Page 136 of First Ritual

Yep. Hold on. Just got to— Ha! Got him.

You won?

Punched him in his face.

Clearly Sven didn’t have the same reservations as me when it came to uneven matches. What’s the plan then?

Kick Huxley’s ass. He’s in the library.

My stomach lurched at the mention of the library, and Sven had to be remembering last night too. Perfect excuse to burn the place to the ground, I replied.

You can try. Those books are so protected, the dust on them can’t be touched.

Meet you there, then?

I’d say we should wait for him to leave the library because he’ll pull on the books’ power with his grimoire affinity, but he’ll stay there for hours. I’ll see you there.

Scanning my surroundings and catching sight of my defense team, I left the battle center and the staring magus.

Library.

I cut through the eating chamber to get to the opposite tunnel system. Sven burst out of a smaller hall.

“Phew,” he said. “I got this sudden fear that you wouldn’t wait for me before attacking, so I ran here.”

Probably wouldn’t have. “The others took me over his moves and the hold.”

“Cool. Let me go in first and jump in when you see the chance. Since it’s your first day and all.”

A queen always sent her pawns in first. “Sure.”

“I can’t tell if you’re agreeing because you really agree or if you’re agreeing to placate me because you have your own plan.” He slid me a glance. “This is serious for me. For our team.”

“I’m aware.” Sven didn’t trust me. I wondered if he had yesterday. Before finding out the truth.

He didn’t like my curt answer, but he must’ve realized that was all he’d get.

We entered the library, and the six magus—three defending Sven and three me—swept inside, halving to whisk around the perimeter.

Huxley stepped out from an aisle around twenty feet ahead. “Sven and Bronte. I should be flattered.”

“Just kneel, Huxy boy,” Sven called, moving forward. “Save yourself the embarrassment.”

The grimoire’s green eyes blazed. “I always wonder how much power you’d have if you didn’t waste energy talking shit all the time.”

“I have to siphon power off somehow,” Sven purred. “How else would you stand a chance?”

Their chitter-chatter ended.

The book to my left exploded and out of the splayed pages erupted a knight in rusted armor. Without a head. And in that moment, I had an epiphany.

My mother was an apothecary and battle mix.

My grandmother was divination and battle.

Syera, a tiny bit of divination.

My grandfather had channeled magic through battle and apothecary.