I squeezed the bridge of my nose and sighed. This old lecture again. I braced myself, prepared for the worst.
“You should be like an artist. An author. A musician. Study the works of others, master it, so you may turn within yourself and create your own masterpiece, your own manuscript. Your own symphony of annihilation! Why, I remember when I crafted my very first spell. It was three hundred years ago, to this very day.”
My lips tightened into a straight line as I pretended to listen. Damn it, it was always exactly three hundred years ago, no matter what day of the year it was. I’d heard this story dozens of times before. The gist of this whole, droning lecture would inevitably end in Dantaleon telling me, once again, that I needed to stop paying so much attention to the works of others.
“It is high time you attempted to craft your own spells, Quilliam.” It was the first time all morning that Dantaleon’s voice had approached anything friendly. He was speaking softly, the way he might when he was trying to impart an important lesson. “Have you not learned enough? Have you not acquired so many of these grimoires, these toys and distractions? You are a man now, no longer a boy.”
His pages flipped slowly as he spoke, his own way of getting his point across visually. Sheets upon endless sheets of crackling parchment were lovingly inscribed with the complex illustrations and instructions that detailed a valuable arsenal of spells and enchantments, each of them researched and created by Dantaleon himself. My mouth watered at the prospect of learning even a fraction of the rare and powerful magics he kept in his private collection – no, in his own body.
I knew that I was going to piss him off, which was probably part of why I did it, but in response, I only shrugged and said a few words. “This is more fun. This is easier.”
That did it. The temperature in the room dropped several degrees, which was frightening enough for me considering what that might do to my precious collection. It only got worse when Dantaleon’s pages began turning briskly, shuffling like the world’s angriest, deadliest deck of cards.
And then his pages burst into flames.
5
Damn it. First Pierce, now Dantaleon? Things just weren’t going my way. And I hadn’t even eaten a thing all day. Granted, totally my fault that I skipped breakfast, but how else was I supposed to sneak out stealthily if I showed up for eggs benedict and some of Hornbellow’s morning latte? Mmm. Latte.
My stomach grumbled, or so I thought. It was actually the low rumble of Dantaleon’s voice, transformed in his fury, emanating from the pages of his book like dead thunder.
“Must we have this conversation each time, boy? You know better than to taunt me.”
I settled the Testament of Spheres down on a nearby table, bracing myself for Dantaleon’s attack. “I know well enough that this is how you think you test me, but all you’re really doing is showing off, Dantaleon.”
The room shook when Dantaleon roared, the air almost electric. “Fool boy,” he said. “Why do you antagonize the very ones who would show you wisdom and love? Why, even your royal mother – bless Her Infernal Majesty – must contend with your impudence and your smart mouth. You truly are not as cunning or as clever as you think you are, Quilliam.”
“You’re right,” I said. “I’m smarter.”
Was it foolhardy to taunt him even more when he was already pissed off? Sure, maybe. Was it fun to do so? Almost certainly.
The ink on Dantaleon’s pages shifted and bled until they formed into the vague depiction of a wrinkled, demonic face, a bizarre and horrifying projection of what his head looked like in life. It peered at me evilly out of black eyes, its mouth drawn back in a sharp, fanged sneer. “Brace yourself, child. It is not in my syllabus to harm you, and yet here we find ourselves, day after day.”
I folded my arms and raised my chin at him. “What’ll it be this time, Dantaleon? A barrage of ice? A hail of needles? Or maybe more of those exploding bats?”
Remind me to tell you about the exploding bats. It wasn’t pretty. The little bastards hurt, and they left their guts all over the place. Granted, the viscera disappeared after some hours – they weren’t real animals, just Dantaleon’s conjurations – but my mouth happened to be open when the first salvo exploded. It’s hard to get the taste of raw flying rodent out of your mouth.
“Such impudence,” Dantaleon said, his tone calmer. The Repository’s temperature was going back up, too. See? I was learning. I paid attention to his lessons all the time. He was going to attack me with fire magic.
The face on Dantaleon’s pages broke into cackling laughter as it faded from the parchment. The book spun in a circle as it hovered in place, issuing a slow, creeping wall of flame as high as the ceiling. My stomach fell.
He wasn’t attacking me. He was attacking my books.
I reached out, eyes huge, the sweat on my skin instantly gone ice-cold. My arms spread apart as I unleashed the only spell that I knew would have even a snowball’s chance in hell of working.
“Arma grandia,” I screamed.
A sphere of red light manifested between my palms, then expanded outward in a flash, adhering to the bookshelves arranged in a circle along the Repository’s walls. My breathing was ragged, the sound of my heart pounding in my ears as I begged for my shielding to be sturdy enough, as I poured more of my essence into the barrier, the life leaking out of me in exhausting waves.
The flames reached the bookshelves, and my
