Page 70 of Spelling Disaster

“I’m glad you found me,” I tell him. “Where do we go from here?”

You’re doing it. You’re retracing your steps. Stop giving into the fear and listen for it. He makes a good point.You found it once before. What does the book feel like?It draws you.

He’s right again, and once I’m sure I no longer hear the screaming of the coven members, I crouch low and jog away.

Feel the book…

It found me the first time. It lured me over to the shelves where it had been hidden and called to me with such clarity it might as well have said my name. It’s here somewhere. Underneath the footsteps and the silent screams, energy pulses.

Finally, I move closer to where the book should have been on the shelf, in the back, where I’d placed it the first time. It’s there in perfect condition. Right where I’d left it, without so much as a char or a bit of ash on the cover. The letters gleam in the dullness and the writing on the cover is finally clear despite the strange cursive lettering.

Of The Merlin Order.

Gus reads it at the same time I do.

Whatever it means, this is the only way to trap the Horned God. I’ve got the book in hand and ignore the zap of electricity shooting through my fingertips when I touch the cover.

This is it. This is what started all this trouble and although I’d never had a problem opening a book before, there’s a first time for everything. Along with the electricity, a strange sense of calm pervades my system. If I have the book then it’s only a matter of time before I can put the Horned God back. I have to believe it. I have to feel inside of myself that I’m able and worthy of this. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Gus and I make our way out of the ruined maze of the library and back toward the center of town.

The path is open and clear for us.

This meeting is overdue but at least now I’m done running.

“Come on out! Don’t send your lackeys to find me this time,” I yell, knowing he’ll hear me.

“Come and face me instead of hiding behind the coven like the coward you are, you little chicken shit!”

There’s a supernatural sense of the surreal to the moment and to the belief I can overcome all of this and leave unscathed. A small part of me wonders if I actually feel that way or if it’s the wayhewants me to feel.

Especially when the Horned God reveals himself, stepping into my path, his eyes lit with an internal fire.

“And right into my trap you’ve fallen, little one,” he says out loud. “You’re made this too easy for me.”

ChapterTwenty-Three

The wholefeeling myselfthing? An illusion. I realize now he used me to grab the book. Not without someone actually handing it to him and I’m the only witch who can, considering I’d been about to ascend to Cleric. Shit.

“Get back in the book,” I tell the Horned God with false bravado.

Gus squeaks and retreats into my bag to hide.

“I’m not going anywhere, Yasmine.”

His voice is the elemental power of thunder, the crashing tides. It’s unearthly and powerful at the same time and listening to him it’s hard to remember he’d been human once. A person just like me.

I keep my attention on him even as the rest of the coven separates themselves from the vines and the shadows. They surround us as the Horned God cackles.

“You summoned me here, remember? This is all from your magic. But you know that,” he finishes.

My magic? No. I’d been about to set my magic aside to join the caste of Clerics.

That’s where he began too.

Like me.

The Horned God snaps his fingers and the vines grow around us until they form a canopy overhead, a dome to keep us contained within the barrier.

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