The Darkest Magic (A Book of Spirits and Thieves) by Morgan Rhodes Read Free Book Online Page A

was . . . away, I learned that the book contained magic spells from a race of immortal beings.”
    The statement would have been met with disbelief anywhere else, but here it was different.
    “Like Markus,” Julia said under her breath uneasily. Jackie remained silent.
    “Immortal beings who dwell in another world called . . .” Vega flipped through his previous notes excitedly. Becca was about to help him out when the professor looked up, eyes wide. “Mytica.”
    Becca nodded. “I got the impression that most of the immortals live in
another
world, an entirely different one set apart from where I was. There were only two immortals in Mytica while I was there. The people thought of them as goddesses.”
    Vega scribbled away furiously
.
“And both of those goddesses—did they practice magic?”
    “Well, I only saw one of them.” She remembered the horrible demon with the face of an angel. “Valoria. It’s said she has the powers of earth and water. The one I never saw is the goddess of the South. Cleiona. She does magic with fire and air.”
    Vega’s eyes grew wider, full of amazement. “Elemental magic, yes. How absolutely fascinating! You saw some of this magic at work?”
    Becca nodded. “Valoria . . . she could control snakes. She could turn people into plants.” She shivered. “She could . . . she could summon this kind of mud, and it would pull you right down to your death. And . . . and when Maddox was
this close
to defeating her, she turned herself into a funnel of water and escaped. I was there. I saw it.”
    “Maddox? And Maddox is . . . ?”
    Becca chewed her bottom lip. “He’s . . . a boy. From Mytica. He’s about sixteen years old and he also has magic, but it’s not like the goddesses’. It was . . . uh . . .
death magic
is what they called it. His father called him a
necromancer
, which is why he could see and talk to me. He was the only one who could. His father is a regular man, but his mother is an immortal.”
    Becca took a sidelong peek and saw Jackie and Julia exchange a grave look. She wondered if they believed her now, or if, like Crys, they thought her story was nothing more than a vivid dream brought on by a coma.
    It happened
, she assured herself.
It was real. Maddox was real.
    He
is
real.
    Shaking off any concerns about whether or not her family believed her, she continued. “Valoria had the Bronze Codex there. Except they called it something else—the Book of the Immortals. Valoria needed Maddox’s magic to work a spell that would open a gateway to our world, where another immortal had been exiled. She wanted to get to our world so she could get to this man, who had stolen a golden dagger from her that she wanted back.”
    “Markus,” Jackie breathed. “The dagger.
His
dagger. That’s where it came from.”
    Becca nodded. “Markus is immortal, so he can read the language the book is written in. Which means he also knows how to use the magic in it.”
    Once again, the conclusion seemed too simple, too plain: The Bronze Codex was simply a book of spells. Why, then, did this little feeling that it was so much more than that keep gnawing at Becca deep inside?
    “Well,” Crys said, nodding, and Becca knew that her vacationfrom sarcasm was over. “I think it was really
swell
of your new boyfriend to toss the book into our world. It’s kind of cute, really. Like Toronto is his own private garbage can for hazardous magical materials. And there’s a spirit trapped in it too? Awesome!”
    Becca glared at her. “As if you even believe anything I’ve said.”
    Crys shrugged, a bit sheepishly. “Hey, I saw some stuff too. While you were gone. I believe it’s all
possible
.”
    “Really? You don’t even believe in tarot cards.”
    “Oh, I’m sorry. Have we moved on to a broader discussion of paranormal hocus-pocus in general? What’s next on the list? Ouija boards?”
    Becca kept her mouth shut. She knew exactly which button Crys was trying