Ollie couldn’t help but point out, “Wouldn’t my last be The Merciless Healer? I did heal you.”
At the same time, Jahla asked, “Do all witches get three?”
“The number depends on the strength of the witch’s line. One to two is average, three is usual for powerful families,” his familiar drawled. “And as for what your third could be, while The Merciless Healer is most likely, it’s still better to check.”
Red approached his grimoire, but before the cat even reached the book, it opened. Pages fluttered as they flipped past, until it settled halfway in, as it always did. But unlike the other times, there was nothing written on the pages, they were just blank.
As his cat stopped in front of his now open grimoire, he looked up to him and said, “Come here. Crouch down and hold out your hand.”
Sighing, Ollie walked over and did exactly that, as everyone else gathered closer to his book, to watch whatever was about to happen.
Red eyed him silently for a moment before saying, “Sorry.”
He blinked. “Sorry for—” His words cut off on a yelp the moment Red batted his hand with a paw, one of the cat’s claws hitting home. As he yanked his hand back, to clutch it to himself, a few drops of blood fell and landed on his open book.
“A little warning would have been appreciated,” Ollie snapped, even as he watched with awe as his blood sank and disappeared into the old, yellowed paper.
Just as the last of the red disappeared, it started to bubble back up, an invisible hand rapidly drawing on the pages. When it finally stopped, there were four rectangular etchings, drawn in blood-red ink, or in what was likely his actual blood.
Each of the etchings were contained within two thick lines. In the first drawing there was a bone mound with a decaying clawed hand and arm reaching out towards the viewer. The second held a large fire, with a pair of feathery wings peeking around the flames, and a set of piercing eyes staring out. The third had an open set of fangs, with the middle taken up by a forest and the depiction of a howling wolf. The final one showed a person from the neck up, them grabbing at their head, eyes closed and screaming, with hands surrounding them and reaching for them. Based on the shading, and the background being so heavily inked that it had almost turned black, they were in pure darkness.
“Umm…why are there four?” Ollie asked after the grand reveal brought nothing but silence, and a small gasp from Annabel. Though Jahla was probably quiet because she knew as much as he did about what was going on. He frowned, eyeing them.
“I…” Red started to speak, but trailed off. He couldn’t see his cat’s expression from this angle, as his familiar was looking down into his grimoire.
“The first is…the Endless Death, and the second is The Living Flame, right? But the other two… Is one of them The Merciless Healer?”
Though, he wasn’t sure either of them brought ‘healing’ to mind. Then again, Ollie still didn’t know why it was called TheMercilessHealer.
“It’s…” Red cleared his throat, still looking down. “No…neither of them are The Merciless Healer. The third is The Ceaseless Hunter, and the last is The Unknowing.”
Ollie snorted. “Well, that last one fits… Wait, how did I heal you then?”
His familiar slowly looked up, his yellow eyes seeking as they seemed to scan his face, as he softly rasped, “I…I don’tknow. But…just because we don’t have an affinity for something, doesn’t mean we aren’t able to use the spells.”
Noble was doing his damned best to keep his mouth shut. As he really should be careful with giving away how much he actually knew. But it was hard. While Red wasn’t outright lying to Ollie, it was definitely bordering on a lie, given what he was omitting.
As, yes, one could use magic under the domain of other affinities, but to use it to such a degree as to bring someone back from the brink of death, that usually took years of practice, and required building up your own magical pool to even stand a chance of succeeding. Neither of which Ollie had done.
It honestly would have been less shocking if the little witch had managed to pause Red's imminent death, instead of actually healing him, and even that would have been advanced magic for any Death Caller.
Noble couldn’t even guess as to what it meant that Ollie had managed to not only heal Red, but heal him so completely that it was like the injuries had never happened.
Ollie scoffed. “Okay…good to know so little, but what else is new? I guess we’ll just go with…I somehow managed to do that. But what about the fact that there are four instead of three? You did say only three.”
He grimaced. Yeah, that was the other issue. He wasn’t sure he’d ever heard of a new witch having four affinities right off the bat. He knew of witches who had managed to develop others after many, many decades, even centuries, of hard-won practice, but not someone this new.
“Apparently, not for you,” Annabel rasped, the ghost’s voice filtering through the static of the spirit box.
“Why do the three of them look like that is a bad thing?” Jahla asked.
Noble had to say, it was a bit off putting to be the only one who couldn’t see the ghost in the clearing.
“Probably because it likely is. Well, rather than bad, again, just not normal, but welcome to my life. When have I ever been normal?” Ollie sighed as he straightened up from his crouching position. The man wound his hands together and winced, likely from rubbing the new cat scratch on his palm.
Noble pulled the little librarian to his side, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “Normal is overrated.”
Ollie hesitantly smiled up at him, before stretching to give him a peck on the lips.
