Prologue: Scales
Eau de Rotten Crone filled the workroom
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Prologue
It was as I stood over Lettice Jaskyn’s body that I realised just how dangerous bookbinding could be.
A tentative kick to her buttock proved that she was dead. She didn’t flinch or throw me that spite-filled glare, but malicious energy continued to rise from her body like a cheap and cloying perfume. Eau de Rotten Crone filled the tiny workroom, spreading its stench among the shelves of leatherbound books, sewn and inscribed quires of parchment, and iron-bound and locked chest of spells, charms, and hexes that my family had collected and guarded for generations.
As Lettice lay dead at my feet, I wafted at the air and considered whether burning mugwort would be the best cleanser. I doubted that smudging with a sage and lavender wand would be enough to rid the room of the toxic crone’s death fumes.
“Mugwort it is,” I muttered just as the shop’s doorbell tinkled.
Shock fizzed from my core to the tips of my fingers. In that moment, it dawned on me that I was in trouble. Overwhelmed, I listened as the latch clicked to shut and the floorboards creaked.
Lettice Jaskyn was dead, and I had killed her!
Worse, only the velvet curtain separating the workshop from the front of the store protected me from discovery.
“Shop!” a man’s voice called.
His voice told me much: it held the rich timbre of a man several years beyond youth and a lilt I did not recognise. He was foreign to these parts, and a man, which marked him out as an unusual customer for my shop. Had he been sent by the Council? They were, I had heard, inclined to hire foreign mercenaries to do their bidding. Was it possible that they knew about the death already? Lettice stared up at me with vacant eyes. Hysteria began to rise. “Get up!” I hissed as though ordering her corpse to rise would bring her back to life.
The bell on the counter tinged.
“Well, what are you going to do?”
“Hsst!” I swung to the voice.
Beside the locked chest, one hand stroking its carved lid, stood Cornelius Goldsmythe, the local goldworker who created the beautiful corner pieces, bosses, and clasps I commissioned for my higher end grimoires.
“Tut. Tut. Tut.” He gestured to Lettice with one gnarly finger whilst stroking his long auburn beard with the other and staring at me from beneath his overgrown brows. Beard rings clinked against the gold ring on his index finger, a prized possession that he claimed to have kept as a souvenir after raiding a dragon’s hoard deep within the Khazamar mountains. ‘We were so quiet,’ he was fond of saying, ‘that the firedrake did bat nary an eye’. He shook his head whilst gazing down at Lettice as though in disapproval. “You killed her then,” he stated.
“Shh! Yes, but I didn’t mean to,” I whispered.
“Shop!” The man called again from the counter and this time his voice held a questioning lilt.
“You’d best go and see your customer. Like as may, he won’t be best pleased if you tarry here longer.”
I glanced towards the velvet curtain.
“What if he’s here to arrest me?”
“Psht! So soon. No, not even the Council Elders can solve a murder mystery so quickly.”
“It’s not a murder mystery!” I replied. “It was an accident.”
“Manslaying then. Even they cannot solve a manslaying so quickly.”
“Shh!” I said, holding a finger to my lips. “Please!”
He batted a hand towards me. “Go on, then!” he urged.
“I will, just … wait here.”
He nodded.
“And don’t touch anything.”
He shook his head a little more vigorously and rolled his eyes. “What need have I for witches’ spells and castings, Mistress Scrivener? We dwarves covet gold. We mine gold. We fight dragons and traverse gorges, climb the steepest of paths, follow the deepest of tunnels, dig through the hardest of ro-”
“How can I help you?” I asked as I stepped through the curtain. I had heard Cornelius’ monologue on the enduring stoicism and fortitude of dwarves in their search for gold to know it by heart. He finished his spiel as the dark green curtain swung closed behind me.
“Ah! You are here.” The man swung from the door to face me.
In that moment I felt the connection of mutual attraction shoot between us as though Thor himself had sent down a cord of lightning to bind us together. Eyes of darkest green sparkled with iridescence as the sun’s rays filtered through the thick glass of the shop’s small window.
His mouth opened as though to speak and then clamped shut. “I … Excuse me. I’ve come here to find the witch Argentille Scrivener.”
The velvet curtain pulled back behind me. “Who is it that is wanting to find her?” Cornelius asked as he stepped to my side, hand on the dagger at his belt.
The man’s brows raised once more, and a flicker of apprehension passed over his face as he looked down at the dwarf, his own hand moving to the dagger at his side. Dwarves have a fearsome reputation as warriors despite their size and the man took a step back and dropped his hand to his side.
“Well?” Cornelius asked. “Who is it that seeks out the witch?”
“Raedwald of Jurabeorgh,” he replied. His smile fell upon me, and my heart tripped a beat.
“And what is your business, Raedwald of Jurabeorgh? You are far from home.”
“I seek a spell for a difficult problem.”
“Oh?” I managed.
“What problem is it that you suffer from?” Cornelius asked. “I hope it is suitable for a young woman’s ears?”
Taken aback, Raedwald turned his attention to the dwarf. “It is a spell to cast sleep over a dragon. Is that suitable enough for young ears?”
Cornelius grunted. “Witch magic is not needed to cast a spell over a dragon!” he said with derision. “Why, I have entered the hall of many a firedrake and not once – not once! – have I needed a spell.”
Raedwald wrinkled his nose as though picking up a bad smell. “Is that you, dwarf?”
I realised that the stench of the death yawn from the toxic witch had filtered through to the shop and I caught Cornelius’ eye and gave him a warning frown. That Raedwald could smell the toxic whiff too suggested that he had magic flowing in his blood. I sensed Cornelius’ temper rearing.
“I have one!” I blurted. “A hex against a firedrake. I have one.”
“Pah!” Cornelius spat.
Raedwald turned his attention back to me. “You do?”
“I do,” I said as our eyes met. “Cornelius, I can deal with Master Raedwald’s request.”
“Pah!” Cornelius turned and stomped back to the storeroom.
For a moment I held my breath as the curtain was drawn back and I squinted against the scene Raedwald would see, but my worries were unfounded and Cornelius slipped through the narrowest gap and disappeared into the workshop, my crime still hidden.
“Excuse me for a moment,” I said and twirled away from Raedwald, almost tripping over my feet and crashing into the curtain. Only the jamb of the doorway saved me, and as I regained my balance and slipped through the curtain, I heard his sigh of relief.
Lettice remained dead. Her unseeing eyes staring at the ceiling.
But her death seemed inconsequential as I stepped over the body and hurried to the locked chest. Cornelius coughed. I ignored him and unlocked the chest. He coughed again.
“Yes, yes, Cornelius. I know that she’s dead, but I must find the firedrake soothing spell.”
Cornelius grunted. “No warrior needs a spell to soothe a firedrake in my kenning.”
I pulled out several quires, flipped through them, then placed them on the floor. Requests for spells against dragons were rare but I had a distinct memory of coming across one in an older grimoire only several moons ago, when the Hawthorne blossom had begun to flower. As I kneeled before the chest, another customer entered the shop, and the memory came back to me. I reached in and took out a small book bound in black leather. Its edges were worn, and it was in need of repair, but the writing was as clear as the day it had been scribed upon the rabbit skin. The bell on the counter tinged. “I have it!” I said in triumph.
Cornelius grunted something incomprehensible then grabbed the book from my hand.
“Hey!” I complained. “I need-”
My words were cut short as Cornelius pressed a silencing finger to his lips. He placed the ancient grimoire back into the chest then closed the lid, locked it, and handed me the key. The doorbell tinkled and I heard Raedwald wish the new customer good day.
“He’s gone!” I complained.
Cornelius shook his head. “Mayhap, but that is the least of your worries, scrivener. The Jaskyn sisters are here.”
I glanced at the stiffening body on the floor, its dulled eyes open and staring. The rotten stink of her death yawn would be easy for her sisters to recognise. I had killed Lettice and the stench of her death would be on me too. It was enough to accuse me of murder and, given the bad blood between our covens, and the Jaskyn’s ascendent power, convict me too. As Cornelius slipped out of the back door I focused on the key in my hand and the locked chest and began to recite. I had only one option; to leave town before they found me.
The ancient words flowed and, as I came to the end of the casting and uttered the final words, ‘nawiht gewurþe’, become as naught, the green velvet curtain was pulled aside.
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