Useless is what powerful people call things that do not serve them.
Old remedies. Children's songs. Household charms. Forgotten knowledge.
And books marked for the fire.
Mirela Dragan has survived by learning when to disappear, when to steal, and when not to ask permission.
Then she steals a battered little book from a Crown archive.
It should be worthless.
The spells inside are small, domestic things-the sort respectable scholars dismiss without a second glance. Spells for stubborn doors. Quiet hinges. Hidden bread. Overlooked paths.
Then one of them works.
And the Crown wants the book back.
Badly.
With Juko-a scruffy, one-eared dog with an exceptional talent for making difficult situations worse-at her side, Mirela takes to the road carrying a book everyone insists is useless and pursued by people behaving as though it is anything but.
Every spell raises another question.
Every locked door suggests something hidden behind it.
And Mirela is beginning to suspect that useless may simply be the word powerful people use for anything they cannot control.
Some spells are small.
Some doors should stay shut.
The Book of Useless Spells is dark fantasy of folk magic, forbidden knowledge and survival, told with a dry, biting wit.
Some spells don't save you.
They remember you.