Page 36 of The Spell Caster

LAYLA

The next morning, I woke up determined. I needed to fix my problems myself and stop dragging everyone down.

I dressed to impress in a burgundy skirt and scoop-neck top and took the time to put on some makeup. After forcing a proper breakfast down my throat, I marched myself to the library.

The tall ceiling was dotted with skylights that let natural light into a cozy reading area in the middle, branching off to other rooms with rows of bookshelves.

“Good morning,” I said to the witch behind the counter, who was bent over a ledger of some sort, writing by hand.

“Oh, good morning,” she said. Around my age, she had the look of an outsider, with pale skin and long red hair. From time to time, outsiders were found who could sense magic. We tended to adopt them into the community.

“I’m looking for some books,” I told her, immediately cringing. I was at the library—of course I was looking for books. “I’d like to read about the history of familiars. Anything about familiars, really.”

She tilted her head, looking me over. “You’re Layla.”

“That’s me.” I grimaced through a smile. This reputation thing was getting really weird.

She glanced away. “I’ve been helping Calamus research some circle spells for you.”

“Really? Thanks, that’s amazing,” I said genuinely. “You don’t have to do everything, though. I can do some research.”

She brightened. “I like looking through the historical records.”

I chuckled. “You and Calamus must make a great pair, then.”

Her face flushed a bright red. Oops. I wondered if Calamus knew. He seemed like the type not to notice.

Not that I had any room to talk.

“I can show you where the history books are,” she said, changing the subject.

The history section turned out to be larger and less dusty than I had imagined. Bright witch lights lined the neat shelves. Like our library at the Northern Sea Circle, they hadn’t installed electricity in this building to minimize the risk of fire. Some of our books were ancient, and witches kept limited copies in our small communities around the world.

I scanned the spines and picked some interesting titles at random. I would look through more systematically if I didn’t have any luck.

Witch history seemed to blend with mythology at some point. I had studied our past in school, including the story of the millennia-old alliance with Hell, the supposed realm of our demon familiars.

Of course, we witches could objectively prove that angels and demons were flesh-and-blood creatures, but the modern understanding was that we were all a normal part of evolution, albeit one the outsiders didn’t understand. Our ancient stories were nothing more than attempts to explain what our ancestors had not understood. The non-magical had folded a lot of the same stories into their religious systems, which just proved my point.

I ran my fingers over an ancient illuminated manuscript showing a scene of two beings locked in magical combat—an angel and a demon straight out of the outsiders’ myths, looking nothing like the vile winged creatures we battled or our tiny, pale familiars.

The story went like this: The angels believed they were superior to all other beings. They ranked every type of being from their most favorite to their least, and then each individual according to the angelic notion of power. They insisted that everyone adopt this hierarchy and vow to serve those above them.

The ranking system was called Inperium, and the angels fought bitterly with anyone who opposed it.

The demons were their strongest opposition. As punishment, they were locked in a prison—Hell. The angels then set their sights on humanity, commanding their worship. The story claimed that many of us fell willingly into Inperium.

Our ancient witch ancestors were not swayed, though, and laid down their lives to oppose the angels. Blades, fire, bullets—those things could only wound an angel. No matter how maimed, they would recover. Only magic could kill an angel, but the circle spells of the witches were too slow and unwieldy to be used as a weapon.

The alliance with Hell changed that. The demons had a way of casting—flinging magic with their hands, without a circle. Keeping their one advantage, they only taught witches half of the process so that every caster needed a demon ally to supply the spell.

The story neatly explained every facet of our existence—why we needed to fight the angels, why we hated hierarchies, and why we required a demon familiar to cast spells. It was too clean to be anything but a myth.

I didn’t think ancient stories would help in my case, but I hoped I would find accounts of demon behavior from the past hundred years or so and see if anyone had ever encountered a problem like this before.

I brought a small stack of books to the front, and the red-haired witch scanned them out on a battery-powered tablet.

“I’ll set aside anything I think of that seems useful,” she promised.

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