Sorcery of Thorns Read Online Free PDF

the texture of silk. She didn’t know why she would notice such a thing. Hastily, she snatched her hands from him and backedaway.
    To her dismay, he grinned. “Don’t worry,” he assured her, smoothing his tousled hair. “Young ladies have seized me in far more compromising locations. I understand the impulse can be overpowering.”
    Without waiting for her reaction, he turned to study the wreckage. After a moment of consideration, he raised his hand and spoke a string of words that left her ears buzzing and her head turnedinside-out. Dazed, she realized that he was speaking Enochian. It was unlike any language she had heard before. She felt as though she should recognize the words, but the moment she tried to repeat them to herself, the syllables trickled from her mind, leaving only a raw, resounding silence, like the air after a deafening clap of thunder.
    Her hearing returned with a susurrus of rustling paper.The pile of spilled grimoires had begun to stir. One by one, they lifted into the air, floating in front of the sorcerer’s extended hand amid swirls of emerald light. They spun and flipped and shuffled, sorting themselves back into alphabetical order while behind them, the fallen bookcase righted itself with a labored creak. The broken shelves fused, whole again; the grimoires flew back to theiroriginal positions, a few reluctant stragglers switching places at the last second.
    Magic , she thought. That is what magic looks like. And then, before she could stop herself, It’s beautiful.
    She would never dare give voice to such a thought aloud. The sentiment verged on betraying her oaths to the Great Library.But a part of her rebelled against the idea that in order to be a good apprentice,she should close her eyes and pretend she hadn’t seen. How could a warden defend against something they didn’t understand? Surely it was better to face evil than cower from its presence, learning nothing.
    Emerald sparks still danced across the tidied shelves. She stepped forward to touch the grimoires, and felt the magic skate across her skin, bright and tingling, as though she’d plunged herhands into a bucket of champagne. Surprisingly, the sensation wasn’t painful. Nothing happened to her body—her hands didn’t change color, or shrivel like a prune.
    When she looked up, however, the sorcerer was staring at her as though she’d grown a second head. Clearly, he had expected her to be afraid.
    “Where is the smell?” she asked, emboldened.
    He appeared momentarily at a loss. “The what?”
    “That smell—the one like burnt metal. That’s sorcery, isn’t it?”
    “Ah.” A line appeared between his dark brows. Perhaps she had overstepped. But then he went on, “Not exactly. It accompanies sorcery sometimes, if the spell is powerful enough. Technically it isn’t the smell of magic, but a reaction when the substance of the Otherworld—that is, the demon realm—comes into contact with ours—”
    “Likea chemical reaction?” Elisabeth asked.
    He was looking at her even more strangely now. “Yes, precisely.”
    “Is there a name for it?”
    “We call it aetherial combustion. But how did you—?”
    He broke off as another knock came on the door. “We’re ready for you, Magister Thorn,” said the Director outside.
    “Yes,” he replied. “Yes, I—one moment.”
    He glanced back at Elisabeth, as though he half expectedher to have vanished like a mirage the instant he turned away. His pale eyes bored into her. For a moment, it seemed he might do something more. Utter a parting word, or conjure a spell to punish her for her insolence. She squared her shoulders, bracing for the worst.
    Then a shadow crossed his face, and his eyes shuttered. He pivoted on his heel and started for the door without speaking. A finalreminder that he was a magister and she a lowly apprentice librarian, wholly beneath his notice.
    She slipped back behind the shelves, breathless. A hand darted out and gripped