He sounded as kind as he had a moment ago, but the good humor had drained from his expression. Elisabeth knew that she walked along a knife’s edge. One slip, and he would find out that Lorelei’s glamour wasn’t working as it should, compelling her to tell the truth. A single lapse could spell death. She strove to keep her expression blank and her voice wooden, grateful for the glamour’s numbing influence. Without it, she wouldn’t be able to sit and face Ashcroft calmly. More importantly, she wouldn’t be able to lie.

“Can you tell me why you woke up that night?” Ashcroft pressed. “Did you hear something? Sense something?”

He had already asked her that question many times. She took care to keep her answer the same. “A storm blew in. The wind was loud—it blew branches against my window.”

He frowned, dissatisfied. “And when you got out of bed, did you feel any differently than normal?”

He wanted to know how she had evaded his sleeping spell. But even Elisabeth didn’t have an answer to that question. Mechanically, she shook her head.

Ashcroft’s jaw tightened. It was the first indication that his patience had limits, a reaction that left her ill. She didn’t want to witness what he was capable of when he lost his temper.

A sound came from Lorelei in the corner, where she was applying rosin to the bow of a violin. Today she wore a crimson gown that matched her lips and eyes. It was so long that it spilled off the chair like a waterfall and formed a shimmering pool on the carpet, as though she sat in a puddle of blood. “The girl is hiding something from you, master,” she said.

Ashcroft looked around. “Are you certain? Is that possible?”

The hair stood up on the back of Elisabeth’s neck. She forced herself not to react, aware that she could betray herself with any movement.

“If she has a secret, the impulse to protect it may remain, even through a glamour. Most humans haven’t the fortitude. But this girl is strong-willed. Her spirit burns as brightly as a flame.” Lorelei glanced at Elisabeth beneath her eyelashes, a gesture so like Silas that goose bumps spread across her arms. “I do so wish I could taste it.”

Ashcroft leaned back, steepling his fingers. “What do you propose I do?”

“Enter her mind. Take the memory from her by force, and destroy the rest.”

“It’s too early for that. She must be seen for a few more days before I get rid of her. If news of her fate reaches the papers, I will need witnesses to support the physician’s diagnosis.”

Lorelei gave a delicate shrug. “Very well, master. And you’re certain her presence here isn’t distracting you from your work?”

Ashcroft glanced at his desk, at the grimoire hidden beneath his cloak. Based on the way it had levitated that first night in the study, Elisabeth guessed it was a Class Five, or even a Class Six. Private ownership of grimoires Class Four and up had been made illegal by the Reforms. If Ashcroft was willing to keep something that dangerous in his home, the book had to be important.

He sagged back in his armchair, shadows etching deep lines across his face. “It’s proving stubborn,” he said, “but I’ll have what I need before Harrows.”

Elisabeth’s pulse quickened. The Great Library of Harrows was located in the northeast corner of Austermeer, where the Blackwald met the mountains—the most remote possible location to store high-security grimoires. Descriptions she had read of the place painted it as a fortress built of black stone from the bones of the Elkenspine Mountains. Its unbreachable vault contained two of the kingdom’s three Class Ten grimoires. Did he aim to attack it, like Summershall and Knockfeld?

Whatever his plans, the grimoire on his desk clearly played some essential role. And no matter the risk, she had to find out what it was.

• • •

Her chance arrived two days later, when Mr. Hob appeared in the doorway in the middle of her questioning. “A visitor,” he announced in his deep, garbled voice. “Lord Kicklighter here to see you.”

“With no word ahead?” Ashcroft’s expression darkened. “I’ll meet him in the salon. Lorelei, watch over Elisabeth.” He strode from the room, and a moment later Lord Kicklighter’s greeting boomed down the hall.

Elisabeth’s mind raced. Judging by the length of Kicklighter’s handshake the other night, Ashcroft was going to be occupied for at least a few minutes. She felt Lorelei’s bored gaze tickling over her. All she needed was to get the demon to leave the study for a few seconds. But she had nothing to work with. If only she were closer to the bookcases, she was certain she could manage to knock one over.

A decorative mirror on the wall afforded her a view of herself sitting on the couch. She looked drawn and pale, at odds with the extravagant amethyst gown Hannah had laced her into that morning. She was growing used to the way the expensive corsets squeezed her chest, but at tense moments like this, the garments still made her feel short of breath.

An idea struck her like lightning. She gasped loudly, drawing Lorelei’s attention. Her hand flew to her breast. Then she rolled her eyes up into her head and collapsed onto the carpet with a lifeless whump, landing so hard that she rattled the teacups on the coffee table.

Silence. Elisabeth felt the weight of Lorelei’s regard. Once she seemed to decide that Elisabeth wasn’t faking it, she rose with a whisper of satin and stepped over Elisabeth’s prone body on her way outside. As soon as she had gone, Elisabeth hiked up her skirts and scrambled to the desk. Bracing herself, she swept away Ashcroft’s cloak.

The grimoire lay open beneath a length of iron chain stretched along the valley of its spine, its pages filled with a slanted, spiky script. That was all she had a chance to observe before a wave of malevolence crashed against her, forcing her a step backward. A man’s voice roared wordlessly within her mind, tearing at her in a maelstrom of anguish and fury.

She didn’t have time to wonder whether she’d made a mistake. The edges of the room darkened; the grimoire’s pages whipped as if the study’s windows had been thrown open during a howling gale. She clenched her teeth and pushed against the grimoire’s will, stretching out her hand, trembling with the effort. Sweat beaded her brow. Even the hands of the clock on the mantelpiece seemed to slow, like the air had turned to treacle. At last her fingertips brushed leather, and a confused, sickening rush of emotions thrummed through her body. Longing. Rage. Betrayal. She had never felt anything like it before. She swallowed thickly, wishing she had iron gloves to dampen the grimoire’s psychic emanations.

“I’m not your enemy,” she forced out. “I’m here as a prisoner of Chancellor Ashcroft. I intend to stop him, if I can.”

At once the man’s voice fell silent, and the pressure in the air disappeared. Elisabeth fell forward, catching herself on the desk, her muscles quivering from the strain. The grimoire now lay quiescent. Her desperate guess had proved correct—its malice and fury had been meant for Ashcroft, not for her.

“What does he want from you?” she murmured. Carefully, she lifted it from the desk.

Its cover was bound in strange scaled leather, crimson in color, which reminded her unsettlingly of the imps in the conservatory. A five-pointed pentagram was emblazoned on the front. Age had faded the title, but the words remained legible: The Codex Daemonicus.