You can’t help but feel that you got lucky to escape this time.
Lucky, and Ziros finished it off for you.
He laughs softly, pulling away. Dropping your jaw, he steps back to survey the sword, arms folded, an amused, appraising expression on his face.
“Indeed, you do.”
“So, uh, it’s a little bigger now.”
He raises his eyebrows, still glancing between your face and the sword with that same half-amused expression.
“A little? Can you even hold that? Your arms are shaking.”
“They are not,” you say obstinately. Trembling harder. “I’m just frightened.”
Which is not a lie, but for some reason the idea of admitting how weak you are feels even more embarrassing.
He’s not wrong.
That sword is way too heavy for you. No question.
Maybe some weight training is in your future. And also sword fighting lessons?
There’s only one little problem:
Glancing between the now very full-sized sword and its pocket-sized sheath, you mumble, “How the heck am I gonna get this back in?”
You hold out the comically small sheath, pointing the blade of the sword at it. (Narrowly missing swiping the espresso machine in the process—oops.)
As if on cue, the blade suddenly glows, and you nearly drop it again as it shrinks.
And there you have it: It’s a tiny sword all over again.
“Woah,” you breathe, relieved that everything is back to normal.
Mostly.
Mostly, aside from the scorched spots on the walls and Ziros’ apron. Scorched spots you still intend to get answers about.
And you’re still not exactly surehowyour sword transformed. Was it more of that desperate ‘power of wishes’ stuff, or is the sword your boss gave you actually magic?
If it’s actually magic, hopefully you can make it transform again.
Somehow.
And on that note, Ziros had seemed pretty suspicious of your boss. She’s a nice lady, but could she actually be hiding some secret magical side? That would explain why she told you the letter opener is a real sword.
It’s like she absolutely knew what she was giving you.
But if that’s so, why hasn’t she talked to you about this before? Maybe you’ll just straight-up ask her.
Ha.
Yeah, right.
That’ll go over well if she doesn’t know what you’re talking about…
“Hi boss, are you secretly a magical sorceress? What, no I was just joking, ha ha, here let me get that.”
