In Plain Sight

“And now, so do you,” Iggy said. “Don’t you see? Anyone who knows about the Monograph is a target. That’s what I wanted to spare you from. Just imagine what would happen if your friend Daniel suspected that you have the book? What if he were to mention those suspicions to his father in casual conversation?”

Alex developed a sudden chill. Danny wouldn’t care that Iggy had the Monograph, but his father wouldn’t be able to resist it. He’d try to bust down the door to the brownstone and take it.

“And what about Sorsha?” Iggy continued. “Why she’d…” Iggy stopped, a startled expression on his face. He slowly turned to Alex. “You said she used a truth spell on you at Thomas Rockwell’s workshop,” he said. “That was last night. After you discovered the book. Does she know?”

Alex laughed and shook his head. “You know she doesn’t,” he said. “You were just about to say what she’d do if she knew the book was here, and you’d have been right.”

“Then how…?”

“Truth spells aren’t illegal because they work,” Alex said. “They’re illegal because they’re unreliable. Remember the Lindberg case? By the time they got the truth out of the accomplice, the baby was already dead. All you have to do to beat a truth spell is have a better truth to tell.”

“I… don’t understand,” Iggy said. He still had a look of alarm on his face.

“Sorsha asked me if I could finish unraveling the rune Evelyn used,” Alex said, ticking it off on his finger. “I designed that rune so that it can’t be unraveled, not without going back to the original and starting over. I did that in case it fell into the wrong hands.”

“So when you said you couldn’t, you were telling the truth,” Iggy said. “Just not the whole truth.”

“Truth spells compel you to answer,” Alex said. “They don’t force you to elaborate. Next,” he said, ticking off another finger. “Sorsha asked me if I had found the Monograph.”

“But you had found it.”

Alex shook his head with a grin. “No, I just discovered it sitting on our bookshelf. You found it. You can only find things that are lost, and a book on a shelf in plain sight isn’t lost.”

Iggy looked incredulous.

“Isn’t that just your interpretation?”

“Of course,” Alex said. “But the spell was cast on me; its effect is limited to what I believe.”

“Was that it?”

“No, she asked me if I would ever search for the Monograph in the future. I could honestly tell her that I had no intention whatsoever of looking for the Monograph.”

Iggy chuckled, but then his face became serious again. “You got lucky,” he said. “If she’d asked better questions, I’d have had to disappear again. That’s why you need to forget what you’ve read in that book. If you start adding new and powerful runes to your repertoire, she’s going to figure it out. She isn’t stupid, you know.”

Alex shrugged. Iggy was right, of course. The Monograph was filled with amazing and powerful concepts, but he’d have to keep those out of his professional life.

Well, most of them.

Alex closed the Monograph and held it up.

“There are some very interesting things in here,” he said. “I’d love to hear your thoughts on them.”

Iggy laughed.

“There are notes in there from DaVinci and Ben Franklin,” he said. “I doubt I could add very much.”

“Not the way I see it,” Alex said. “You took these runes and made them part of your lore book. You had to make them powerful, but not so powerful or complex that people would wonder about their origin. I think you still have a lot to teach me.”

“But for how long?” Iggy whispered.

“Does that matter?” Alex said. “I did what you would have done in my shoes, what Sorsha would have done if she could have. Are you going to let that ruin our friendship?”

Iggy straightened up and took a deep breath. “No,” he declared at last. “But I’m still angry about the book.”

“I’m sorry,” Alex said. He didn’t know what else to say. He should have realized that Iggy would have a good reason for keeping those things from him. He should have trusted the man.

“I’m sorry too,” Iggy said, leaning heavily on the mantle. “The Monograph is a burden I would have spared you, but I am glad that you know the truth.”

“What now?” Alex asked after a long moment passed.

Iggy pushed away from the mantle and slipped the Archimedean Monograph back into its place on the bookshelf.

“Now, we carry on as if nothing has changed,” he said. “It’s our responsibility to keep the book out of the wrong hands.”

“But we study it,” Alex said. “There’s a lot in there I want to know.”

“Agreed,” Iggy said. “But I decide what we study. You’re not ready for all of it yet.”

“Agreed,” Alex said.

Iggy stuck out his hand and Alex shook it.

“I’m as hungry as a wolf,” he said, clearly feeling better than he had in days. “Let’s go get something to eat.”