Our Magic Binds Us

10. The Grimoire

"We need to find out what's going on." Talia said to Sabine and Chiron over breakfast.

"Well Hylonome said she would come back this morning to look at the grimoire properly, whist Cyllarus and Pholus show their faces around the clearing. Pholus wants to check how badly injured the remaining pixies are, and Cyllarus said he was going to find out what, if anything, anyone knows. You know Sabine I think he was secretly quite proud of you for saving that pixie's life. It killed him not to be able to help any of them...... don't tell him I said that though." Chiron added with a smile at the end.

"I don't mean that." Talia replied. "I mean we need to find out what Centaurus was up to on the bank with that Ogre."

"It is puzzling I agree, but like we said last night, right now there is nothing that we can do about that. We have nothing but what Sabine heard and if he is being secretive enough to meet the Ogre chief alone and in a discrete place like the bank then I don't see what else we can do. We have no more evidence."

"Then we should find some, it's not going to come to us while we sit around talking about it is it?" Talia argued back frustrated. Chiron sighed and looked over the table at Talia.

"Look Talia I know it is both strange and frustrating but for now all we can do is concentrate on deciphering the grimoire, Hylonome says it is in an ancient language she does not understand and so is bringing some of her books to help translate it later." Talia wanted to argue her point some more but he began eating again so she left it for now and continued with her own breakfast.

After hearing Chiron mention the grimoire again Sabine realized that after all of the events of the previous day she hadn't even looked at it. She got up from the breakfast table and squeezed Talia's arm on the way past, Talia looked up at her and Sabine gave her a reassuring smile. She wandered over to where the grimoire lay on the little table under the window. She picked it up and ran her hand over the ornate leather cover, so worn and used over time the leather had gone soft; it had beautiful patterns covering its entirety swirling around a large pentagram in the middle. Sabine ran her fingers slowly over this thoughtfully wondering where she had seen this book before. She sat down still staring at the cover. Talia watched her silently and then turned back to Chiron.

"What is it we hope to find in that book anyway? Some hidden clues about how I'm meant to be special, I honestly don't see how that's going to help anything anyway." Chiron held back a smile. Talia's young age shone through in the words that she spoke and reminded Chiron that she was still only a child, fourteen and with an attitude to match, funnily enough the defiance in her voice reminded him of Sabine. Maybe they were already closer linked than they all thought. He cleared his throat and made sure that there was no trace of a smile on his face when he spoke.

"Everyone believes you dead Talia. And all also believe that Sabine is now either dead or a recluse, you can't both stay locked up in here forever. If we can prove you are the Aesthete Go Nor as Sabine is the Dins Amours Bugic it will strengthen our chances of ever being able to tell everyone you are in actual fact alive and well and give us a reason for concealing you, both of you." He looked over at Sabine, she was absorbed in the cover of the grimoire, but the way she moved her head told him she was still listening. Talia was ready with her answer this time.

"I thought the whole idea of finding out any of these things was to take the information to Centaurus, to let him know that Sabine no longer needed to hide and that I wasn't dead and that we had finally found a way to protect the realm and rid it of the Ogres once and for all!" she didn't wait for a reply, she ploughed on. "After what Sabine saw and heard last night I think the last person we should be taking any information to is Centaurus!" The argumentative child in her was gone again as words beyond her years spilled from her mouth and filled the room with uncertainty.