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He cleared his throat and hurried me past the creep in cell number three. I was in number eight, and after Prescott locked me in, I was left alone in a very clean cell with a desk, a bed, and other facilities, including a radiator that turned on when I fiddled with it. No sense getting stiff fingers while I was trying to do spells.
I ignored the tears that kept dripping on the bandages as I prepared a solution from my own collection of elemental mixtures for my prep work.
“Miss Morell,” the Scholar said, entering my cell without the sound of a footstep or the turning of the lock.
I sniffed and tried not to feel self-conscious about how terrible I must look. “Mr. Stead. I understand that you’re the one to ask about all the Books of Fates. Peculiar that you didn’t mention that at any point prior to now.” I dripped three drops of silver into my beaker and it sizzled while a cloud of smoke rose.
“Why are you in my dungeon?”
“I have a book that leaks magic, my father’s book, one of the only things I have from him, and I need somewhere to keep it. Felix told me that your vault is quite secure.”
He stepped behind me, brushing my back with his chest as he watched what I was working on over my shoulder. “As is my dungeon. Perhaps I’ll keep you here. Did you honestly agree to wait in the dungeon of a notorious monster, Miss Morell? Perhaps you want me to lock you up and drain you of your blood.” Something grazed my neck, or maybe it was my imagination.
I ignored it. “If you left this book in your dungeon, you wouldn’t have a dungeon but a deadly forest glade, unless it was a deadly golden meadow or a deadly seaside retreat. It would be a pity to spoil a perfectly nice dungeon. It’s quite comfortable, and it would beat homelessness, not that I’ll lose the apartment as long as I keep plucking strings.” I swallowed hard as my voice cracked on that last word.
“Homeless?” He leaned to the side, peering at my face, which I tried to ignore, like I ignored the tears plonking on the desk. “What happened, Miss Morell?”
The sound of my name on his lips probably affected me, but I couldn’t feel it under all the other raw emotions. “They stripped me of my position as librarian because I neglected to inform them that you were turning Horace. They accused me of both blackmailing and taking bribes from you. How would I blackmail you?”
“You would find one of my many secrets and threaten to expose it to the world.”
I sighed heavily as I combined the last ingredient, stirred briskly with a glass mixer, and then unwrapped the book. “May I keep my book in your vault, Mr. Stead, on the assumption that in the future I will have something to blackmail you with?”
“You may keep your book in my vault whether you blackmail me, bribe me, or ask politely. What is it? It doesn’t happen to be a Book of Fates, is it?”
I finished unwrapping it and then turned it so that he could see it.
“That’s divine writing. I can’t read it,” he said.
“Oh?” I glanced at him. Usually I got the opposite, that it was infernal writing and couldn’t be read. Welcome to the other side. “It’s a morality treatise. Here, I’ll show you.” I opened the book to the first page, where the English version began.
He hmmed a few times and then I turned to the Cyrillic section.
I showed him all the other languages and then closed the book. “It’s a key, my key to the world that came before. I love this book, even if it does have issues with leaking magic.”
“That’s not normal for a treatise on morality.”
“I know. I’m afraid that I experimented on it when I was younger, before I knew what I was doing, so it’s delicate at this point.”
“I see. You experimented with preservation and containment spells on your own property. How responsible of you. And you developed your own formulas through trial and error?”
“And adaptation. Some things didn’t turn out very well.” I gasped as a deep pain went through my chest and I had to lean over and grip the table while the sundering gripped me.
“Miss Morell?”
“It’s nothing, just the rending from the library. It’s fine. It’s happened before. I’ll just feel awful for a few days until I can find a new project to work on, not that I’ll have a new project, because I have no job, except tuning lamps and walking a fire hazard.” I turned to look up at him while my eyes burned from too much crying. “Were you serious about letting me work with your translators?”
He nodded, brows low over his eyes in a frown. “Of course, paid work, because I don’t take advantage of my employees.”
I sniffed and shook my head. “Not your employee, but an intern beneath whichever translator has time to?—”
He pulled me against his chest and wrapped his arms around me. His words were a breath against my ear as he murmured, “You are in my dungeon. Therefore, you will accept a fair wage from me and will not be beneath anyone here, including me. I am deeply sorry for putting you in this situation. I should have realized the price that you would pay for my decision to turn Horace, but I was caught up in the moment. I had to act immediately, or I wouldn’t have been able to raise him, and at the time, I thought that it was worth the risk, but I didn’t think about the risk to you, your reputation, your livelihood, your sushi. I am in your debt, Miss Morell. Please let me know what I can do to repay you.”
I sniffed as my dampness spread to his neat white shirt beneath his jacket. “If you will allow me to leave my book in your vault and learn from your translators, that will be enough.”
“Hm. I disagree. Think longer on it, while I try to spell away some of your raw attachment.”
“You’re spelling me?” I asked as I turned my head so I was more comfortable with my cheek pressed against the slope of his pectoral.
