I hold sorrow for you. That was the closest translation of the demon phrase. An expression of the deepest sympathy. I crossed to him and knelt by the items on the recliner. Two ancient volumes on summoning. A framed photo of a much younger Tessa smiling beside Katashi. Calligraphy mat, paper, brushes, ink. A dip pen. A ribbon-bound packet of air mail letters. A Japanese hand scroll. A stenographers pad. Memorabilia, I told myself. Nothing but relics from a time long gone. Except that one of the ink bottles appeared brand-new, and the date on the cover of the notepad was only three months past.
I snatched up the pad and flipped through it. Only the first half bore writing, but there was more than enough to shake my world to the core. To-do lists such as Call Tsuneo re Isumo’s progress in Texas and Notify Gina of the revised schedule. Plus notes for the creation of a ritual I didn’t recognize, with sigils drawn and scratched out—several pages of a portion of a diagram, like drafts of a document with each successive rendition containing fewer corrections as she closed in on the solution.
Frustrated, I stared at the last page, certain I’d seen the order of those sigils before but unable to rely on my faulty memory of the arcane.
“Seretis? What would these sigils do?” I asked, extending the notepad to him.
His jaw tightened as he skimmed the page. “They would be part of a larger ritual,” he said. “This section would serve to draw low-frequency potency to a point below the intended target. A segment like this for each frequency range would be quite effective to isolate the target from the arcane.”
Isolate from the arcane . . . She helped design the ritual that let Katashi hold me helpless while McDunn took my abilities. How long had that plan been in the works? Long enough for the technique to have been perfected and Idris to have learned it from Katashi.
Reeling from the revelations, I sat heavily on the floor and struggled to make sense of it all. How could any of this be true? “I don’t even know what to believe anymore,” I said, voice quavering. “She was like a mother to me.”
Seretis trailed his fingers over the empty shelf, rested his hand on its edge. “I am so weary of the machinations,” he said, despair and fatigue in his eyes and in the set of his shoulders. His hand tightened on the shelf in a white-knuckled grip. “And Mzatal is on the verge of closing off again because of them.” With a guttural snarl he ripped the shelf from the wall and flung it across the room. After a few seconds he drew a deeper breath, and a portion of the dark mood faded from his stance. Bryce, lending support from downstairs through their bond.
I stood and offered Seretis my hand. “Let’s get everything packed up and ditch this party.”
He took my hand, gave it a light squeeze that conveyed far more than mere words, and together we returned downstairs.
Chapter 29
We proceeded to fill the ten billion boxes to the brim with the contents of the library. Before I had a chance to tremble in horror at the mountain of stuff that needed to be loaded up, Bryce rolled in with an industrial-strength hand truck.
“Rented this as well,” he said. “Figured it might come in handy. Oh, also got a ramp for the front steps.”
“You’re the most brilliant man I know,” I breathed.
Bryce struck a pose. “Call me ‘Lazy Enough to Find An Easier Way Man!’”
With the help of physics and the invention of the wheel, we made short work of loading the van and trailer. The only snag came when a nosy neighbor wandered over on the pretense of walking her yappy dust mop of a dog, but Seretis deftly intervened. I didn’t hear what he said to her, but she left with a silly grin on her face and a bounce in her step.
Idris joined me in the rental for the return home, while Bryce and Seretis took Pellini’s truck, and Eilahn followed on the Ducati. As we got on our way, I couldn’t help but snort. “The last time I rented a vehicle, it was a fourteen foot moving truck to transport Kehlirik from my house to Tessa’s,” I told Idris.
“Why?” he asked, bewildered.
“A little over a year ago, Tessa lost her essence in the Symbol Man’s ritual and was in a coma,” I said. “I needed Kehlirik to remove the wards in her house so I could search her library for a way to save her.” I paused as I muscled the wheel through a turn then wrinkled my nose. “Funny thing, Kehlirik never said a word to me about the valve in there. And he sure as shit didn’t remove the wards from the hidden books. Or tell me about them.”
Idris sighed. “Rhyzkahl’s reyza.”
“Yup.” I made a face. “I did plenty of whining back then about the library as a whole being warded against me, especially since I was her only known relative and her student. But she was in a fragile state when I confronted her.” I made a rude noise. “Tessa told me she ‘thought it was the right thing to do at the time,’ and instead of getting a Clue and digging deeper, I let her get away with that lame excuse.”