“If by close, you mean the fire was smaller…then yes, you were close.”
“I was!”
“It’s sonice to be clean,” Ollie said with a happy sigh as he reached the bottom of the spiral staircase into his private library. “Exercise really is not for me. One gets far too dirty while doing it.”
Noble snorted behind him. “Most of the ‘dirt’ came from us having sex. You realize that, right?”
“Well,Iwas sweaty before that, because not all of us can do physical activities without sweating, Noble,” he huffed.
Also, while he could give up exercising, he sure as heck wasn’t going to give up sex with Noble, even if it did make him gross and sweaty.
Walking through the still-open entryway of the secret library, a door he was hesitant to ever close since he wasn’t sure he’d manage to open it again afterward, Ollie paused briefly when he spotted his red leather-bound grimoire on the desk, the silk bookmark sticking out at a random place as usual.
Eyeing it suspiciously as he approached, he drawled, “Are you here to help or insult?”
His book opened on its own, the pages fluttering to the center. Ollie snorted when he was near enough to read the single word written on one of the pages. “Both. Good to know!”
“At least, its intentions are clear,” Noble sighed.
Before Ollie’s eyes, the ink on the page bled away, and new words rapidly formed. “‘Chapter Eh: Helping a Failed Witch Make a Mirror, and Avoid Becoming a Fire Hazard Again.’” He rolled his eyes at how many times the word ‘again’ was underlined. “‘When a spell requires you to mix chanting with an action, using a metronome, or a device with a similar purpose, when new and useless, is recommended. Chant evenly, and match the required action in time with your words. Surely, even you can handle that.’”
Noble cracked his knuckles in an obviously threatening manner, as he drawled, “It’s far too rude for my liking. Maybe I can try to fix that?”
“Mm,” Ollie grunted while glaring as his book slammed shut, rolling his eyes again when it proceeded to disappear. “Rude or not, and apparently easily threatened, that was actually helpful.I was thinking my supplies were the issue, and even got some nicer, small wooden-framed pocket mirrors.
“Thinking back to that last time, I definitely did start to rush near the end of my chanting. I’m pretty sure with every attempt, I tended to speed up the more I repeated the spell, and I know for sure that I wasn’t paying any attention to how fast I was depositing the sand.”
“Usually, when magical objects are created, whatever you have will be transformed, so supplies mostly don’t matter. Aside from when herbs and shit are involved, as their freshness is important.”
“That’s good to know. Ah, let me just get a metronome app on my phone so we can do this. Because the fire blanket is ready, and I've got sand and plenty of mirrors.”
Two whole stacks of mirrors,he thought with a wince. He supposed he might be able to use the rest for something else.
Pulling up the App Store, he quickly downloaded a digital metronome, setting it to a slow, even tempo before placing his phone on one of the chairs, safely out of range of any possible fires. Because while the room may be magically protected, his phone was not.
“Maybe we should grab Red first?” Noble suggested, as Ollie snagged a small, round, wooden-framed mirror from one of the stacks.
“No. No, I didn’t even need Red to fix that last fire. This is going to work!”
The man just sighed and reluctantly waved him on.
Standing by the right edge of the table, he placed the mirror in front of him, taking a deep breath before trying to wrap his head around speaking in time with the annoying, constant ticking noise.
When he finally thought he had it down, Ollie grabbed a handful of sand from the medium-sized open bucket. Droppinga bit on the table, away from the mirror, in his head, he said unrelated words just to be sure he knew exactly what he was trying to do. Once he did, Ollie took yet another calming breath.
When he felt a false sense of calm, Ollie grabbed another handful of sand and held it over the mirror, as he began to chant, “Grant me thy will, thy Endless Death, to read betwixt the lies of the entombed. Embed thy reflection with thy mark. Grant me thy will, thy Endless Death, to read betwixt the lies of the entombed. Embed thy reflection with thy mark?—”
With each word and grain of sand that dropped, the sand began to warm in his hand, but unlike all the previous times, it stayed warm, never tipping into hot territory.
At first, nothing happened, aside from the heat, but then a feeling of coldness started to seep from his center outward, mixing with and almost combating the warmth, while the mirror began to glow faintly. Ollie did his best to keep going, and not let his encroaching excitement at his possible success mess up his pace.
Just as he repeated the spell for the tenth time, and the last bit of sand fell from his grasp, there was a sudden loud crack that sounded like lightning, and with it came the smell of ozone, along with a sharp, blinding brightness that obscured his vision, bringing his chanting to a stop.
Blinking rapidly to clear the spots from his vision, he let out a breathless laugh when he spotted the mirror on the table. It was still round with a wooden frame, but the frame had thickened, and carved into it were the branching fractal patterns of the Lichtenberg figures.
“I DID IT!” Ollie squealed, jumping around and dancing happily. “I did it. I did it!”
Noble chuckled, catching him when Ollie jumped into his arms and peppered kisses on his face.
