Page 85 of Ink Blood Sister Scribe

“Yes,” he said. “I heartily second that request.”

Joanna glanced at Esther. “You don’t need us?”

“I just fill the pen and go at it, right?” Esther said to Nicholas.

“If by ‘go at it’ you mean give the process your full concentration and utmost care, yes. Remember, the writing needs to be as legible as possible. If you mess up you can’t cross anything out, you’ll have to start the whole page over.”

“Then no, I don’t need you. In fact, probably better for me if you’re all out of the room instead of breathing down my neck.”

Joanna hesitated. Hiding the collection, protecting it, had been the singular purpose of her life for so long that it seemed impossible to reassign herself so easily. Abe would be appalled she was even considering it... but then again, Abe had no room to criticize. Trusting one another over all others was a central tenet of his rules, and he’d lied to her all her life, which meant his rules were at best hypocritical and at worst, moot. Ifonly she could get her feelings to catch up with her logic. Every time she experimented with anything other than grief for her father, like anger, or bitterness, she thought of how he’d looked the last time she’d seen him, sprawled out on the cold, damp ground, drained by that mysterious book.

A book that, thanks to Nicholas, was no longer such a mystery.

“All right,” she said.

Nicholas got to his feet then swayed, gripping the back of a chair, face pale. Collins’s expression moved from neutral to threatening in one impressive twist of his features, but Joanna was starting to read him well enough to think he might be worried, not homicidal.

“Head rush,” said Nicholas. “Lead on.”

When Joanna had imagined showing off the collection, it was always to a faceless fantasy of a person who’d be impressed. She’d imagined somebody following her down the basement stairs and through the trapdoor to the secret underground room, where they’d exclaim at the mystique of the passageway and the locked door, admire the pristinely labeled cabinet of herbs, marvel at the hundreds of antique volumes lining the orderly shelves. “Good god!” the stranger would exclaim. “This is remarkable!” Or something along those lines.

What she hadn’t imagined was opening the door for someone who not only had twenty times more books than she did but an entire English mansion to put them in, plus magical blood pulsing through his veins and centuries of lineage to back him up. Flicking on the overhead lights and waiting out the roar of magic, she was almost embarrassed at how small and paltry her collection appeared.

But Nicholas seemed genuinely enthused.

“The Library buys entire private collections fairly often,” he said, peering through a glass cabinet, “so I’ve seen the books themselves, but never visited them in someone’s residence. May I?”

“Go ahead,” she said, and felt a little thrill of fear and pride as he opened one of the cabinets and slid out a book. Collins was examining the shelves of jarred dried herbs, his face impassive.

“I’m out of vervain,” she said, then felt instantly silly when he glanced at her, brow furrowed. Right. Why on earth would he care about the state of her stock?

But he said, “Running low on blackthorn, too. Is there enough for a reading?”

“Enough for three,” she said. Behind them, Nicholas was murmuring to himself about dust jackets.

“It’s amazing down here,” said Collins, and Joanna flushed, unaccountably pleased at his approval, though it shouldn’t matter to her what these strangers thought.

“Are they organized?” Nicholas called to her. “What’s your system?”

“Right now they’re grouped by how many estimated uses they have left,” Joanna said, glancing away from Collins. “I reorganize them a lot, though, just for fun.”

She was aware, too late, how extremely un-fun this made her sound, but Collins saw her face and said, “Don’t worry, Nicholas is no fun, either.”

“Well, I haven’t been given much of a chance, have I?” Nicholas said, carefully putting the book back in place. “For all we know, I might be absolutely amazing at karaoke.”

“Karaoke’s for people who suck at dancing.” Collins had been squinting at a jar of powdered calendula but he looked up again at Joanna and said, “So where do you keep your wards?”

“Since when are you so curious?” Nicholas said before Joanna could answer. “Usually you’re halfway across the room at the mere mention of books.”

Collins shrugged. “What can I say. Shit got interesting.”

“The wards are here,” she said, “up front,” and Collins came over to the desk to look, Nicholas following more slowly. The codex of wards sat in pride of place on the stand Abe had built for them, barely larger thanher spread hands but the most precious thing she owned. When Nicholas reached out she said, much louder than she meant to, “Don’t!”

He jerked away so quickly he stumbled backward into Collins, who’d been leaning over his shoulder to look.

“Sorry,” she said. “Only—please, don’t touch.”

Nicholas raised both hands. “I won’t,” he said, “I promise. Will you open them for me, maybe? I’d like to see inside.”

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