She couldn’t relay any of this to Birch’s son while Eliot stood in front of her wearing a younger version of his father’s face, sounding like he was going to laugh at her.
She hated him. Tess glared up at him, choosing not to answer his question and resorting to silence instead.
“I don’t like him very much either,” Eliot said, keeping his voice low, like he was telling a secret. He opened his fist and dropped a shower of torn-up Post-it confetti on the circulation desk. “Tess, is it?”
He had her name. He had power. She cleared her throat. “Yes.”
“I sent in some requests this afternoon. Just a couple, shouldn’t take long. And be careful who you trust here.” Eliot’s eyes flicked to Regina’s empty seat and then back to Tess’s face. “Not everyone is quite so forgiving as I am.”
Eliot Birch turned on his heel and stalked across the library, back up to his office.
She had no idea what to make of him. He had his father’s awful, sharp charm, his father’s handsome features. And apparently, his father’s library request credentials, because no student could request over a hundred books at once.
Tess bottled up her shame because it wouldn’t help anything—except it was rapidly turning into anger. Yes, she’d insulted him, but it was entirely unintentional. What business did he have reserving books under faculty permissions? What was he even going to do with that many books?
Even more distressing, he hadn’t actually said what he was going to do about the incident. Tess still had the sinking sensation that her scholarship was on the line, and the only way to save it was to get off of Eliot Birch’s shit list. So even though it really was Regina’s turn, when she returned from lunch, Tess went back to the first-floor cage to hunt for the last few books in Eliot’s haul.
The worst part of the entire experience, the part that left a bitter taste in her mouth, was this: Eliot Birch had done nothing wrong. It had been her actions, her words, that brought him storming out of the clouds and into her atmosphere. She had summoned her misfortune herself.
seven
Eliot
ELIOT‘S HEAD WAS FUZZY AS HE TUCKED HIMSELF BACK INTO the office and lit a candle in the window. There was something about Tess Matheson, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He couldn’t tell if it terrified him or enchanted him. Or both.
But for now, the mystery of the Post-it notes was sorted. He hadn’t done anything particularly wrong, minus requesting a ridiculous number of books, but this was basically all he’d need for the entire summer, so he thought it was a forgivable sin.
With renewed focus, he picked up where he’d left off. He’d already put a few books into his pile of discarded items because, to be honest, they were useless. They only had simple cantrips and spells: cleaning and brewing potions and small healing, things like that. Nothing big. Nothing that he needed.
He paged through another book, tracing his finger down the contents of spells. The page was dusty on his finger, and some of the ink rubbed off, staining the pad of his pointer finger a dull, dingy gray, as if he’d grabbed one of the cheap papers to take onto the Tube and had sweat on the ink. In a strange way, it was a familiar sensation, like if he closed his eyes and rubbed his fingers together, he’d open his eyes to find himself on that massive escalator in Holborn Station, rising up towards gloomy sunlight.
Tidying spells, easy healing spells, summoning spells. Things he already knew and already had in a more accessible form in his mother’s notebooks. Another book went into the discard pile.
It was difficult to define what Eliot was—but much easier to explain what he wasn’t. He did not think of himself as a wizard or a practitioner of Wicca. His mother called herself a witch, but every time Eliot used the term on himself he felt as if someone would appear immediately to assess if he floated when tossed into water or burn him at the stake.
He was a boy who believed in things; a boy who had power, when he wanted to. He thought of it as magic, even though it was far too ordinary to be anything spectacular or impossible, and he used it for small tasks: spells and herbs for waterproofing boots while traipsing around the countryside; a short incantation he used on his mother’s garden whenever he was certain he was alone, one that kept her cabbages and aubergines and courgettes growing nicely even through her illness; an herby smoke and spell for every hotel room, on the off chance he encountered bedbugs.
No, Eliot knew the truth of his own magic. It was a small thing, a simple thing. But it could be more, if he let it.
His mother, though … She was powerful. It was in a way that scared him, if he thought of it too much. Not as much as it scared his father, but his father didn’t share their magic.
Their magic was rooted in the world around them, most powerful when he tethered himself to the earth and channeled it with soil and sand and crystals. Herbs clarified the magic, signaling his intention. Fire activated his incantations. If he was better able to channel the power, he would only have needed his own blood.
Eliot could manage minor incantations and healing, spells to make his life marginally better. But his mother could heal illnesses and mend broken bones with a tincture, three words, and the touch of her hand. She could grow wild roses with the snap of her fingers and a smile, or shape a tablecloth into a full suit by burying the cloth with a needle and thread, tossing a handful of herbs over it, and stamping on the ground four times with her left foot.
If only she were strong enough to heal herself.
A self-proclaimed wizard in Whitechapel had told Eliot once that it wasn’t so much the spell that mattered. A person didn’t have to be magical to use magic. Only one thing mattered in the successful completion of a spell: conviction.
Eliot didn’t think he had the conviction that he could read a few words and a toad would appear. But he did have conviction, when it came to his mother. He had conviction to … to …
Another grimoire. This one was older, stained with usage and water damage, binding cracked and barely holding. He ran his fingers down the table of contents, and there it was. It was a spell of reanimation, of renewal. For Eliot, it was a spell of hope.
He hungrily flipped through the pages, searching for 132. Page 115, 126, 128, 131 … 148. A gasp caught in his throat. Where page 132 should’ve been, there was … nothing. Blank space. A whole section had been cut free from the volume, leaving only ragged edges behind, close to the binding.
He sat back in his chair, running a finger over the paper’s edge. He doubted the exclusion had been done by an employee of Jessop: nobody at the library thought the grimoires were dangerous, let alone cared enough to cut out potentially harmful spells. Except for Ms. Matheson, maybe, but he doubted that a librarian would maim a book, even if it meant keeping dangerous spells away from reckless teenagers.
No, this was probably the work of someone else. Maybe someone who worked at the university before Jessop Library became a part of Falk’s campus, maybe whoever had donated the book to the library in the first place.
But the realization sent a sick fear crawling through Eliot’s stomach. He spun around to the cart and pulled down grimoires two or three at a time and easily deemed which were potentially useful. But every time he was close, every time he found a spell that was a higher working and not just a simple enchantment, every time he felt the thrill of a lead, he turned to find the pages missing.
Every grimoire. Every single bloody book was dissected like an autopsied corpse. They lay scattered across his office, missing their guts.
Eliot sat back and closed his eyes. Of course this was happening. The destruction was too thorough to be coincidence. It had to be the work of Ms. Matheson. If anyone believed the grimoires had power, it was her. She wouldn’t let students get ahold of the most valuable of the spell books.
He tugged his laptop out of if its case and went to the student portal. There was another place where grimoires were stored. He had enough basic knowledge of the library to know this: the first-floor cage held th
e grimoires. Not maximum security, but bad enough. But the basement cage, the one that held the special collections … Maybe there were grimoires there. Dangerous ones.
His fingers paused on the keys. But if there were grimoires down there, would he be able to request them, even with faculty permissions? Probably not. He’d heard of books not being in the system because they were too valuable. Eliot pulled out his notebook and traced over a list of books he’d thought were in the library. A few were uncrossed—ones he hadn’t been able to find in the databases, but that he’d thought were shelved here.
Maybe.
Except there was a problem. He had no way to get into that cage.
He sat back in his chair, crunching against a Post-it that had fluttered down from a shelf. Eliot Birch was conceived on a highway, because that’s where most accidents happen. If he wasn’t so devastated, he might’ve smiled. He crumpled the Post-it in his hand and tossed it across the room, into the rubbish bin.
Was it ridiculous to admit that he was jealous of Tess Matheson? She worked here. Maybe she hated being the one that pulled all his books, but at least she had the option to go into the stacks and get them herself.
His hand froze halfway through replacing a book on the cart. Tess Matheson could go into the stacks. It was a long shot, but maybe she could get into the lowest cages.
Maybe she could access the books he needed.
He sat back, considering the idea. She didn’t like his father, but he suspected that she didn’t particularly hate him. Maybe if he asked nicely …
It wasn’t much, Eliot thought as he thumbed through his notebook. No, the fact that he had to ask Tess for help wasn’t much at all. But it was a lead. It was a plan.
And despite what those damn sticky notes said, he was Eliot Birch. This summer, he was going to do something impossible.
eight
Tess
TESS SPENT HER WEEKS LOOKING FORWARD TO FRIDAYS. NOT because they were the beginning of weekends, since that didn’t mean much when she doubled at Emiliano’s, but because she Skyped her cello instructor from home for a private lesson. Tess missed her former schedule of three lessons a week, but that just wasn’t feasible anymore.
So when Alejandra texted Tess as she was leaving Jessop, Sorry hon—I have to reschedule this week. I have to fill in for a show in Philly. Send me a video when you have time, and we’ll have a double lesson next week, Tess found herself staring at the magazine wall in Jessop for a few self-deprecating minutes. This week was continuously getting worse.
Alejandra had been Tess’s cello teacher since she was seven, since Tess first insisted that she wanted to play the large instrument and refused to touch the piano downstairs or any vegetables until her parents gave in. And give in they did, with Mom rolling her eyes at Tess’s stubbornness and Dad laughing as he insisted that Mom deserved Tess as a daughter because they were exactly alike.
She was the best in the area, and she fascinated Tess. Little Tess watched Alejandra’s slender, brown hands draw the bow across the strings. She was about thirty when Tess first started lessons, and she always had her shiny black hair tucked into a French twist and wore dark, fitted dresses. Tendrils of her hair slipped as she played, eyes shut, lips moving, slender shoulders bowing and flexing.
Tess sighed and took another moment to contain her frustration. There were plenty of instructors here, and the orchestra was fantastic, but Tess was too loyal to Alejandra to find someone else. Besides, Alejandra understood the situation. She hadn’t been happy about Tess turning down her acceptance to an elite music high school in Boston, but she’d understood. Tess wasn’t sure a teacher here would be the same way, and a part of her felt ashamed about explaining it all over again.
It didn’t hurt that Alejandra gave her lessons at a reduced price, either.
She was frustrated enough that the idea of playing her cello tonight sounded more like a chore than a relief, so she picked up a last-minute shift at Emiliano’s and dashed home to change.
Weekends at Emiliano’s were busy enough to pass quickly, even though the college town had mostly emptied out for the summer. It was a good social experiment to prove that tequila was always in season.
By now, Tess knew how to set her brain to only consider the work she was doing while time wrapped around her like a blanket. One moment it was 4:00, and then one tucked wrinkle later it was nearly 6:00, and then before she knew it, happy hour was over and done.
It was nearing 8:00 and she had just been double-sat, and there was this needy couple at table 106 that kept asking for something different every time she went over. She was going back to the kitchen for the extra cup of ranch for them when she nearly ran straight into someone who had stepped into the aisle.
It only took half a second for Tess to realize it was Eliot Birch.
“Uh, hi,” he said. “Tess, right?” He said it like he knew her name but the assurance was more to remind her of who he was than to make sure he knew who she was.
As if she’d forgotten.
Immediately defensive, she crossed her arms over her chest. There was no way around him; he stood between the wall and the bar, blocking her way to the kitchen.
“What, are you stalking me now?” With a little discomfort, she remembered all the grimoires he had in his office. All those spells, all those enchantments, there right under his fingertips, if he had the need to use them.
No. Tess didn’t believe that. Eliot Birch was a lot of things but he was not a wizard. There was no such thing as magic or sorcery. These grimoires all around her were just paper and ink, the futile attempts of people long-dead to change their fates or disrupt processes they didn’t understand. To believe anything else, to believe in magic, was foolishness.
“No, of course not,” he said, and he sounded even more flustered with his accent. Eliot mirrored her posture, crossing his arms over his chest, and Tess did not look at the way his forearms stood out when he did. He’d rolled the sleeves of his button-down to the elbows and something about that made him look less evil. “I meant to apologize. I was brusque earlier.”
Tess’s eyebrows shot into her hairline. He was apologizing to her? Of course, Tess knew she was the one who should’ve been saying sorry again, and he had done nothing wrong, but she was still committed to disliking him.
And who casually used brusque in conversation?
“I shouldn’t have requested that many books all at once, or I should’ve done something to help you,” Eliot continued, “but I was coming straight from the airport the other day and I wanted to get an immediate start. I’m sorry you had to lug around all of my books for me, and I’m immensely sorry for whatever it is my father did to you to make you hate him so much.”
“Apology accepted,” Tess mumbled, too shocked for anything more. She couldn’t begin to wrap her head around even half of what he’d said, but one thing was clear: nobody else at Falk had apologized to her or ever would.
“And I was wondering,” Eliot finished, “if you would be willing to help me find one more book.”
Of course he was asking for something now, a caveat to the apology. She fought the urge to roll her eyes—or better yet, to turn around and walk away and never speak to him again. But one more book wouldn’t break her, and after all, it was still her job. “I can find it for you.”
“I don’t want you to find it, though,” Eliot said. “I want to come with you into the stacks. Into the special collections cage.”
Tess stopped. This was forbidden. Strictly forbidden. The cage Eliot wanted into, the one in the very basement of the library, was overly protected. Some of the books in there weren’t in the library logs, open to be requested, because they were supposed to be dangerous.
Which was exactly why, Tess realized, Eliot wanted to go down there. The special collections cage was where they kept the worst and rarest of the grimoires.
But. “Why didn’t you tell your dad about me or report me to Mathilde?”
Back to silence as Elio
t considered this. Tess’s entire section could see her, 106 included, and the worst thing she could possibly do here while serving was look idle. Because customers always assumed the worst—assumed laziness, that was, even though this short conversation with Eliot was the first time Tess had actually stood still since she clocked in that afternoon.
Finally, Eliot answered, “I prefer to make allies over enemies. So do you think you could help me?”
And even though Tess didn’t want to think of him as a friend, even though she didn’t want to think of him at all or help him with what he wanted to do, she knew that Eliot Birch had power over her. That made two Birches who could make her life miserable.
“I could lose my job if I take you into the cage,” Tess said, measuring her words. Maybe she was testing him. How much he was willing to risk for this, how much he was willing to push.
Eliot was quiet for a moment, and she wondered if he was thinking of the same thing she was: yellow Post-its with teal ink, probably still scattered over Eliot’s office. If Eliot wanted Tess to lose her job, she already would’ve. And even worse, if she didn’t take him into the cage, he could take all those notes right back to Mathilde. Or his father.
“Please,” Eliot said. It was a weighted word, coming from him.
Tess squeezed her eyes shut. What choice did she have? “Okay. I’ll meet you in your office on Monday at closing time.”
Eliot tipped his head and went back to his booth, and stunned, Tess went to the beverage station to catch her breath. One of the other girls threw her a wink, which she chose to ignore. When she went back into the dining room, Eliot Birch was gone.
Anna was laying on the couch, watching a movie, when Tess got home from work. She threw off her shoes and apron and stretched out on the floor.
The Devil Makes Three Page 4
