A Book of Spirits and Thieves

“Okay.” She blew out a breath. “Hey, you know what? Your world is a complete mess. It’s violent and cruel and bizarre and scary, and I hate it. There’s, like, literally only one thing I like about it.”


He wasn’t surprised that she despised this place where she was trapped. He wasn’t so fond of it himself. One day, when he had the money and the means, he would travel somewhere far away and never look back. “What’s that?”

“You,” she said simply, and as he locked gazes with her, her smile managed to enchant him utterly. But then her smile turned quickly to a scowl. “Now, hurry up, would you? Go!”

Hand over hand, he climbed the wall, this time not slipping before he got to the top. Two dozen corpses covered with rotting flesh stumbled and crawled toward him, reaching up to try to grab at his ankles. If he’d taken even a moment longer, they would have been successful.

When he jumped down to the other side, Becca was already there waiting for him.

“Luckily, it seems as though the dead can’t climb,” Barnabas observed. The box sat next to him on the ground, undamaged. “We’re safe, but we need to keep moving. It won’t be long before Valoria learns we’ve escaped. It’ll take her a little while to deal with the newly undead, so that buys us a small amount of time.”

Maddox wasn’t budging from his spot. He crossed his arms. “Did my father tell you that I’m a . . . a nacromincer.”

“Necromancer,” Becca corrected.

“Necromancer,” Maddox repeated firmly.

Barnabas nodded. “He did.”

“Why can I do this . . . death magic, as you called it? Why can’t I do magic like others—like witches?”

“That, I can’t tell you. What I do know is that you’re powerful, and I need your magic to aid me.”

“I don’t even know how to harness it properly. How can I help anyone else?”

“You agree that Valoria is evil?”

“Of course I do.”

“And she needs to be stopped?”

“Yes, but that’s impossible. You can’t stop an immortal goddess—not here and not in the South. It’s well known that many rebels who remain loyal to King Thaddeus’s legacy have tried and have died in their attempts. And even if you were successful in vanquishing Valoria, there’s still Cleiona to contend with.”

Barnabas flicked his hand in dismissal. “I’ll deal with the other one later. One goddess at a time, my young friend.”

“I’m not your friend. I don’t even know you. You need to tell me what your plan is right now or I refuse to go a step farther.”

Barnabas glared at him for a long, uncomfortable moment.

“Fine. We’re taking that box to the most powerful witch I know, the one who told me it existed in the first place. Its contents harbor the means to send someone from one world to another.”

Maddox shot a look at Becca. Her eyes were wide with shock at Barnabas’s claim.

“Other worlds.” Maddox couldn’t believe his own words. “Such talk is . . .”

“Madness?” Barnabas grinned. “Perhaps. But there’s only one way to know for sure.”

“This is it. This is what I need.” Becca drew closer to Maddox. “If he’s being honest, this could be the answer we need to send me back home.”

He met her gaze and nodded. “It certainly could.”

“I’ve had my say,” Barnabas said after a moment of silence passed between them. “And I’ll understand if you wish to part ways. But I’d much prefer you to join me in my quest.”

Other worlds. Death magic. A chance to help a beautiful girl—his first real friend—who truly needed him. Who believed in him when he didn’t believe in himself.

Finally, Maddox nodded. “Then let’s get going.”





Chapter 16


CRYSTAL



After a brief visit to the hospital on Tuesday evening, Crys went to school on Wednesday, but barely paid attention to her classes. After school, she took over at the bookshop so Julia could visit Becca. After Crys closed up shop at six, she headed to the hospital again.

Becca appeared to be peacefully sleeping. Crys sat down heavily in the now familiar bedside chair.

She’d avoided saying more than a few words to her mother all day, knowing she’d be furious if she learned Crys had gone to see Dr. Vega behind her back.

Julia Hatcher didn’t like it when her eldest daughter broke the rules.

All day Crys’s thoughts had stewed and simmered as she tried desperately to come up with a plan—something a seventeen-year-old girl who didn’t know anybody important could do to help her sister.

It all came back to Markus and the Bronze Codex.

It had been days since she’d met her father at the AGO. Three days with only silence as she waited for him to reach her with news about meeting the mysterious man in the flesh.

“I’m trying to figure this out,” Crys told Becca in the last few minutes before leaving for the night. “I refuse to sit back and wait for other people to make decisions for you or for me.”

As she headed home, she was distracted by the bright screen of her phone. She was composing another message to her father, which she’d deleted a dozen times, changing a word here and there, then writing it over again and again.