Read The Darkest Magic (A Book of Spirits and Thieves) for Free Online Page B

had been too real, too violent, too horrible. Her hands still shook from it.
    But then she felt it—something else entirely.
    It was a sensation deep inside of her, an urgency she couldn’t ignore. Something was drawing her out of the library, down the stairs, and before she knew it she stood at the doorway to the study without even knowing why she was there.
    “What’s going on?” she asked, but even to herself, her voice sounded dreamy and faraway.
    Her family and Dr. Vega all looked at her, expressions of surprise on their faces.
    She wasn’t sure if they answered her or not, because suddenly all she could see was the book.
    The Bronze Codex.
    She hadn’t seen it since the night she woke up back in Toronto,Markus King, her father, and Crys standing over her. She’d been so out of it then that she hadn’t been able to register much. All she could do was blindly obey when Crys told her to run.
    Since then, everyone had been treating her with kid gloves. And it didn’t take psychic abilities for her to get the funny feeling that she was the main topic of hushed conversation in their temporary lodging. Her family and Dr. Vega spoke in whispers, and whenever Becca entered a room, they’d go quiet and look guilty. She tried very hard not to let it bother her, but how could it not?
    Becca Hatcher: the crazy girl who claimed her spirit went on vacation to another world. Was that how they saw her?
    Brain fuzzy, gaze locked on the leather-bound book, she stood there in the threshold for what felt like a very long time.
    It’s calling to me
, she thought suddenly.
It wanted me to come here.
    “
Becca?
” came the sound of her name, but it was soft, like an echo underwater.
    Did anyone else even realize how beautiful the Codex was? From the moment the book had arrived at the Speckled Muse, she’d felt an inexplicable but nonetheless immediate connection with it. She couldn’t read its language—not in the traditional sense, at least. She didn’t know what it was that day, of course, but she’d still felt oddly—
how to explain it?—protective
of it.
    That feeling had never entirely gone away, but right now it was stronger than ever before.
    That book belonged to her, no one else.
    “Becca, I’m seriously going to slap you if you don’t say something.”
    “Don’t say that, Crys.”
    “Mom, look at her. She’s, like, possessed or something.”
    “Becca, honey.” Becca barely felt her aunt touch her shoulder,but the pressure was enough to make her raise her chin and see Jackie at her side, peering at her warily. “Are you all right?”
    “Fine,” Becca murmured. “But you should know, there’s a spirit trapped in the hawk.”
    “Okay, now she’s seriously talking crazy,” Crys said.
    Ignoring her sister, she focused on a memory of Maddox using his magic to pull a dark and violent spirit away from her. He’d trapped that spirit in a piece of metal—the bronze hawk on the cover of the Codex.
    With the spirit trapped inside of it, the metal had given off an aura so bone-chillingly cold it felt as if it could freeze her very soul.
    But today the book ushered in a warming sensation. An aura that felt welcoming.
Sparkly
, even, like a pleasant shiver down one’s spine. The sensation shifted to an image: somewhere that was big, vast, and endless, sprawling over miles. Hundreds, thousands of miles.
    Rolling meadows of green grass, jewel-like flowers of every shade and size, and a city made from crystal that sparkled like diamonds under the sun . . .
    In three swift, thudding motions, Dr. Vega slammed the Codex shut, dropped it in a desk drawer, and locked it with a key.
    She felt a cold pain hit her, as if an elastic band had suddenly snapped inside her brain, and she gasped. After the pain cleared, her mind finally did the same, and she looked up at her family with a wide, wondering gaze.
    “Thank God.” Crys sighed. Her face was pale and drawn. “No more glowy eyes. I don’t like the glowy eyes