Chapter 23

He skimmed through the book on magic. From what he could gather, magic was a combination of elemental ingredients, with one common item—something from the mage. Blood, hair, sweat, tears…everything he could think of was used, including semen in a couple spells that made him blush. They required the magemrsquo;s essence to trigger the effects, a primordial soup that unleashed possibilities most men could only imagine.

It was evening by the time he got to the book on familiars. He’d hoped Rowan would show his face, but nobody knocked at his door, and the phone never rang. The latter surprised him. As worried as Uncle Martin had been about leaving him alone, he would’ve thought he’d call at least once to check that he was okay.