“I do know, and I've already emailed it to the records department, but I figured if I called, maybe it would get processed sooner. I also wanted to make sure it actually went through.”
The man snorted. “If you don’t hear anything by Tuesday, come in with the actual form.”
Three days…well, it was better than nothing. “Will do.”
“If there is nothing else, I’m hanging up now. Stay out of trouble, kid.”
“Don’t I always?”
“No,” the man deadpanned before the line went dead.
Pocketing his phone with a smile, he eyed the table and his supplies, and tried to feel confident. Because now that was done, it was time to move on to other important matters. And he could do this. Like, he had this! He had gotten another hand mirror, he had the sand, and he now had a fire blanket right next to him, in case things blew up again. Not that they would…
On a slightly more fun note, it appeared as if the room had magically cleaned itself. While he had attempted to clean up a bit before he left, he couldn’t find even a speck of soot remainingfrom the first fire. Though it was possible Red had cleaned the room…
He looked to his cat. “Did you clean?”
Red shook his head. “No. Likely the room itself.”
“Oh, good.”
And it was a good thing, as he really didn’t want to deal with more fire damage. Hopefully, they’d get the damaged room back by the end of next week, along with at least some of their books.
He eyed the book and the instructions before looking at his supplies. What if…he didn’t have the right kind of mirror, or the right kind of sand? Like, his was a cheap, plastic hand mirror. What if it had to be wooden, or what if white sand was the wrong kind of sand?! What if he needed volcanic sand?! Wouldn’t the book be specific if he needed a special kind of sand and mirror? But what if it wasn’t specific because people at an advanced level should just know?!
Sighing, he glanced briefly at Red again—who was likely waiting for him to start a fire—before eyeing the picture one more time. The sand in the illustrations did look dark, but it was also done in black ink and on aged paper, so…
Whatever, he’d try with the cheap stuff one more time and...if it didn’t work, he’d just order, or go out and buy, higher quality items.
Taking a deep breath, Ollie grabbed a handful of sand and slowly started to sprinkle it over the mirror, as he chanted, “Grant me thy will, thy Endless Death, to read betwixt the lies of the entombed. Embed thy reflection with thy mark.”
Ollie repeated himself, as he had the first time, and on the second repeat, he felt the sand begin to heat up in his hands. Even though he knew it must be burning, he remained unharmed. Hope began to form as he repeated it for the third time and no explosion, but that hope quite literally blew away as he finished the fourth. Ollie leapt back when the last word lefthis mouth and the mirror exploded into shards of glass, while fire shot up five feet into the air.
His heart racing, he winced as glass nicked him, but instead of screaming and panicking, like he really wanted to, he rushed to grab the blanket, even though Red seemed to be trying to suck in the fire again. Ollie tossed the blanket over the thankfully now-smaller fire, as his familiar successfully sucked part of it in. Smoke rose up around the edges of the blanket as it smothered what remained, mixing with what Red was releasing from his mouth.
Trying to wave the smoke away, Ollie sagged in relief when he slowly lifted the blanket and found the fire was fully out.
“No more attempts today,” Red rasped, after coughing out a few more plumes of smoke.
“Maybe…I need better supplies?” he suggested sheepishly.
His familiar rolled his eyes, before saying firmly, “No more attempts for today,” before padding testily from the room.
Ollie sighed and said to himself, “No more attempts…”
Only because he really didn’t want to test how well the protective magic worked in the room, especially without Red. Eyeing the mess on the table, he quickly looked away and hurried to the bathroom across the hall from the private library, cleaning soot off his face and out of his hair the best he could. When he went to take care of the cuts, he frowned when he wiped the blood away and found them all healed. “Huh…that’s…convenient.”
Part of Ollie wondered if they should re-test his magic again, because he was pretty sure he shouldn’t be able to do that. But, oh well…
Returning to the secret library, he stopped in his tracks when he spotted the table. His mess was gone and the fire blanket was now nicely folded up on one of the chairs. “Even moreconvenient, and something I am not going to question at all, nope!”
However, he may want to question talking to himself…
Giving his head a shake, Ollie wandered around the room, stopping when he came across the bookcase marked‘Witch Hunters’. He hesitated, as it seemed, like with everything else, he wasn’t exactly sure where to start. But…maybe he didn’t need to know.
And well, if it had worked once, maybe it would work again? Clearing his throat, he spoke out loud. “Not sure where to start with this many books. Many without even titles on the spine…”
Ollie giggled happily when one small, very thin, dark blood-red spine started to glow. “Thank you,” he chimed as he pulled the book from the shelf, and hurriedly settled at the table.
