“Besides your minder spell next to you who’s about to fall over into a pile of crystal decanters?” she said, reaching around him and making a shooing motion. “I can’t see a damned thing. The fire isn’t bright enough.”
He couldn’t see much either, but his ever-present companion wasn’t hissing at him and he didn’t sense anything else with his death uppermost on its list of things to see to, so he reached inside the cubby and felt about.
He ignored piles of gold, a trio of purses he wasn’t sure weren’t someone’s innards, and a few crystal things he supposed were made of mages’ tears. He found a trio of books and wasted no time in pulling them free. He checked the spines, then returned two, because he was feeling particularly virtuous at the moment. He took hold of his prize and looked at Léirsinn.
“Let’s go.”
“You aren’t going to steal that,” she said in surprise.
“Of course I’m going to steal it—”
“Didn’t you learn anything from King Simeon’s solar?”
“Aye, that I should pay more attention to those I make bargains with. Let’s be away whilst we still can.”
She gave him a look he wasn’t entirely sure she hadn’t learned from his mother.
“Didn’t your mother say your granny might already be annoyed with you?” she asked.
“She’s annoyed with everyone, so this won’t worsen her opinion of me. Besides, ’tis obvious by the dust on this thing that she never uses it. She’ll never miss it.”
She pulled something out of the satchel slung over her chest and held it up. “Book, pencil. Your mother gave me both. Why don’t you use them and leave everything here undisturbed? Then your grandmother won’t know you’ve been here.”
He had the feeling his gran would know anyway, but considered what Léirsinn held in her hands. There was something to be said for at least making the attempt to keep his visit a secret. He accepted the tools his mother had given Léirsinn, then had another look about the chamber as she lit a candle in the embers of the evening’s fire. He waited for her to set the candle down in an advantageous locale, then took his grandmother’s Book of Oddities and Disgusting Spells in his hands and tried not to give in to the temptation to chortle with delight. It even smelled exclusive.
He took a deep breath, then opened the worn leather cover.
The book didn’t disappoint. It was such a treasure trove of appalling things, he could hardly decide where to begin. He flipped page after page simply brimming over with so much goodness about badness that he was finally reduced to feeling his way down onto a side chair so he could properly appreciate what he held in his hands.
“Well?” Léirsinn prompted.
He looked up at her. “There is too much here. I can’t begin to decide where to start.”
“Close the book, open it back up to a random page, then start copying.”
“Oh, I couldn’t possibly do that,” he demurred. “What if I choose amiss? How do I favor one thing and slight another—”
“Acair, just pick something.”
He was torn between genuine distress over having to make a choice and quite a bit of unreasonable delight over the way she said his name. He generally heard my lord and a rather alarming number of variations of you bloody bastard to suit even the most discriminating of ears. His name, though? Not many used that and never with the ease she did—
“Acair?”
He looked at her and blinked. “Aye?”
“You’re half asleep and we don’t have all night.” She paused. “Do we?”
“I don’t imagine we do,” he said, dragging himself back to the matter at hand. He had to suppress the urge to simply wring his hands over an impossible decision. He looked at her. “I can’t limit myself to a few notes. I could spend the rest of my life unraveling the mysteries and stalking the mages listed here—”
“If you don’t choose five of each and do it now, you won’t have any life in which to investigate them,” she warned.
She had a point there. He forced himself to ignore how much more sense it made to simply pilfer the entire tome and hope for the best on his way over the walls. A choice it would have to be.
He sighed. “Very well, I’ll try.”
She held the candle up and leaned over his shoulder to look at the pages with him.
It took him several moments before he realized he wasn’t seeing what was on the page. He was far too distracted by the woman resting her chin on his shoulder. He tilted his head to look at her.
“I can’t concentrate.”
“Shall I slap you smartly to help?”
“I think you might do more good if you stopped breathing in my ear.”
“I’m not breathing, I’m wheezing in terror.”
“I fear, darling, that it has the same effect.”
She snorted at him and went to fetch a stool. She sat down and held up the candle. “Better?”
“Only a bit, but I am nothing if not disciplined.” He gave her a quick smile, then attempted to concentrate on the task at hand.
He wished the damned thing had been divided properly into sections, one for lists of terrible spells and another for dreadful oddities that seemed to include names of mages scribbled in the margins. Unfortunately, it was simply a compendium of random spells, hastily scribbled notes about various mages he did and unfortunately sometimes did not recognize, and vignettes about happenings that he suspected it might take him years to study properly. He gave it his best effort, truly he did, but in the end, he had to concede the battle. He looked at Léirsinn.
“I can’t choose.”
“Are you sure?”
“Perfectly,” he said. “We’ll need to take it with us.”
“I don’t think your grandmother will be happy,” she warned.
“I don’t think my grandmother will have any idea it was me to nick it,” he said. He handed her back her pencil and copybook, then paused. “Do you mind holding the prize as well? I have one more thing to look for.”
She accepted his grandmother’s book with the same enthusiasm she might have a live asp, but he couldn’t fault her for it. He thanked her, then rose and strode over to the hearth. He didn’t have to examine any of the chairs there to know which flowery, overstuffed bit of business belonged solely to his grandmother. He tossed the extra pillows onto another chair, virtuously ignoring the handwork adorning them lest he be tempted beyond what he could bear, and tipped the chair back.
He knew exactly what he was looking for and where it was to be found, and he wasn’t disappointed. He reached out and came away with the other thing for which he’d come to his grandmother’s lair.
A spell of un-noticing.