“An evocation.” I realize the words and phrasing are similar to the spells I saw in the book I accidentally burned. From what I can gather, she’s evoking a wind spirit, bringing it into this realm. I called energy to light the candle, but she appears to be summoning a living thing, a magical creature. I watch, amazed, just to see it happen, magic wielded by language. There is something beautiful about it.
The student’s voice is soft at first, measured and controlled. Her brow knits with focus, her hands holding the pages of the book down against the rising wind. The class watches with languid interest, but the professor is pleased.
“Well done,” she says, clapping her hands, signaling for the student to conclude the spell. “You may dismiss the elemental spirit.”
“Iamdone,” says the girl. She’s leaning over the book, her voice trembling. Sweat blooms on her brow, and she grimaces, stumbling over the words as she repeats them.
“Ms.Claremont,” the professor says sternly. “Conclude the spell.”
The girl shakes her head. She can’t, and worse yet, she’s losing control of the spell.
She stutters, repeating the words over and over, but the elemental does not vanish. Instead, the wind thickens, gathering dust, dimming the light in the room. A low and rumbling sound tears through the room, making the very floor shake. Students sit up in their chairs, watching with growing apprehension. They glance at one another, unsure about what to do.
“Ms.Claremont!” The professor rushes forward and grabs the book, reading the spell aloud in the ancient language: “ ‘In thy name, thou art free from this summons.’ ”
The wind grows stronger. It blows books off the shelves. Students shield their eyes. Some even scream.
The professor mistranslated, used the wrong form of the wordsummons, but only I seem to know this.
Overhead, a great black cloud appears, growing darker and thicker with each second, looking like something over a volcano. Puffy black clouds roll up to the ceiling, choking the air with ash and sulfur, and block out the light from the stained-glass window. People are starting to panic.
I gag on the smell, and tears blur my eyes, but I just manage to see a shape inside the cloud—bright orange, like a moving flame. It almost hurts to look at it straight on, but I make out its glowing white eyes and its bright white mouth. Lightning crackles through the cloud. You can’t mistake it for anything else. It’s the elemental spirit the professor mentioned. And it’s angry.
The fire elemental rages, toppling books from shelves, knocking over chairs and upending tables. Fire burns the pages, turning them to dust in an instant. Students flee as the sulfuric cloud washes over them, whipping through the tall stacks, pulling books from the shelves. Papers scatter, ink spills, crystal balls crack on the marble floor. Every candle burns even brighter as flames fill the room.
At first I think it’s a fire alarm, but it’s too high, too long, too loud. Then the great stained-glass window of the Rosette shatters, a thousand shards of glass falling to the floor and melting into a puddle.
The fire demon is going to burn everything to the ground.
I run toward the chaos.
Everyone else is fleeing. Panicking.
Students knock into me in a desperate attempt to escape, but I push through. Tears fill my eyes as ash threatens to blind me. The heat stings my skin.
I lift the abandoned book from the floor and find theevocation. The student mispronounced the words, and the teacher mistranslated. But the words come to me easily.
A simple revocation isn’t enough, though. The book says I need to reverse the spell.
Without thinking, without questioning, I act. “Erehem oc lewton erauoy!” I recite the spell backward, my own words sounding foreign on my tongue. This is a language of undoing, and I’m forced to shout it over the howling inferno. The sulfur burns my eyes, but I need them to read, to keep the words of this ancient and dead language flowing out of me, so I push aside the tears and wait for the spell to do its work.
I don’t honestly know what will happen. The fire will either die or consume me.
It’s too late to run; the burning vortex swirls about me, rising up, and for a moment, I fear I’ll be lifted off my feet and that’ll be the end of me. I shudder as my toes leave the floor only to be set back down on it once again. I fall to my knees, worried the flames will overwhelm me, but they don’t. The fire no longer rages.
It’s working. It’s actually working.
My words harness the flame, but it does not vanish, so I say the words again: “Erehem oc lewton erauoy!”
For an instant, I lock eyes with the terrible creature. Its irate gaze seems to scorch right through me. Then, like being sucked into a vacuum, the fire elemental shrinks into nothingness, leaving only a shower of sparks. Scattered papers settle around me, and the chandeliers stop swinging from their chains. Soon, the only sound is the gentledrip-drip-dripof spilled ink leaking to the floor. Smoke still chokes the room.
I lower my hand, realizing what just happened. I read a spell from a grimoire. I did it! Magic! I’m filled with pride.
There’s a noise from behind, and I turn, seeing Aspen steppingout from behind the shelter of the stacks. His clothes are ruffled, his hair a mess, his mouth gaping. His skin is smeared with ash. His eyes go to the book in my hand, and then to me, looking like he’s seeing a ghost.
“You banished it?” he asks. “All on your own?”
I’m out of breath. I can only nod.
