Grimoires and Where to Find Them, Raconteur, Honor [i have read the book txt] 📗

one to guard them outside, and we didn’t have enough vehicles for this haul. But leaving them up here wasn’t an option, either. The downstairs parlor at least assured that the books wouldn’t go straight through the floor and crashing through other apartments.

I felt sorry for the two kingsmen, however, as that would be quite the workout.

They didn’t argue. We set to the task, and even though I had a protective hex written on my own skin, I still went for the nearest grimoire gingerly, half-expecting it to explode in my hands. It looked so much like a badly brewed potion ready to boil over, I couldn’t help my caution.

It was a relief to get it into a containment bag, the top tightly shut, and hand it over to Baker, who was nearest to me.

And then I got to repeat the process with the next grimoire.

Seaton owed me dinner for this. With dessert.

Ten books in, I stopped wincing quite so badly, and my movements sped up. Some part of my hind brain recognized that the quicker I got through this, the safer it would be. I didn’t have enough bags on me to empty a bookcase, but I got halfway through it, Baker running up and down the stairs for both Colette and me. With no more bags, I paused for a breather.

It was stuffy in this room, a feeling that grew with each minute. A humid, cloying sort of dampness that clung to the skin and inside of my lungs. It felt like being in a swamp even though I was standing in the middle of a city. A fine sweat covered my temples and trickled down the small of my back, a highly unpleasant sensation. I was due a long bath after this.

What worried me was I could feel my magic steadily draining. Sealing the grimoires itself took very little magical power, but when you multiply that drain by ten, twenty, a hundred books—it unfortunately added up quickly. My magical core could feel it, plus the drain of maintaining the hex drawn onto my skin. I was so battered on all sides by this magic soup, as Seaton put it, that the protection hex had to draw heavily on my core to keep me protected.

I was trying to pace myself, as I was not the strongest magician in the room, and everyone else might outpace me at this rate. But I couldn’t falter, either. They were relying on me, as I was relying on them, to get this done. Hopefully, we’d finish before I was forced to stop.

I turned to see how everyone else was faring. Gibson and Marshall had come far better prepared than I, and they’d emptied out a bookcase between them. However, they, too, seemed to be low on bags.

“Why don’t I go down and fetch more bags?” I offered. I could use a breather, and it wouldn’t hurt to check if Jere had arrived.

Seaton waved me on, so I went, breathing only slightly easier in the stairwell. This area of the building felt more…solid? I wasn’t sure how to explain it. The sound echoed more firmly here, my shoes making the right tap-tap noise against the hardwood. In the apartment, it was more akin to walking on a firm sponge.

I felt considerable sympathy for the owner of the building, whoever that might be. The job of restoring this place into a habitable structure would be no mean feat. I’d see if I could possibly give them a short list of experts who could take on such a renovation. There weren’t many with the right skill set.

I made it down the stairs without issue and out the door. The kingsmen’s red van stood unlocked, parked along the curb, and I went for it first. As I opened the back door, however, I heard a honk from behind me. Sensing it might be for me, I half-turned and saw Jere pull in sharply behind my car. The street was barely wide enough to allow this, but with the evacuation in process, I supposed it wasn’t much of an issue.

I was relieved to see him. He’d made good time. He had, after all, come from across the city. I abandoned my search for a moment and went up onto the sidewalk to greet him.

“Henri,” Jere said with exasperation. “We really must stop meeting like this. And what the devil’s with this building?”

I winced. “Didn’t you hear what was happening?”

“Colette couldn’t tell me much, just that you needed help containing a volatile set of grimoires in a building.” He looked doubtfully at the building in question. “That looks a sight more than a few grimoires to me. Takes more magic than that to cause…this.”

“An apartment of grimoires,” I corrected him, weary and too strung out about the situation to stay mad. No doubt my anger would return when I had enough energy for it. “An apartment of unboxed, unprotected grimoires all stacked on top of each other.”

Jere stared at me, a man truly wanting to doubt what his own ears had just reported to him. “I don’t like what you just said.”

“I can’t say I blame you.”

“I want you to take it back.”

“Sorry, old chap, would if I could.”

Jere whined, “I did not consent to this problem today.”

I nodded with sympathy. “I didn’t either.”

“I am stuck in cringe, and it hurts.” He really was cringing. “An apartment?”

“One bedroom, if it makes you feel better.”

“Can’t say it does, no.” Jere ran both hands roughshod over his face. “Any sign of our Reaper grimoires?”

“Not yet.”

“I’m…not relieved, since you’re still going through the whole thing. Right. Well. I hastily packed up some of my staging boxes.”

Jere’s vehicle was one of those modified trucks with a covered bed, not quite a van, but something similar. When he opened the back of it, I understood what he meant. He had a customized built-in shelving unit with twenty-four compartments, and judging by the size of it, each compartment could comfortably house a very thick