Page 23 of Shattered Darkness

I can’t help but smile as I reply, “That’s a smart idea.”

“I don’t even know where to begin,” Erin states as she stares at the massive task in front of us.

“Yeah, I’m beginning to think that the guys have a much easier job today,” Cole says as he hands us each a fresh coffee.

“They definitely do,” Erin agrees, “alright, I suggest that we pick a pile each and then work our way through it. I’m optimistically going to hope that we find the spell fairly quickly.”

“I guess that’s really the only way that we can attack this,” Cole replies and then looks at me, “now would be a really good time for you to have one of your magical intuition feelings.”

I raise my eyebrow and smirk, “Sorry guys, but I’ve got absolutely no flashes of intuition on this, not even a niggle.”

“Damn it,” Cole replies, looking incredibly disappointed.

“Could you maybe just try and see if you can kick-start it into finding the spell?” Erin asks hopefully.

“Sure, but I don’t think it’s going to go how you hope it will,” I reply.

They both just look at me, hopefully, and figuring that it couldn’t hurt, I focus on my magic and ask it to help find the spell that will put an attacker to sleep and render them unable to continue fighting. I expected it not to turn up any results, but what I didn’t expect was to effectively come up against a brick wall.

“Erm, well, it's not just a no; it’s a hell no. My magic outright refused to cooperate,” I reply with a slight frown.

“Has it done that before?” Cole asks.

“Nope, not at all.”

“Huh, well, I’m sure it's nothing to worry about. Try to summon your air?” Erin suggests.

I call on my air magic, and I feel a tiny slither of that Darkness tag along with it, and what I intended to be a slight breeze is actually a tornado in the middle of the room as it simultaneously lifts the three of us up.

“Shit,” I curse, the wind swallowing the sound.

I quickly pull the thread of magic back to me, happy that the dark thread listens as well, although I’m unsure whether it's listening to me or just copying my other magic.

Everything falls still and silent just as quickly as it escalated.

“What the fuck was that?” Erin asks as she fights to right her hair.

“Did you mean to do that?” Cole asks me.

“I have no idea what that was, and no, I didn’t mean to do it,” I reply honestly, although something still makes me stop from telling them about the Darkness within my magic. I’m going to have to be extra careful that I don’t let the Darkness escape with my usual magic when I do a spell. Focusing on my magic, I encourage it to wrap around the Darkness, encasing it and hopefully containing it.

“Well, it’s not a great sign that your magic is playing up, but it’s probably reacting to the threat of Kronos. Everything is kicking up a notch, and your magic can most likely sense it,” Cole suggests while Erin just nods encouragingly, clearly agreeing.

I have to admit that his words do make me feel a bit better.

“If that’s the case, then that means that it's even more important than we thought it was to train,” I point out.

“Definitely, for now, though, let's clear up the mess that your tornado made and then get to work,” Erin replies this time.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” I say to Cole as I wince at the books now strewn everywhere and not in the neat piles that they once were.

Cole chuckles, “No worries, everyone’s magic goes hinky every now and then. I’m sure that mine will do so at some point, and then I’ll be the one apologizing.”

“Well, at least it won't just be me then,” I reply.

We spend the next hour straightening everything out, and I’m ridiculously relieved that none of the books seem to be damaged. I dread to think about what the library would do if one of its books got torn or something similar. I don’t think I ever want to find that out.

Finally, with yet more fresh coffee, we each settle down and start to scan through the books, working through our own piles and hoping that it’s not going to take us longer than we have to find the spell.

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