“Okay, wow,” I managed through tingling lips, yanking my hands back. “That is, uh, not how I remember our copy of the Grimoire.”

“I’m not surprised. This is the original, after all.” My father spread his hands, grinning at my awe, though a trace of that complex look still lingered in his eyes. “The spellbook written by Elias Harlow himself. It’s kept locked away by our family between Gauntlets, to foil any attempts at tampering or cheating. And you are the Arbiter now, scoot. It’s been waiting for you to open it for many, many years.”

I shuffled a half step away from the desk, leery of being reeled in again by that forceful undertow. “So what does that mean, really, being Arbiter? What am I going to need to do?”

My father took a seat at the desk, motioning me toward the other chair. “How much do you remember about the Gauntlet?”

“All the basic stuff. A spellcasting tournament of three challenges for the three competing houses,” I said, ticking them off my fingers as I sat down a healthy distance from the desk, still wary of getting too close to this Grimoire. “Magical contests of strength, wit, and speed. Kind of drawing a blank beyond that, though. I don’t recall reading much about the Arbiter’s specific responsibilities.”

It had been a very long time since I read the Harlow copy of the Grimoire from cover to cover. Back when we were in our early teens, Delilah and I had alternated weeks in checking it out from my dad at Tomes & Omens, all but wrestling each other to the ground over whose turn it was. As if the store was our personal library, and the Grimoire itself something that rightfully belonged to us even if it did have to be borrowed.

That nerdy little witch I used to be, immersed in my family’s spellbook for hours and so in love with magic, felt like a distant, achy memory. Somebody I’d once known well, but hadn’t seen in years.

“That’s because that bit wouldn’t have been in our family’s copy of the Grimoire. The four others are almost exact facsimiles of this one, but the original isn’t just a spellbook . . . part of it is a spell. You won’t find this particular section in any of the others.”

His eyes agleam with the zeal of a scholar on a roll, he cracked the heavy book open about three-quarters of the way through, sliding it toward me.

“ ‘Incantations for the Gauntlet of the Grove,’ ” I read on the open page, in a flowing antiquated script full of flourishes and loops. Below the title, the rest of the page was blank. “But there’s nothing here?”

“The challenges will appear only for the Arbiter, and only when it’s time,” he explained. “That way, the competing families couldn’t possibly prepare for them in advance. On Wednesday night, you’ll put on the Arbiter’s mantle, and once its spell activates, the charm that declares the Gauntlet open will manifest for you. The mantle’s spell also serves to magnify your senses—so you can see what plays out between the combatants during challenges, down to the smallest detail.”