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“Of course. Why else would I suddenly pull you into an embrace?”
I should have pushed him away, but I felt much better against him with his spells, or just him, strong but gentle, helping me when I was most abandoned. I closed my eyes and listened for the heartbeat that came so slowly. It was oddly peaceful like that, and gradually, bit by bit, the raw edges of the torn arteries were sewn back into place, slowly, one at a time, until I could breathe again.
I didn’t pull away until with a hiss, he pulled us back, away from my book, and I pushed his arms down to look at the mess. I stared, because the mess was white marble veined in gold instead of what used to be the desk. The floor was shifting, pale, with streaks of molten gold. I sighed and went over to dump the contents of my mixture on the book, leaving a steaming mess behind. I picked up my book and turned to him with an unsteady smile.
“I hope that your vault is as good as they say it is.”
He returned my smile with a strange one of his own. “I’m sure it can be improved, Miss Morell. Perhaps you would like to experiment to find more optimal ways of managing dangerous residents.” He picked up my box with one arm and held out the other one for me.
I hesitated, then took it, feeling almost like there was hope somewhere past the current misery. I wasn’t completely better, not when I still didn’t have a real job, but there had to be some place in this world for me. I only had to find it.
Chapter
Thirteen
The vault was typical of its kind of room, shelves widely spaced with plenty of hooks and chains for the serious troublemakers.
“Pepshaw, this is Miss Morell, the Librarian. She will be keeping her book here for the foreseeable future. She’ll do her own containment spells, and if you’re lucky, she’ll help you with yours.”
Pepshaw was a goblin. His skin was a chalky yellow, his snarl as magnificent as his long white hair, which he kept in thick dreadlocks almost to his waist. He wore a lab coat and glasses, but his ears were goblin ears, as was the calculating shrewdness in his eyes.
“Felix told me about you,” he said with a short nod. “Tell me what you need and be done with it.” That was incredibly polite for a goblin.
“Gold chains, soaked in salt under a new moon, powdered chalk and that should be all I need that I didn’t bring.” My book was already prepared to take the chalk spells. The marble and gold worried me in case it was adapting to gold chains, so maybe I would try silver next time. I would think about it.
He led me to a spot near the back of the room. I hesitated as I passed a book hanging from black chains, demon chains like the ones that had been around Horace. The chains weren’t what caught my interest, but the book. It throbbed menacingly until I poked it through the chains and I felt its dark, corrosive will.
“This one needs fresh warding. It’s a handful, I can tell. Would you like me to help you with it?” I asked Pepshaw, turning to find him staring at me with his flickering golden eyes.
“I will let you know,” he finally said before nodding at the table where I could do my work next to several buckets filled with salt and chains.
It didn’t take me long to put my wards and runes on it with the chalk, then even less time to chain it up and hang it in an isolated corner. I brushed chalk dust off my hands, and went back to the Scholar where he was standing still holding my box, studying the pulsing book of danger that I’d pointed out earlier.
“You were going to introduce me to your translators,” I said, bumping his arm to break his reverie.
He glanced at me, then nodded. “So I was. Good evening, Pepshaw. Shall we?” He held out his arm, and I took it again, feeling less aching in my chest when I did. Once we were out of the room, he said, “Miss Morell, that book is demonic.”
“Of course.”
“You touched a demonic book. Shouldn’t you be more careful?”
“It’s not the kind that I can’t touch.”
“Ah. What kind can’t you touch?”
“Demonic books put people in danger by turning their souls to corruption. I am not in danger of corruption, so the only kinds of books I can’t touch are those that would physically harm me, such as those coated in acid, poisons, or spiked. There are some ridiculously spiked books. I saw one with snake fangs, dozens of them all over the book.” I shook my head. “Some book makers get carried away. I have to wear special equipment to deal with that kind of book, but I can still deal with them.”
“I’m not sure you understand demonic books as well as you think you do.”
I shrugged. “It’s certainly not my emphasis of study.”
“No, I don’t suppose it is. What is your emphasis of study, Miss Morell? I know that you translate most anything for pleasure and relaxation, but what is your serious topic of study?”
Death runes were what I knew how to use, the demon mark of Jazharad was what I had obsessively sought and failed to find, but what I’d actually studied… “Evil and how to defeat it.”
“How surprisingly practical for a librarian.”
I jerked to a stop while a pain went through my chest that left me breathless and dizzy. “I’m not a librarian,” I whispered.
