Later that evening, Jack sat at his desk, sorting through the loot he’d stripped from the dead mage.

  A mage’s wand, a pocket watch, a folded map and letter, two coin pouches, a small velvet box, and a bronze ring. Beside them sat the etiquette book his dad had left for him.

  Jack smiled as he glanced at the cover of The Gentlemen’s Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness, remembering the first time his father had given him that book. He’d been sixteen in his first life as well, a freshly hired Novice Scribe on his first day at the Royal Library. That morning, full of nerves, excitement, and determination, he’d spent extra time polishing his boots, straightening his cuffs, and rehearsing polite greetings in his head. He knew the basics of noble etiquette, how to bow, how to address the Baron, and how to stand properly when spoken to.

  And yet, when the moment arrived, he’d stumbled. He remembered the grand oak-panelled corridor where he’d met Baron Greaves, the noble overseeing the library’s most prestigious projects. Jack had been heading to the Ancient Texts Department with an armful of freshly copied scrolls, and he’d turned a sharp corner and come within inches of colliding with the Baron himself.

  Heart racing, Jack had dipped into a respectful bow, head lowered, as was proper. But when the Baron extended his hand, a courteous, informal gesture for such a lofty noble, Jack, flustered and panicked, his mind went blank.

  Instead of shaking the offered hand, he grabbed it, bent over like a courtier, and kissed the Baron’s knuckles. Just like he’d seen in old storybooks. In the process, he dropped all the scrolls he’d held at the Baron’s feet.

  The Baron had stared at him in baffled amusement. Jack, realising too late that hand-kissing was something noblemen did with ladies. His embarrassment had made him wish the floor would swallow him whole.

  Greaves had chuckled, patted Jack on the shoulder, and carried on with his day like nothing had happened.

  That evening, when his father heard what happened, he had gone pale, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Jack,” he’d murmured with a heavy sigh, “we’re not courting him.”

  The next morning, The Gentlemen’s Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness had been waiting on his desk.

  Now, flipping the cover open, Jack gave a bittersweet smile at the memory. The Baron had never mentioned the incident again, and none of the other scribes had witnessed it. But he’d read the book cover to cover that week, determined never to make such a blunder again.

  He closed the book. “I already know this by heart, Dad.” Years later, he’d reread the book in memory of his father, and the [Perfect Recall] skill had done the rest. “But thanks anyway.”

  He moved to empty the coins from the two looted coin pouches. “9 gold, 42 silver, and 14 coppers,” he murmured, separating the gleaming coins. He stashed 7 gold in the finer-quality purse and hid it on his bookshelf inside a hollow bookend. The rest went into his own pouch. “Dealing drugs must pay well.” His short-term coin problem was solved.

  Jack examined the pocket watch next. “Not bad craftsmanship.” He smiled, knowing his father would gift him his grandfather’s watch on Monday, before his first day at the Royal Library. “This one goes in the sell pile.”

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  The mage’s wand was a thin brass tube etched with rune enchantments. An experienced mage was capable of firing their spells through almost any body part, but like with spell scrolls, it was easier to aim with a palm. The wand made it even easier to point and shoot. A basic wand didn’t add any extra power; it was a simple conduit for improving a mage’s aim. Better quality wands could add more power and other effects.

  Jack turned the wand over to examine it; this was the first time he’d held one. As a scribe, he couldn’t use a wand, but he understood their construction. The wand held high-quality processed aether-crystals that would last for decades.

  “Should be worth over a gold,” he guessed, though he wasn’t certain of the exact price. He set it aside.

  The bronze ring was plain, bearing an unfamiliar coin-shaped emblem on its face. “Probably worth a few silvers,” he murmured. Into the sell pile it went. He looked at the smirking face of Hermes still within PenDragon’s grip. “That reminds me, I still have to put you on a cord.”

  He opened the velvet box and scowled. “Of course. Fucking drugs.” Inside sat eleven doses of Wraith’s Hunger. “That’s going in the bin,” Jack said. Despite the street value, he had no intention of becoming a drug peddler.

  Jack opened the map. It was a well-worn map of Lundun with various points marked off. He memorised it. “I wonder what the marks mean?” There were red crosses and black circles, about thirty of them. With no key to what they meant, it would require checking out each location to see what was there.

  He opened the letter and smiled. “It’s encoded. This will be fun.” He stuffed the map along with the maps he’d bought earlier that day on his bookshelf and stored the items he planned to sell back in his pack.

  Jack sat at his desk with the encoded letter and activated his [Create Cypher/Decipher] skill. He smiled as he felt the skill activate. After the fire that destroyed his life, he didn’t have much use for the skill, so it had remained at a low level, level 4.

  He leaned over the letter with his scribe pen in his hand before writing down what the encoded letter hid. Twenty minutes later, it was decoded. “That was too easy.” He was disappointed that the cypher wasn’t much of a challenge.

  The letter detailed plans to expand the sale of Wraith’s Hunger in Lundun, with marked supply points and drop locations.

  Jack grimaced. He had no love for drug networks. “So that’s what the marks on the map are for. I’ll send this all to the city guard… anonymously.” He penned a note explaining where the letter and map had come from, and included likenesses of the mage and his two buyers, using his [Draughtsmanship] skill to sketch them in high quality.

  “I’m becoming a part-time vigilante,” he joked, folding everything into a packet to be delivered to the city guards the next morning. As a last thought, he added the eleven doses of Wraith’s Hunger as well. He kept the small velvet box.

  He checked the time and sighed. “Already gone ten.” He’d wasted so much time dealing with the mage that he hadn’t completed a single spell scroll.

  At least the gold’s something, he reminded himself. “Hmm… that would’ve taken me five days of non-stop work to earn that much.” To earn over 9 gold through scroll work, he would’ve needed to inscribe over one hundred and thirty [Chronos Sphere] scrolls.

  He gave a tired, bittersweet smile. “I guess it wasn’t such a bad day after all.” And yet, the faint shadow of guilt lingered, curling at the edge of his thoughts. Profiting from a man’s death, no matter how deserved, felt wrong.

  After storing away his ill-gotten gains, he thought about his future plans. “I should make a start on the grimoire.”

  With all that had happened, he’d not found the time to enact his plan to make a copy of the encrypted and decrypted blood magic grimoire from his first life. If he made a copy of the entire tome, it would likely take him weeks, but his plan was to send a partial copy of both the encrypted and unencrypted versions. He was concerned that the Inquisition might be infiltrated by blood mages, and the last thing he wanted to do was gift blood mages more forbidden magic.

  He spent the next couple of hours making a partial copy of the encrypted blood magic grimoire that ruined his first life. Limiting what he included to useless information that couldn’t be used to harm anyone.

  “That will do for now,” Jack said while storing the pages with the likenesses of Baron Greaves and the other blood mages. “I’ll do the rest later.”

  Chapter 104 Nightmare For A Cold-Blooded Killer