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She
    opened her reticule. “Here’s Grandmother’s grimoire that you sent me last winter.”
    “Ah.” Mr. Allardyce took the little book and stroked it reverently. The pages rustled, like a
    preening bird settling its feathers. “Thank you. You’ve treated it well. How did the girls like it?”
    “Persy was quite fascinated by it. Her progress is most gratifying.”
    The grimoire rustled again.
    “It agrees with you,” said Mr. Allardyce. “Perhaps—”
    A sudden thud made them both jump. The auburn-haired customer bent down to retrieve the book
    he had dropped. “Your pardon,” he muttered, not looking at them. “No damage to it, sir.”
    “Certainly,” said Mr. Allardyce, nodding. He turned back to Miss Allardyce and the grimoire, then
    clapped himself on the forehead. “Lucca’s beard, I nearly forgot! Lorrie!” he called. “Where is that
    book for your sister?”
    Miss Allardyce heard a muffled reply from the back office, ending in something like “counter.”
    Mr. Allardyce frowned. “Are you sure?” he called back.
    Lorrie appeared, wielding a knife with sticky dark cake crumbs stuck to it, and strode to the end of
    the counter.
    “Mother said Melly was coming, remember? I left it out here so we wouldn’t forget it. Hold this a
    moment, please.” She handed the knife to the auburn-haired man, who still stood there. He jumped
    and looked alarmed, but she ignored him as she riffled through the pile of books he had been
    examining.
    “Here!” she said, and pulled out a small one bound in faded blue kid. She handed it to Miss
    Allardyce with a triumphant flourish, took the knife back with muttered thanks, and strode into the
    office. A faint “tea in five minutes” drifted down the hallway in her wake.
    Miss Allardyce turned the book over. The remains of gilt lettering could just be seen on the spine,
    but it was impossible to tell now what the title was. Had been. She rubbed them with a finger and
    they began to glimmer faintly, until she was able to read Mary Dalzell Herr Booke in old-fashioned,
    crooked letters.
    Another grimoire! Miss Allardyce had quite a number of them stored in her trunk at the Atherstons’.
    Sometimes in the evening she would open it and listen to the old spell books rustle and whisper to
    one another as she carefully wiped their bindings and read a page or two of the queer cramped
    writing their owners had written in them. This one looked older than most of the others she had,
    though. She smiled up at her father. “It’s lovely!”
    “Excuse me,” said the man at the counter, who still stared after Lorrie. “I had thought to purchase
    that book.”
    Mr. Allardyce bowed again. “My apologies, sir, but it isn’t for sale. It should not have been on the
    counter, but my daughter is young and thoughtless. It was intended for someone.”
    “But …”
    “I had meant it as a gift for my elder daughter here, who is a teacher and scholar of no little
    erudition. You will, I am sure, understand,” her father continued with an apologetic smile.
    The book quivered in her hand. Even with gloved fingers Miss Allardyce could feel the magic
    inside it. Had this man felt it too? She looked at him again and saw his eyes were now fixed on her.
    Though pleasant of appearance, clean-shaven, and well if somberly dressed with a very plain, very
    white cravat, there was something disquieting about him. With a faint thrill of surprise she realized
    what it was. His eyes, wide-set and clear, were of different colors: the right one blue, the left brown.
    “Is she?” he said softly in his lilting accent.
    His gaze never wavered as she stared back at him, and she knew, with complete certainty, that this
    stranger also had felt the power that resided in the little book because … because …
    The man was a wizard.
    “I’ll just go help Lorrie with the tea,” she said, rising and hurrying down the short passage to her
    father’s office, the book clutched in her hand.
    Lorrie was