My tongue tingles as if I’ve touched it to a small battery.
“It’s written by a wizard by the name of Apuleius. There’s a stamp here. This book belonged in the Library of Alexandria.”
Dorian straightens, anticipation making his muscles grow taut. Atticus lets out a shuddering breath.
“Really?” he asks. “TheLibrary of Alexandria?”
“Yes,” I say. “It must have survived the fire, probably brought to Sibylline for safekeeping.” Maybe Aspen was a little right. If not for Sibylline, it would have been lost. The book feels ancient, like a tree with a million rings in its trunk. Somehow touching it feelssacrilegious. I want to be respectful, but at the same time, I want to know everything it contains.
I open the cover, and the words practically leap off the page.
“It’s a book of incantations, all of them meticulously detailed, as if the inscriber was documenting them for future generations. A step-by-step guide to the arcane wisdom within the ancient language.”
Atticus and Dorian look at me, waiting, unable to do any of this without me.
Satisfaction worms its way inside of me. They need me. Without my power, they would have no idea what this book contains. When I flip another page, there’s a diagram of a man, naked, impressed upon a pentagram. His head and splayed arms and legs make up the points of a star, and each point is labeled with an astrological symbol.
When Dorian sees it, he stiffens at my side. “What’s that?” he asks.
“It’s a ceremonial ritual, the invocation of a spirit.”
Dorian leans forward, his forehead creased.
“Do you recognize it?” Atticus asks.
“I’ve seen something like it,” he says soberly. He tugs at his gloves.
“What’s an invocation again?” Atticus asks.
“Calling forth a spirit into our realm, manifesting its energy,” I say. “It’s different from an evocation, where you call a spirit into the material world. In an invocation, you call a spirit intoyou.”
A worried expression crosses Dorian’s face.
“We don’t have to do anything like that,” I say. “We should start small, try something easy.” We take performing our first spell seriously as we meticulously go through each page of the bookfor at least an hour until we unanimously agree on one: a simple conjuration to light a candle. It was one of the first things a young magician learned back then. There’s little room for error. Either the spell works or it doesn’t. It’s reasonable for us to start small, after all.
Dorian seems more at ease with our choice at least.
“What do you need us to do?” Atticus asks me.
I check and double-check the instructions. It’s a straightforward spell. “This one only requires a vocal command and a sigil.”
“Sounds simple,” says Atticus.
“Atticus, can you fetch the candle from the windowsill there? And hand me my journal, please, Dorian,” I say. They do, eager to begin.
I open my journal to a blank page, where I copy the sigil as it is in the book, a simple triangle—the alchemical symbol for fire—writing the same Latin phrase on each of the three sides, exactly as detailed in the grimoire.
I explain as I work, “It says that the upright triangle is the symbol for fire, a representation of rising energy, of reaching above, whatever that means. The triangle is also the strongest of the basic shapes, or so it claims. Every line supports the others. Without one, it falls apart. Some sort of ancient logic.”
“Makes sense, I guess,” says Atticus, shrugging.
Dorian kneels on the other side of the coffee table, opposite me, and Atticus now hovers behind me, leaning over to look at the book. I can smell his aftershave, that familiar scent that brings me back to the days we spent in his room, poring over books late into the night, moonlight breaking through the window. It was a time of possibilities, of promises, of the future. I want to impress both of them. I want to impresshim.
“So what now?” Atticus asks.
“Just watch,” I say, placing the unlit candle over the paper where I drew the sigil. I push the book away and get up on my knees, stationing myself so I have a clear view of everything involved in the spell.
“I think I’m ready,” I say, but I hesitate. Something holds my tongue. I want to do this, but I don’t truly know what is going to happen. I could be doing this wrong. There could be a thousand things I don’t understand about this spell. The anticipation sits like a stone in my mouth, preventing me from speaking. This, right here and right now, is everything I’ve been waiting for, so what’s holding me back?
