Page 3 of The Spellreader and the Phoenix

Max sighed and set about correcting yet another set of labels in one of his recently acquired spellbooks. There were those who thought he was a fool for what he was doing, making sure that spells could be read by anyone. He supposed that if he were trying to get rich or make himself indispensable, then he wasn’t making the best choice.

All Max was trying to do was make spells accessible and prevent accidents. Every witch was better served by knowing what every spell did. Keeping spells hoarded in family lines was foolish. Relying on Spellsmiths to create new, expensive spells every time was asinine. The only sensible thing to do was make spells available for everyone.

In his perfect world, Max would have an accessible repository of spells, and people could take the ones they needed. Sort of like a free digital library. But he spent most of his time finding and labeling spells. And while he and technology got along… adequately, he suspected that wasn’t enough to meet the needs of a project like that. (He also needed to get paid somehow so that he had time to keep finding and labeling spells.)

So it was on the back burner, and Max concentrated on deciphering spells and growing his collection. There was always something new to find, and he loved that part, working out what a spell did and figuring out whether it was something he already had recorded. Family spellbooks typically listed all the spells the family could need, and there were numerous common spells that everyone had in their repertoire.

But there were also specialist books, or just someone who was really interested in spells relating to water or stasis or healing or mushrooms. (Max couldn’t truthfully say that he didn’t judge, but he did understand quirky interests.) Magic could do a lot, and so there were a lot of spells in existence.

Many books of spells had burned with the Library of Alexandria. Max was still salty about that. He was pretty sure it was the last time anyone had tried his idea of cataloguing and actually making spells available to all. But surely, they had better technology now. There were ways to ensure that there were backups and that all the information was easily available to all witches. Max didn’t want to gatekeep if they could come up with a good, safe way to share.

For now, though, he just kept doing what he was doing. He didn’t have the bandwidth to rewrite the way that witches related to spells. He just liked to point out when people were being fools—which was most of the time.

When 5pm rolled around, he flipped the open sign to closed and locked the door before shutting off the lights. It was always a relief when he got to do that. Still, Sundays and Mondays he was only open from 11 to 5, so he shouldn’t complain. It was a smaller window for customers to be obnoxious than the other days of the week.

“I’m just going to work in the back room for a little while,” Max told Nōwē.

She yowled, reminding Max that he’d promised to feed her—and himself—before he got lost in books again.

“Fine,” he grumbled. “Come on.”

He ducked into the back hallway and around to the stairs that led up to his apartment above the bookshop. Nōwē twined around his ankles and tried to kill him as they headed up the stairs.

“You know,” he reminded her, “if you trip me and I fall and break my neck, I can’t feed you.”

She meowed some more and continued to dart around his feet. Sometimes, he was relieved she wasn’t his familiar. Of course, if she were his familiar, she probably wouldn’t want to kill him. But in case he was wrong, he definitely didn’t need to feel her assurance that if she killed him, she’d eat his eyeballs and feast on his flesh so she’d be totally fine.

“A dead body doesn’t last that long,” he grumbled. “I feed you over and over every day. You should be grateful for this deal.”

When he unlocked the door, she darted inside and headed for the kitchen, like getting there before him would somehow get her fed sooner. Rolling his eyes, Max prepared her meal—wet food, because he was a sucker—and made himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich because anything else felt like too much work.

With impeccable timing, his sister Evie texted.

Chapter Two

Max

Most annoying sibling in the entire world

Did you remember to eat today?

She was seven years younger than he was. When their parents had been killed in a car accident when he was 24 and she was 17, he’d taken care of her. Unfortunately, she seemed to have decided that meant it was now her job to take care of him.

Max

Yes. I’m an adult.

Most annoying sibling in the entire world

Jelly doesn’t count as a fruit or vegetable.

Unfortunately, she knew him well.

Max

That’s one of the joys of adulthood. You don’t have to follow a nutritious meal plan if you don’t want to.

Don’t you work in a bakery?