can't tell what language it's in."
"Really? Let me see."
Before I could protest, Sylas had gotten up from his chair and walked over to me, leaning down over the book on my desk. His bare skin brushed up against me, and I froze.
Sylas hummed as he observed the cramped script written in Le Journal De La Voisin.
"I think it might be French?" Sylas offered. "Hard to tell with this handwriting, though. Bit archaic as well, I'd say sixteenth or seventeenth century."
I stared at him.
"Let's see…" Sylas murmured. "I'm a bit rusty with the older script, but I think it says something like 'This book is the property of the grand witch, high sorceress…something…something…. Catherine Monvoisin.' Loosely translated, of course, some of these words are downright illegible and I'd need a dictionary to do a more thorough translation." He looked at me with expectant chocolate -colored eyes. "Does that sound right though?"
"Uh…" I said intelligently. "How… what?"
"My grandfather was a bit of a nut for dead languages," Sylas said. "He wanted to make sure I had a basic grounding in a few of them, French, Spanish, and Italian. Even had tutors go over some of the older stuff with me. Languages evolve, you know, even English. Did you know that even the most subtle nuances in language can have dramatic effects on the Narrative of a spell?"
I stared at him.
He looked away from me, and I couldn't help but wonder if he was blushing. "Sorry, that must all sound like a lot of nonsense," Sylas said. He hadn't drawn away from me, though. His body's warmth so close to mine was rather pleasant. Almost a bit exhilarating, but I wished he'd look at me again.
I quashed those thoughts immediately and did my best to steer my body away from Sylas as much as I could without falling off my chair.
That failed spectacularly, and I fell almost immediately with a small crash.
"Oh shoot, are you alright?"
"Fine, I'm fine," I told Sylas. Still, I accepted his offered hand and let him help me to my feet.
It occurred to me then that Sylas might be able to help me translate the wretched book. Assuming his skills in French were as good as he claimed, and they were certainly better than my grasp of the language if class with Professor Dumont has been any indication. Dead languages were never a priority for Lord Woodman during the slapdash education I received from him and the smattering of tutors he hired. Clearly, it should have been. Mostly we covered things like how to pick locks and which knife was used with fish. Neither of which had yet proven terribly helpful at magic school.
I guess I could keep that in mind if I ever abducted a boy away from a farm and attempted to train him into some sort of quasi-spy/fake noble scion. Dead languages, basic spell theory. There really was a wealth of things I wished Lord Woodman had bothered to tell me about. The blaggard.
"Say Sylas," I said after returning to my chair and drumming my fingers on the leather cover of Le Journal De La Voisin. "I don't suppose you'd be interested in helping me translate this book, would you?"
Sylas had returned to his own chair, thankfully. I wasn't sure if I could handle him being that close to me and that shirtless, and looked excited at first, which then shifted into concern.
"That's the book you stole from the library, right?" he said carefully.
I nodded, not seeing much reason for lying.
"I suppose," Sylas said carefully, "I could help you with what's inside it, but only if you'd let me show it off to the Lion Hallers first."
That should not have surprised me. It still did, of course, because I was a bloody idiot.
There had been a part of me that had hoped that Sylas had given up on joining Lion Hall. A girl had attempted a break into the library a night after we had succeeded with our own theft, and the stone owl guardians had torn her into ribbons. No one had really commented much about the entire incident. More of that delightful "survival of the fittest" maxim that mages seemed to enjoy spouting, I supposed. If Lion Hall made their prospective members perform dangerous tasks like that, then I wasn't sure if I liked the idea of Sylas being involved with them.
I felt a stab of anger at myself. Why am I worried about Sylas Thorne? He could take care of himself. He probably could have escaped the library even without my help. Sylas was one of the best students in all the classes we shared. He could tackle whatever nonsense Lion Hall expected of him.
Still, though, a seed of doubt wiggled its way around my skull.
I couldn't afford to be doubtful. I needed to get my powers under control, and Le Journal De La Voisin offered me the best chance at a solution to that problem.
"Of course," I told Sylas, hating myself as the words came out. "I'll lend you the book anytime."
Sylas smiled, really smiled for the first time since I had known him, and my heart beat a little faster in my chest.
I hated myself all the more for it.