Chapter 68: The Magic Notebook
I could hear the manic joy in her voice, but also a desperate, trembling relief. What could possibly be so important to a witch like her, hidden beneath a loose brick in a sewer? I followed her gaze. She was staring at a single brick paver on the floor of our alcove. It was unremarkable, identical to all the others—a crude, red brick, cracked and worn with age. But I saw Jared’s eyes flash with a sudden understanding. What had he seen?
The witch reached for the brick, her hand outstretched. For a moment, I thought I saw a faint, spectral light flicker around her fingers, but then it vanished with a frustrated hiss. The brick remained stubbornly in place.
“Damn it!” the witch snarled, her voice a low, angry hiss. “Not enough power! I'm too weak.” Her gaze snapped towards me, her eyes alight with a cold, calculating fire. She reached out her hand, not to touch me, but towards me, her fingers crooking into a claw. And then I felt it. A wisp of crimson mist, the very same ghastly vapour I had seen in the execution square, began to rise from my own skin, drawn towards her like iron filings to a lodestone.
“Wait! No!” I cried, a wave of pure terror washing over me. The image of those poor souls in the plaza, drained into desiccated husks, flashed through my mind. Was she going to kill me in the same horrific way?
“What are you doing? Let her go!” Jared roared, his fear momentarily replaced by a surge of protective fury. He couldn’t see the red mist, but he knew this was something terrible.
“Silence!” the witch snapped. With a flick of her wrist, an invisible hand struck Jared, sending him flying across the small space to crash against the wall. The difference in their power was a desperate, hopeless chasm.
“I’m just borrowing a little mana,” she said, her eyes fixed on me, the red mist flowing from me to her in a steady stream. “Only the living can generate it, so you two need not worry about me killing you. For now.” Her lips twisted into a ghastly smile. “But if you try to be clever again, I will kill her first.” She had seen how much Jared cared for me. Her threat worked. Jared slumped against the wall, defeated, his eyes filled with a helpless rage. I, too, stopped struggling, understanding the grim transaction. We were her batteries, her personal font of power. And as long as she needed to recharge, she needed us alive.
As the red mist was siphoned from me, I felt a strange, hollowing sensation, as if threads of my very being were being unraveled and pulled from my body. But at the same time, a new, rushing heat began to build within me, filling the emptiness almost as quickly as it was created, a bizarre and unnatural equilibrium.
“Hmm?” The witch looked at me with a newfound interest, a flicker of genuine surprise in her eyes. “You have quite a bit of natural power for such a little thing. If you could see magic, I might even take you on as my apprentice,” she mused, almost to herself. She had been about to turn to Jared, to drain him as well, but it seemed the power she had drawn from me was more than she had expected. My mind reeled. The whispers… my strange resilience… my ability to see the red mist… Was this what it was? Magic? And this monster, this murderer, was offering to teach me. To be a witch? The thought was both terrifying and intoxicating. Could I make a deal with this devil to save Jared's life?
But before I could even begin to form the words, the witch, now humming with my stolen energy, slammed her palm down on the floor. The red brick paver seemed to sweat, then liquefy, dissolving into a pool of thick, bubbling sludge without a sound. The witch plunged her hand into the muck and pulled out a small, oilskin-wrapped bundle. With a cry of manic elation, she tore it open, revealing a book—or rather, a notebook, its leather cover worn and stained, its pages filled with a dense, spidery script and intricate, hand-drawn diagrams of runes and sigils.
“Haha! My grimoire!” she laughed, a wild, triumphant sound that echoed in our small, stone coffin. “My magic notes! Thank God that fool Ash didn't hide it too far.” I understood at once. This was her personal book of spells, the record of all her arcane research. It was the most important thing in the world to her. This was what she had sent Ash to hide before her capture, and the first thing she had come looking for after her impossible, bloody escape.
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