Charlton grimaced every time the plaintiffs’ lawyers referred to him as “Good-Time Charlie” while assassinating his good character. He’d been cleared criminally, so what if it was on a technicality, he’d done nothing wrong. All this acrimony towards him was nothing more than regret, a way to rationalize a sordid past and leave it behind.
Lilith remained obscured in the shadows. Studying the creature for a tell, anything to gain advantage. Watching as doomed suitors offer wealth and sacrifice in exchange for favour. Each left retreating, begging for mercy in the flashes before receiving a final, brutal verdict.
She expected something sinister in its fiery red eyes. Instead, she glimpsed something she understood, a loneliness shrouded behind the beast’s perpetually shifting facade.
Disarmed for a moment, it sensed her in the darkness. She wasn’t ready, but it was time…
Gaze averted, her eye catches something engraved in the brimstone.
A beast indebted offers servitude,
A stitch of time and don’t be rude.
Securing the beast’s loyalty would be a momentous feat, she thought as she entered its lair, but weeks of ruminating over every detail wouldn’t matter if she couldn’t choke back her screams…
Her fingers stroked the rough-hewn thirteenth-century leather cover. Ancora had outdone herself, Lilith thought.
She flipped until the hand-bound pages fell to the spell she sought. A grin formed as she skimmed the incantation. Lilith wanted to recite it but the bookseller had warned of dangerous consequences. Forbidden to ask for assurances she would need to manipulate the beast into believing it offered to protect her freely. Revenge would have to wait.
The shop’s bell rang as Lilith entered, high on thoughts of exacting justice.
Ancora was accomplished, a bibliopole with access to ancient texts. Her services came with risks, but she’d track down an early edition of “Spells and Curses.”
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