Grimoires and Where to Find Them by Raconteur, Honor (ebook reader for laptop .txt) 📕

that. Eddy’s a great choice—he’s literally the best consultant for this job we could get. He’s already semi-read into the situation, too, which makes it even better.”

Foster seemed relieved I saw his point.

Henri and Sherard weren’t as enthused, but they had very mixed feelings where Eddy was concerned, so I let that one ride without comment.

“All of this sounds…well, mostly feasible,” Niamh allowed, brows twisted up in an uncertain expression. “But, do you think your captain will agree? Gibson, what about you?”

Gibs had been very quiet during all of this, not uttering a peep. He lifted a finger, a cautionary gesture. “Possibly. Can you tag the grimoire so that even if he escapes, you can track it?”

Oooh, good idea. See? Lunch had been an excellent suggestion. People had come back with their brains in working order.

Sherard pursed his lips in thought. “No, I don’t think that’s wise. I’d rather not have an actual grimoire on premises. There’s nothing foolproof about this plan.”

“That, there is not.” Gibson unbent enough to admit, “But I do like it. What are you thinking, Seaton? A fake?”

“It would do the job just as well, and it’ll be easy to attach a tracking spell to it.”

Gibson nodded in agreement, a thoughtful expression on his face. “It gives us a chance to catch this man sooner rather than later, too, which I’m very keen to do. Having Massimo out at large scares me down to my undies. I really want this man safely behind bars before he can do something else catastrophically stupid.”

I wished he was sitting closer so I could high-five him. “Amen to that. Alright, are we all in agreement this idea is our best bet? Cool. In that case, I’m going to go run this by Gregson.”

Everyone smiled, silently wishing me good luck.

I glared back at them. “Seriously? Not one of you is going to come with me to pitch this?”

Just smiles. No one stood up.

“Traitors, the lot of you.” See if I gave them any more of my precious strawberries.

My ever-patient captain looked at me over the top of his hands like a man waiting patiently for the punch line of a very long joke. When I finally wound down, he kept staring at me, waiting.

“No, that’s it, that’s our idea,” I finally said.

“You want to ask a frail, elderly aristocrat if you can turn her house into a trap, then have her host a party this department will have to fund, pull your fellow officers into it to act as both guards and guests—not to mention the Queen’s thief—all to bait a thief into possibly coming to steal a magically dangerous grimoire?”

You know, when he said it like that, it did kind of sound like a tall order, didn’t it?

I didn’t know what else to say except, “Uh, yes? We’ll use a fake grimoire if that makes you feel better.”

Gregson sighed, head sinking into his hands for a moment. “How bad is the situation that everyone thought this was a good idea?”

“Well, on a scale of one to ten, one being minor ouches, ten being the city exploding, we’re hovering somewhere around an eight? I mean, the apartment that melted wasn’t even housing the grimoires we’re looking for. He’s got them stashed somewhere else, and who knows how many unprotected grimoires he’s got there….”

I did feel some sympathy for him. Gregson was so good at rolling with things, and it’s part of why I liked working with him. I threw a lot of weird crap at the man on a pretty regular basis, and it normally didn’t faze him much.

I think I might have hit his weird tolerance limit, though.

He lifted his head, expression pained. “Is it really that bad?”

“Volatile, is how Henri puts it. See, the thing is, this thief has no idea how to handle a magical grimoire. Literally none. He keeps stealing them without their protective boxes, which…look, the first time that happened, I thought Henri was going to have a heart attack right on the spot. That’s how unnerved he was. So, Massimo leaves the protective boxes off, and then he has a habit of stacking the grimoires together. Between those two things, it was literally melting a brick apartment building. Melting. Brick. And it caused everyone in the building and some of the neighboring buildings to be sick, hallucinate, the works.”

Gregson winced, looking as if that mental picture gave him nightmares. “No wonder you’re trying to catch him quickly. This isn’t a situation you can give much time to.”

“Nope,” I agreed, popping the p.

He sighed again, aging five years before my eyes. “I really can’t think of a better solution, either.”

“None of us can. And I’ve got two registered geniuses working this case, so that should tell you something.”

“Truly. Alright. I’ll agree to this with two caveats. One, Lady Radman must agree to this without being coerced into it.”

“Done.” I didn’t think I’d get much of an argument from her. She was pretty mad. And you don’t want to mess with an angry woman.

“Two, if Eddy Jameson steals something he’s not supposed to, you have to deal with it.”

“Okay.” Again, I didn’t foresee an issue. Eddy’d actually turned a new leaf in the past year or so. And he wasn’t really stealing things to begin with, he just wanted to read the books.

“Tell me the precise plan when you have it, and try to keep this as low budget as possible.” Gregson pointed to the door. “And leave. I need a drink.”

Fair enough. I popped up, but promised him, “I’ll call in to Christopher’s, pay for your dinner.”

“Are you bribing me, Detective?”

“No, sir. Preserving your sanity.”

“I have none of that left after dealing with you lot.” He paused. “And I want a steak dinner with all the trimmings.”

“Done.”

See? Best boss ever.

I went with Jamie to Lady Radman’s to present the plan to her. In part because I felt it only right to accompany Jamie, as it would be a difficult conversation. And in