He stopped at a ridge where some wild roses were growing and plunged the shovel in a patch of soft dirt. It was obvious now, but it would have taken me forever to find this spot.
“I put it here,” he said. “I thought over time the roses would keep growing and no one would poke around. Probably overthinking it, but…”
“That’s smart,” I said. Besides that, incubi and succubi loved roses, as an amusing side note.
I watched him dig, which was a good deal for me. It was hard not to compare him to Byron and think that they were equally matched in their dark-haired good looks and beautiful bodies. When a man’s shirt could barely contain his shoulders…and his rolled-up sleeves and forearms were more mesmerizing than anything on TV… They were different, though. Graham had more heavy-lidded eyes, more haughtiness in his gaze. His life had been all ladder climbing so far and you could see it in his confidence.
Byron had more of a romantic air, like a doomed artist, longer hair, a fuller mouth. And he was dead, so that had to have affected him.
Every flex of Graham’s arms, every time his shoe pounded the shovel into the ground, and every time he grunted with exertion as he lifted the dirt away, I was reminded that he was very much alive and also, of my own generation. Not that we had the same kind of life anyway.
“Phew. Buried it deeper than I thought.” He crouched and lifted out a tarp. I could see the weight of the books in it, and as he started to unwrap them, I chewed chapped skin off my lip nervously.
“Wow…,” I breathed as I saw the ancient leather-bound tomes with their thick browning pages. The books seemed to be a set of three, all bound in the same rich brown leather with gold letters. The real deal. They looked Medieval.
ARCANA SINISTRA, the title read.
I got chills down my spine. But maybe also some thrills. I could see why they affected Graham. The magic radiating off of them was so powerful, no one could have ignored it.
Then I considered what had just happened. “You buried Medieval manuscripts in the dirt!?” I cried.
“I didn’t know what else to do, Helena,” he said sternly. “I had this feeling that if I tried to do anything with them I might…unleash something.”
I reached for the book, my fingertips tingling as I unfolded the pages. Graham was watching me, lips tight, eyes intent on my hand. I think a part of him wanted to stop me, but he didn’t. A part of me wanted to stop myself too. Unleash something? It was possible.
“Errr…,” I said, groaning as I saw the old magical language on pages transcribed by hand. It was a true illuminated manuscript, every letter written by hand, complete with a few tiny paintings here and there, depicting…who knew? Some fighting, a band of faeries, a dragon breathing fire on a warlock… “This is an old warlock script so I’m not sure how much I’ll get out of it. It has some words from Latin and Middle English but others I don’t know at all…”
I looked at the others.
ARCANA AITHERIUM
ARCANA WYRD
“They’re a set,” I said. “One for each of the realms. Wow…there really aren’t many books around with early history of the magical worlds. They were usually burned or lost somewhere along the way.”
Graham grabbed my hand. “You’re shaking.”
“These could be…crazy valuable. Like…millions. If they’re not fakes. But…”
“Millions!? Do you know a buyer, then?”
For a minute I think we both had dollar signs in our eyes.
“That’s the thing,” I said. “I don’t trust anyone right now, not when my brother was exiled from Etherium. I can’t take it to the Sinistral council, obviously. I don’t trust the Ethereal council. And Wyrd has no council, but I don’t know jack about the faery queen who rules the roost over there. If there’s something important in this book, I could be putting it right in the hands of someone dangerous.”
“So…back in the tarp?” he said, only half-joking.
“I don’t know what to do…and I’ll be honest. You probably should back away from all this. It’s been fun, but…you don’t know much about the magical world and I don’t want to put you in danger. And you already have a life.”
“Do you really think I can just walk away now?” His hand was still covering mine, and I was still shaking. “This was my grandfather’s book. If there is danger, I can’t just leave you alone with it. I already don’t love the idea of you being alone out here.”
“Please. I could defeat you on the field of battle.”
He raised his eyebrows. “For now.”
“Are you really in this to protect me, or did my mention of millions of dollars have a tiny bit to do with it?”
“You,” he said, without a moment’s hesitation, and then he kissed me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
HELENA
I DON’T KNOW if this house was bad luck or not, but it was certainly getting me a lot of hot tongue action.
I was surprised for a second, but then I realized I just wanted to kiss him very badly and it didn’t seem to matter whether it was a good idea or not. It was just a kiss. We’d all survive.
And he tasted so good, so warm and delicious that I grabbed his shirt collar just to signal that he shouldn’t stop. Once I did that, he slipped his arms around me and his tongue thrust deeper into my mouth as his body leaned over mine. The books slid out of our hands. My hair hit the carpet of leaves on the forest floor and now we were just making out like stupid teenagers, except maybe with more experienced kisses.
For a second
