Ch 9: Secrets

Volk Magic is… a gateway of sorts. It’s a small taste of bigger things. You remove a horseshoe, or find a well with some dowel rods and suddenly you begin wondering what else magic can do. That curiosity never fades after that first little spell.

• Victor Morrow’s Volk Magic Grimoire

Solomon drew his coat a little closer. For some reason his room always seemed to have the worst drafts. He held the small piece of holly and the rusted old key in his hand. It was a spare key to the garden shed, a building that no longer had a lock, and useful only for his current purposes.

“Tumble click and set, by holly’s sting and the keys duty met.”

He heard a click and smiled. He opened his desk drawer to reveal the grimoire where he’d left it. He turned to the marked page.

A spell to open locks

Ingredients:

• Key (not the key to the lock)

• Holly sprig

• Rhyming phrase

Hold the holly sprig and the key and say a phrase related to opening a lock. It has to be your own, you can’t use someone else’s.

One of the more practical Volk spells I’ve found. It works only on simple and non-magical locks. The man I learned it from was missing three fingers on each hand. A former thief I surmise. It’s good he managed to hide his little spell, or else the Union certainly would’ve killed him for it.

Solomon had to agree with his uncle. He’d tested several of the other spells, and all had worked, but they were often for things that were more useful to a peasant in a village than a lord in a manor. He could curdle milk, make a cut flower stay in bloom longer, or even remove a horseshoe, but those didn’t exactly help him all that much. At this point he’d read through the entire grimoire and everything he’d tested had worked, but aside from this spell to pick locks and one for improved luck that he had yet to acquire the ingredients for the rest were novelties. He could still possibly find a buyer that would pay well for it, but it would be a pittance to him. The wise thing would be to simply burn it and remove the risk it posed, but he was certain that his uncle had more hidden in the manor anyway. It might be more books or artifacts, but it would turn up eventually. He was just glad none of the servants had found anything.

He locked the grimoire away along with the key and the mistletoe. Why was he using any of the spells? It was foolishness, just like his uncle finding them and writing them down in the first place. That satisfaction he felt when he cast it though… the way it made the gears of his mind start to turn. He wanted more. To know more, and try more. To find something he could really use.

The cold in the room built up again and he looked over to the extinguished fireplace. He stood up and threw his coat on, opening the door to the hall. He saw Bart looking carefully at a small break in the hallway wall. The boy was quiet, but he’d already managed to do some impressive work along with his brother.

“Bart.”

The boy startled. “Yes sir?”

“Please get more firewood into my room and restart the fire.”

Bart nodded and ran off. Solomon sighed. He’d heard Duncan yell at the boy to not run through the halls on multiple occasions.