The pages were adorned with handwritten scribbles, illegible to even a well-versed scholar, or at least Gil had to assume. “I don’t understand, what language even is that? Is it from the Green Isles? Irmous?” he asked. He knew that Warren had learned to read in several languages, one or two even that wasn’t common to their continent, but this didn’t even look like it could have been from the Far Western Mountain Region. 

“No, it’s much rarer than that! So rare only a handful in the world know how to read and interpret it. No, these writings are more than just a language. These writings speak of the mysteries and the truths of our world. It’s the breaths of the trees and the songs of the bird and the great roars of the ocean. No, my dear friend. This is not just a language. This… is a book written in Theban,” he said.

Gil felt the chill pierce his flesh again as the word cut through him like the wind outside. He shivered, looking down at the book again. Theban... The language of the forbidden. Gil felt his heartbeat in his ears and his blood fall to his feet as if it too were trying to escape the reality of what he’d just heard. “T-theban?” he repeated out loud.

“Theban! The language of the Wit-” 

Warren yanked Gil close to him and clasped a hand tightly over Gil’s mouth, muffling the shout from him. There was a moment where Gil was pressed so tightly to the young Lord’s chest he could feel him hold his breath. His own heart pounded in his ear. Once, twice, three times. Long beats like a drum at the climax of a play, announcing the coming danger for the heroes. 

Luckily, that danger never came. The housekeeper and Stewart were too far down the hall to hear Gil’s surprised shouts. It was for the best too, the young man’s fear did not come unwarranted. Possessing books written in Theban was a capital offense. It was a crime not even the son of the state’s Governor could escape.

Warren finally loosened his grip on Gil but had to quickly find his hold again when he felt his companion slip towards the ground instead of regaining his composure on his own two feet. 

“Do not lose track of your voice again. You of all people should know a  manor home is known for the attentiveness of its caretakers,”  Warren warned, though he kept his arm around Gil’s waist to keep him from collapsing. 

As Gil regained his footing, he couldn’t help but stare at Warren, open-mouthed for a moment. In all the years of his life, he would’ve never thought that this man with such a bookish disposition would do something as stupid, as foolishly reckless, as seek out text like this. He had never guessed that there would be danger in the hobby of book collecting.

    “Warren.. .” His voice was still shaky. “You know what that is... it’s a spell book, the personal writings of a Witch! Forbidden knowledge! You’re treading on the grounds of the divine!” he exclaimed in as soft a whisper as he could muster at this point. 

“Listen to yourself Gil, forbidden knowledge? The divine?” He scoffed, flipping through a few pages of the journal. “There should be no such thing as forbidden knowledge. If Cors is so divine and powerful do you really think that he’d just allow the creation of something forbidden?  Don’t you think he’d strike down those reckless fools instead of letting them write it down in a book?” he asked.

“You’re a reckless fool!” Gil snapped again. “Do you think a god gives a damn about your personal philosophy? What you’re saying is blasphemy, and what you’re holding is taboo!” He took his master’s hands as they held the book. “Please, you still have a chance, throw it into the fireplace, no one will ever know that you had it. Please!” He begged. Warren’s grip tightened around the book, and his gaze grew more steely than Gil could ever remember seeing it. 

“Gilbert.”

His full name sounded as foreign as the writings of that book when Warren spoke it.

“You have a choice before you it seems,” Warren said. Never before had he sounded so much like a Lord whilst in private.

The choice didn’t need to be said aloud. Gil knew what he meant. By confessing the existence of the book, Gil risked sentencing Warren to the hangman’s noose for heresy. By keeping quiet Gil made himself an accomplice to his Master’s explorations into the forbidden. There would be no leniency for a man’s servant who willingly turned a blind eye to the defiance of the Divine.

Gil felt his heart beat in his chest like a drum. Once, twice, three times. 

He took a few steps back before sinking into the couch behind him, wishing he could fold up and disappear between its cracks. “At least… tell me what it says. That way I cannot blame you if I am punished for these trespasses. If I hold those forbidden words as well then these transgressions are mine as well,” he said, his eyes locked on the floor beneath his feet. The carpet swirled and swayed like the waves of a pond after chucking a rock unceremoniously into its waters.

Those waters were interrupted as Warren began to read and drew Gil’s gaze to his radiant smile. The warmth of Warren’s comfort felt misguided and out of place in the turmoil of the moment. There was no time to ponder how Warren knew the words of a language he had no right to understand

“To those who turn, in this moment of lost hope, to the heavens for the answers to the troubled fate that has mounted against them. Do not beseech those who do not have ears to listen for help to guide you through the dense forest and the troubled ocean, but look amongst these pages for the songs of the trees and the waves. For only through understanding how each breath of the earth stirs each strike of lightning will you learn the language of the sky and the sea. Then, and only then, with the knowledge of the very existence of life will you be able to move through the darkness with absolute certainty.

This is the Grimoire of Edwina Eudora Rowena Rose. May this book be your match with which you create your spark.”