Just as Idris had turned to catch up with Rinka, the door slammed shut. There was laughter in the air—high-pitched, girlish giggles.
“If this is some kind of joke, it isn’t funny, Ceri.”
Idris felt the movement in the room as the lights went out.
“Did you take the invisibility pendant as well?” he asked as he ignited the candle with his magic.
The box containing the invisibility pendant was undisturbed, but the laughter continued.
Not Ceri, he thought.Not unless she found an outrageously good magic teacher without Father knowing.
This was one of the many loose curses, almost definitely. Maybe some of the college’s own magic at work in there too. Places this old were always crawling with it, even if there were few left who could sense it. And there was always the chance it had been corrupted by another curse into something far worse than intended.
“Show yourself,” he said. He tried the door—held shut by magic, of course.
He tried to break through it but felt it fighting back against him. It was doable, maybe, but it would leave him with little energy to face anything else that might be thrown at him.
Or anything else that might be thrown at Ceri.
“You’re no fun,” said a voice. It was a child’s voice.
The doll, Idris guessed.
Children’s curses were often unintentionally created by young practitioners of magic who hadn’t gotten control of their powers yet. The curse that Keir had admitted to creating onewhiskey-soaked night a few weeks earlier had a lot in common with a children’s curse. They had lessons like morals at the end of a story. Idris suspected this curse had something to do with sharing toys.
“I can’t play with you for long in this room. There isn’t much air in here, and the candle will burn through it fast. Open the door and we can play together.”
“No candle then,” said the voice. Idris’s candle snuffed out. “I want to play.”
“We can play,” said Idris. “But I need to be able to see to play. And I need to be able to breathe to play.”
He lit the candle once more. The curse was unlikely to be the entire spirit of a child; he’d heard rumors of such but had never found evidence of it for himself. But even if it was a fragment of it, it might respond to the kind of parental authority that children often craved.
“I don’t think so,” said the voice. It giggled malevolently and put out the candle again.
Idris didn’t like this. The voice was unusually confident for a child. And there was something sinister in the laughter that unnerved him.
“Alright,” said Idris. “What do you want to do then?”
“I want you to play with me forever, and I know how.”
Ah, there it was. A classic spirit request. The poor child that had cursed the doll may have done so as their dying wish.
It was sad, but the main issue was that the spirit wanted to kill him right now and was incredibly capable of doing so.
He was going to have to chance it and burst the door open. Hopefully by the time they’d found Ceri, he would have some magical assistance from Alison and Keir.
He focused his power on the door. It was incredible, the force that was holding it closed. It was like pulling against a crate of cannonballs.
“Where are you going?” asked the voice.
Not good. He needed to get out of here, now. He pulled with all of his power.
The door opened a crack. He grabbed onto the handle and pulled physically, inching it open.
“I don’t think so,” the voice said again.
It slammed the door shut.
