Lock and Key (Nocturne Academy 1)

My English Lit teacher, Mrs. Sorenson, had sponsored me and written a letter of recommendation, explaining my interest in Chaucer and Fourteenth Century English Literature to get me in to see the rare volumes. I’d had to put on a pair of white gloves to make certain the oils in my fingers didn’t hurt the ancient tomes and handle each page as delicately as though it was a fragile butterfly’s wing, turning every one with great care.

But as impressive as the University’s collection had been, this was ten times better. The manuscripts looked newer somehow—the leather bindings oiled and supple and the colors fresh and vivid. Maybe they had been preserved by magic against the ravages of time or maybe there was something special about the air in this room. But for whatever reason, the books were in gorgeous condition and there were so many of them!

“Hey, don’t lose your focus, Princess,” Avery said sharply, when I started drifting through the room, wondering if they might have an original Canterbury Tales in the tower library. “I get that you’re a rabid bibliophile but there’s only one book we’re interested in up here. And this…is…it,” he finished triumphantly.

I turned and saw him standing on the far side of the round stone room. Beside him, on an elaborately scrolled wooden reading stand, was a book as big as my torso. It had an oxblood leather cover worked all over with curling, golden designs and I estimated it was at least four inches thick.

I could tell this because the book was closed tight and bound with heavy brass bands—two along its breadth and two enclosing its length. They met in the center in a kind of golden lock.

Avery tried to open the book and winced, pulling back his fingers as though he’d been shocked.

“Let’s see if your key can handle this one, Princess,” he said dryly. “This time I’m sure it’s a magic lock and no ordinary tricks are going to open it.”

64

I came to stand in front of the reading stand, looking down at the massive book. The golden curving markings all over the oxblood cover almost seemed to spell something out—something in a language I could almost but not quite read. Down in the bottom right-hand corner was something I could read, however—the initials C.L. were inscribed there in flowing, golden script.

“This is gorgeous,” I whispered reverently, reaching out to touch it.

“Be careful!” Avery hissed. “Touching it really hurts.”

But when my fingers made contact with the bindings of the book, I felt only a gentle hum. It was like the book was acknowledging me—welcoming me in some way. Suddenly, the room was filled with whispers.

“Welcome, descendant of the first Latimer,” a hundred echoing voices murmured—like a choir singing all around me. “Open the lock and claim your birthright.”

“Crap!” Avery jumped and looked around, as though he expected the choir of whispered voices to suddenly appear in the flesh. “That’s strong magic, Megan,” he muttered to me. “Can’t you feel it?”

Actually, I could. It was like a tingling which started in my fingertips where I was touching the book and ran though my entire body, making the short hairs on the backs of my arms and at the back of my neck stand up like static electricity.

“Megan!” Avery whispered, looking at me in an awed way. “Your hair—it’s floating.”

I looked to the side and noticed that he was right—my long auburn locks were rising into the air, almost as though the book I was brushing with my fingertips was full of some weird energry and it was charging me just to touch it.

“It feels…strange,” I admitted, not moving my hands from the book. “Strange but really good too—like I’m charging up like a battery.”

“Yeah, you’re looking charged up, for sure. Well, what are you waiting for?” Avery demanded. “Open the grimoire!”

I tried but though I tugged gently at the brass bindings, the book remained locked and shut. So apparently just being a descendant of Corinne Latimer wasn’t enough to open it.

“Try your key,” Avery said, indicating the keyhole in the center of the bindings.

I squinted down at it, frowning. The keyhole looked strange. Instead of having a round top and then a triangle bottom like I might have expected, it was simply a perfect circle, barely bigger than a pinhole.

“I don’t think it’s going to work,” I said, pulling the black key out of my shirt anyway. Sure enough, the barrel of the key was much too big to fit into the tiny lock. And the lock didn’t seem inclined to grow, nor the key to shrink, to fit each other.

“Oh,” Avery said, sounding disappointed. “Well, now what?”

“I suppose we could try an opening spell?” I asked, looking up at him.

He shook his head.

“I very much doubt any opening spell I could come up with would open Corinne Latimer’s grimoire. And you still don’t have access to your magic.”