Chapter 2

H e was the unlikeliest librarian.

That was what had been said, anyway, about Mr. Abaddon Grimoire.

Nor were the people who’d said as much been wrong, either.

Born of the roughest streets of East London to a common street whore and sold into a child gang belonging to the notorious William Wilson, Abaddon would never be what a person conjured when they imagined the keeper of a circulating room.

But then, as a young man of fourteen who’d been determined to escape oppression and live free of the influence of men who’d have him murder and steal for their pleasure, he’d also known they would find him if he didn’t lose himself the last place those kings of the underworld would look—a circulating library.

As an illiterate boy who neither read nor owned a book, Abaddon’s greatest skill had been gladiatorial in nature. He’d been used for fights the way cruel men might a dog or cock. He’d also been clever enough to realize the last place they’d ever look for him, would be among the aisles of musty volumes, filled with inked words none of them could make sense of.

That day Abaddon found shelter in the Chetham’s Subscription Library, he’d believed the only value to be found there came from the cover it had provided. He’d spent days, hiding among the shelves.

Until the proprietor, an older fellow with white hair and big spectacles and even bigger cheeks, and without any family, took Abaddon in as his own. He’d taught him to read and write and understand all that went into overseeing the library. And when he’d died, he’d ensured care of it remained in Abaddon’s hands.

But Abaddon had never forgotten what it was to hide.

A person never did fully shake free of the chains that bound them. For a man or woman born in the Dials, those chains were mighty and strong. Even if one was fortunate to escape—as Abaddon had done—the ugly remembrances lived on. The memories were forever there, reminding him of how miserable life had been…and how very easily it could go back to the worst ways.

Yes, Abaddon knew what it was to hide. And why he recognized it so easily in others.

As this particular case would have it, a small someone other, with her voluminous, black, curls tucked under a too-big-for-her-head cap.

The breeches and coarse wool jacket she wore were better suited to a stableboy but were of higher quality to mark her different from someone who’d just escaped the grasp of London’s greatest gang leaders.

She wasn’t a street thief, either.

Or at least, she’d not made an attempt to stuff any of the small leather volumes she’d been perusing into the leather sack flung over her small shoulder.

If she was a common street thief, she was bloody bad at her line of work.

A thief’s first job was to blend in with their surroundings, attract no notice, and be discreet in every movement.

This girl, however, periodically stole long, obvious glances about as if she were searching for someone before returning her focus to the book in her hands.

Unlike Abaddon who’d also hidden behind a book long ago, holding it upside down because he’d not known the damned difference, this child held it the proper way, and close to her nose—as if she were reading, and then recalling she was hiding, before being drawn back to the words on those pages.

From where he stood at the end of her aisle, he folded his arms. “That’s a good one,” he remarked.

The small patron gasped. She lost her grip on the book.

It hit the floor with a quiet thump.

She eyed him nervously. “Sir?”

Abaddon nudged his chin at the small volume beside her feet. “That one.”

She glanced down. “I’ve not read it yet. Have you?”

“Aye. Read most of them, I have.” Strolling over, he dropped to a knee and rescued the book lying indignantly upon its spine. “And I’m not a sir. Just a regular mister. Mr. Grimoire.” He held the book out, and she took it with eager fingers.

Interest sparked her eyes. “Even the horror ones, you’ve read?”

“Especially those.”

“Then your name suits you.” She giggled. “Mr. Grim.”

“Grimoire.”

“I like grim better. I wish I had a gothic-story-type name.”

Not only did he possess a gothic-story-type name, but a dark, dangerous path to go along with it.

“What name do you have?” he asked.

She eyed him warily. “Opal.”

It didn’t escape his notice that she deliberately withheld her last name.

He felt the girl’s gaze on him as he examined the small stack of books she’d sorted into three piles at her feet.

“What have we here?”

“Those are my keeper ones,” she said of the largest pile. “And those are my maybes.” She gestured to the slightly smaller stack of volumes alongside it.

Abaddon looked at the third and also the smallest pile. “The ‘no’ pile?”

She shook her head. “I don’t have any ‘no’s’. I like all books, but some more than others. Just some are at the bottom of my reading list.”

“And you have the space for all these books?”

She hesitated. “No?”

There was the slight uptilt of a question, one that hinted at the lie.

Opal No-Last-Name brightened. “But a person can always find space for books.” She considered her selections for a long while. “I can purchase these from you,” she offered.

Reaching inside her jacket, she withdrew a small lace reticule, made of silver satin and adorned in pearls, it was as fine an item as he’d ever himself stolen during his thieving days.

She wagged that extravagant bag at him. “See, I have the money.” Opal gave her bag a little shake, setting the coins a’jingle.

Her precise tones, that money, and the quality of that article bespoke a child who came from wealth.

He gently pushed the bag back towards her. “If I sold you these books then other readers won’t have the joy of exploring them.”

Opal troubled at her lower lip. “I…I hadn’t thought of that. I forgot for a moment I was in a lending library.” she said, her elfin-like features crestfallen, as she reconsidered the large stacks at their feet. “I was lost amongst all the books.”

“Well, given you can’t read them all at the same moment, seems you don’t have to worry about not taking them all up today.”

“Yes, but what if someone else comes in here,” she asked, frantically, jabbing at the largest of the piles. “What if they want the same books I want, and they don’t return them and then I never get to read them, Mr. Grim?”

“Ah, so that is the reason for that larger pile.”

She nodded. “My you-might-lose-them-and-will-I-ever-be-the-same-if-I-cannot-find-a-copy-again pile?” Her pixie-like features grew solemn, and she slowly shook her head. “And I honestly cannot say that I will be, be able to find them again, Mr. Grim.”

“We can’t have that.”

“No, we can’t.” She added her consensus to his.

Dropping his hands to his knees, Abaddon leaned forward so he could meet the little girl’s big, blue eyes. “Sometimes, we just have to trust that people are capable of good.”

At the front of the shop, the tinny bell jingled, announcing Abaddon’s latest patrons. The bell had been the first recommendation he’d made when Mr. Baughan took him in, as a way of noting people coming and going.

Abaddon spared a brief glance over his shoulder, before returning his attention to the small girl.

He knew everyone who stepped foot inside this circulating library, along with details about them, where they sat, the manner of books they read, how often they came. “You don’t have a membership,” he remarked.

“No,” Opal fished around the reticule. “But I can. Only…” She stared forlornly at the coins in her hand. “Are you certain you will not sell me the books because…” She paused. “I don’t know if I’ll be allowed to come back,” she finished on a forlorn whisper.

As Opal dropped her sad-eyed stare to the leather volumes on the floor, Abaddon felt tension whip through him.

So, there was someone who had the girl under their thumb. Having been oppressed himself, he easily recognized the look of someone suffering that same fate.

Abaddon continued to observe her. All the while, the latest patrons who’d entered moved through the library: a pair of footfalls, one light, the other lighter. A mother and a child. His time spent in East London had provided him all number of necessary skills to survive, one being the identification of a person’s footsteps—how close they were, how heavy they were, and which ones were to be avoided.

When it became apparent Opal didn’t intend to volunteer anything more on the people barring her from visiting and reading, he posed the question. “Who is preventing you from—?”

“Opal,” a woman cried.

Stiffening Abaddon looked up to find a picturesque beauty striding over.

Nay, gliding. The tall, willowy woman didn’t stride—she floated, her graceful movements leant a shimmer to the silver satin cloak.

Gazing at the ethereal vision before him, Abaddon at last understood the ancient Greeks’ portrayal of those goddesses as women of height. With the lady’s golden curls intricately twisted about her head like a coronet and tucked in place by diamond studded pins, she may as well have been Helen of Troy come to life.

Brushing past him, the woman gripped the younger girl by her shoulders. “Opal,” she repeated, more than half-breathless.

With relief? Fear? Both?

A young boy joined the pair of ladies.

Then, as if realizing the girl was in fact, fine, his latest patron stiffened, her enormous hazel eyes, flecked with specks of greens and golds and browns, hardened. “Whatever were you thinking ? You know you were explicitly forbidden from coming here.”

Abaddon tensed.

The lady might be a golden Aphrodite in the flesh, but as she spoke to the girl, the brusque beauty was a cold as the marble statues erected to honor that deity.

There it was, then. Verification of just who had been barring the young girl from visiting the circulating room.

And there could be no doubting the woman before him was anything but a lady. Far too young to be a mother and far too high in the brow to be a governess, she’d some connection to the girl she continued to harangue.

He slid his assessing stare over her slim face, the bold, sharp slashes of her cheekbones. The only hint of softness to the lady was a set of lush, full, red lips. Lips that would make even an honorable man think of sinning.

And he was no honorable man.

Suddenly, the boy, largely forgotten until now at the lady’s shoulder shoved an elbow into her back.

The young woman grunted. “Flint, what—” She followed the boy’s not-at-all discreet gesturing to Abaddon.

The lady’s attention flew his way, and she inched her gaze slowly, ever more slowly up his person. She quickly released Opal’s shoulders and straightened.

Only, no words were immediately forthcoming. Rather, she lowered sinfully long golden lashes and looked him over.

During his life, he’d been reminded at every turn of his standing in the world. But he’d never given a shite what people thought and didn’t let some toff or lady shame him. Certainly not the ones who entered his business.

He stared back boldly, unapologetically.

Color flooded the high planes of her cheeks as if she were offended he, a mere mortal, should dare that affront.

She flattened her mouth, turning those lovely lips down at the corners. “Who are you and what are you doing with my sister, sir?”

Ah, the sister, then.