“If the answers lay in books, I’m sure scholars would have found them by now,” I said gently. “But at least I know what… happened, now.”

Élise nodded. “We should go back – you are supposed to be dining with the King this evening.”

I made a face. “Watching him dine, you mean.”

Élise giggled and then clapped a hand over her mouth. “You’re fearless in the things you say, sometimes.”

I shrugged. “Foolish is probably a better word. But you’re right, we should go.”

As she turned, I shoved Anushka’s grimoire into the deep pocket of my dress. “What did you get up to while I was reading?”

A faint smile touched the corner of the girl’s lips. “Once he was finished helping you, Martin, the librarian, that is, he showed me how they keep track of all the books.”

Which sounded terribly boring to me, but I kept my mouth shut as I watched her trail a finger longingly along the spines of books on the shelves.

“Can half-bloods work in the library?” I asked.

“If by work, you mean clean the floors,” she said, looking at me out of the corner of her eye. I gave a slight nod of understanding, but in truth, my thoughts were all for the book burning a hole in my pocket. All I could think of was the grimoire and how for five centuries it had refused to open, only to release its clasp at the touch of my blood. And of that tantalizing chapter title: Trolls.

I walked through the streets of Trollus as quickly as I could without attracting notice. Not once did I even bother to glance up at the moon hole to assuage my sense of endless night like I usually did. When we made it back to my rooms, I made a beeline to the garderobe. It was the only place I was certain I could look at the book without worrying about someone walking in on me.

Sitting down on the seat, I pulled the book out of my pocket and, nipping at my fingertip, I allowed a drop of blood to fall on the clasp. It clicked open. I flipped to the page where I left off.

It was all blood magic. In tiny letters in one of the margins, I read why: The earth holds no power over these creatures who are not her children. No illness, infection, or poison can harm them. Nor would the blood of animals or even of a human suffice; only troll blood, sometimes a little and sometimes a lot. I wondered how she would obtain their blood. Certainly they would not volunteer it for anything that might be used against them. Then it occurred to me that perhaps she wasn’t performing these spells for herself, but rather for other trolls.

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to remember what I knew about Anushka herself. She’d been a courtesan. In other words, a high-priced prostitute. There was a spell for muting the connection between two bonded trolls – the advantages of that for someone in her line of work were clear enough: it would allow a troll to be unfaithful to his spouse without her suspecting. Other spells were for deception, delving into another’s thoughts, influencing moods. The worst were for murder: the easiest method for killing a troll is to separate him from his magic... accomplished with a pint of troll blood mixed with iron. When the mixture was thrown on another troll, he was blocked from his magic until the mixture was washed off. Strike immediately, Anushka advised. Their physical strength is formidable and they are exceedingly swift. The loss of their magic will provide only a moment of distraction.