“I’m asking if we can die in here,” I said, unable to hide the quiver in my voice. My fingers were the least of my concerns right now. They did this sometimes when I got really stressed. “This tower has protected us since we arrived, so it never occurred to me that harm could come to us while inside it.”
But I couldn’t answer this particular question without actually trying to die—something I very much didn’t want to do. The tightness squeezed my lungs, making it hard to breathe.
“You’re losing it,” Morton mumbled. “Being stuck in this tower for three years has addled your brain.”
“We’re not stuck in here.” My gaze flicked to a statue of Samara that sat on the mantel over the fireplace. The hearth godwitch stared back with her blank eyes, a broom in her hand and her red hair tied back under a scarf. The hearth godwitch was the plainest of all the godwitches, but her magic was not. I looked around at the tower fueled by her magic. “He didn’t mean it,” I said to the statue. “We don’t feel stuck. We’re very grateful to be here under your protection.”
Morton blinked. “You know the godwitches have been gone for thousands of years, right? It’s just a statue. Samara can’t actually hear you.”
“She might be gone, but her magic is not.” I pointed at the tower as proof. “So let’s keep our unkind comments to ourselves,” I said with an edge to my voice, unable to handle the thought of getting kicked out of our home because we’d insulted it.
“Anyway,” Morton said, his tail shaking in the air. “My point was that you’re too focused on this. Who wants to think about the possibility of dying?”
I snapped the journal full of questions closed. I didn’t want to think about dying—the very thought of it was what had driven me to find this tower and lock myself inside. It was what had driven me to stay here for three long years without attempting to venture out. “It’sjust a scientific query,” I told the bookwyrm, then pointed to the books on the shelves, all of which had been here when we’d arrived.
“I’m excited to keep learning about this tower and its abilities. That’s all.”
No need to mention the tremble to Morton. He’d probably tell me I was imagining things, and to be fair, I probably was.
This tower was one of the most wondrous feats of magic I’d ever seen, magic that Samara and all the godwitches had given up and forced into our world, into objects and creatures and nature, before they disappeared.
I turned from the shelves, coming face-to-face with the empty grey hearth, which conjured a memory of a very different hearth. One full of terrifying magical flames. Tall and hungry ones that I’d run from as they burned everything I loved to the ground. My heart stuttered, my fingers turning a deeper purple. I ground my teeth and whirled around, trying to push those awful memories away.
That was the downside to this world of magic—it made people greedy, hungry for the most powerful objects or creatures. It made people willing to do terrible things to possess that power.
I sniffled and strode back toward the chair, looking away from the hearth, determined to shed myself of whatever anxiety was riddling me.Deep breaths.That’s what my mother had always said when these panic attacks came on. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t and things escalated to the point where I thought I might actually die from the anxiety. Thankfully, this time my slow breathing was working, and the tightness loosened, my breaths coming easier.
Morton slithered into my lap and looked up at me with his wide black eyes, the only part of his body that wasn’t pink. The hard edges of his dragon-like face softened. “We’re not going to die, Niamh. We’ve survived this long, and we’ll keep surviving.”
I tipped my head toward a light blue book on the floor. “Tell me again what that one said about the tower’s magic.”Let it go, Niamh. Just let it go. I didn’t need to ruminate on this, to trigger another panic attack, but my brain and mouth were not on the same page.“Maybe it mentions death somewhere in there?”
If a bookwyrm could roll his eyes, that was what I imagined Morton would be doing right now. Instead, he let out a heavy sigh and slithered down the chair and toward the blue book, flipping it open with his tail. Though he had pink wings, they were mostly aesthetic. He couldn’t fly very well, so he preferred to slither most places.
The book splayed open, pages fluttering as Morton hinged opened his cavernous jaw and began to eat each page that flipped past him. I’d known the little bookwyrm for two decades, and it never got old watching his magic at work. He inhaled the pages until every single one was gone, his stomach bulging, his body stiff.
This was it, his magic at work.
He heaved, all the pages regurgitating out of his mouth in pieces that looked like a puzzle. The pieces put themselves back together into pages that wove into the hardcover binding until the book was exactly as it had been, no evidence of being eaten remaining.
Morton turned his head with a huff. “The tower can grant those in its residence anything they want as long as they never leave its walls. Shall the resident vacate the premises, all the magic of the tower will no longer be at their disposal and they will not be granted reentry.”
I wrinkled my nose. “It didn’t mention anything about death?”
He sighed. “Do you think I’d miss something like that? I ate every page! Everything else was all about the magic the tower can and cannot do: cannot summon people, cannot create something that doesn’t already exist, cannot possess a person or creature, cannot be destroyed by traditional means, i.e., cannonball, fire, flood, etc. Although, interestingly enough, it did mention something about challenging someone to a fight, and in that event?—”
“Okay, that’s enough.” I rubbed my temples, a headache forming.
Morton glided to my foot and back up into my lap. “I do think we’ll eventually have to leave the tower, you know.”
I jolted, my stomach flipping at the suggestion. “Why would you say that?”
The bookwyrm arched one of his shaggy brows. “You think we’re going to stay here forever?”
“Well, why not?” I petted the armchair like it was an old friend. “This tower can give us anything.”
And we were protected from all the dangers of the outside world, dangers we couldn’t protect ourselves from.
Morton’s tail undulated behind him. “Except other people, friendships, love, a life.”
