Page 83 of Dark Embers

I flipped the grimoire open to the page I’d bookmarked, nervously reading through the spell again, even though I’d memorized the damn thing. I’d been practicing for days, writing it down—then erasing everything so Gram wouldn’t find it—silently running through every syllable of every word.

After my last fiasco, I was quite hesitant to pull the trigger.

Stop stalling. No time like the present.

I took off my heels and sat down on the blanket, crossing my legs into a pretzel.

I took a deep breath, staring at the spell as I began to speak. “Di ankh nehep sem.”

The tips of my fingers grew warm, and I smiled. I retrieved the dried flowers out of the bag of soil, rubbing my fingers gently along the brittle petals. The spell called for a focus of nurturing, and I thought of kittens, their cute little furry faces making me want to spout baby talk. When I felt I’d done enough, I turned my gaze back to the book. This next part would take all my concentration.

“Fadj her uat netjer wap wadj.”

A tingling feeling spread through my body, the energy crackling and snapping. My heart beat faster, and my hair moved as if in agentle breeze. The light in the apartment seemed to dim despite it being daylight outside.

But I refused to look away. I stared at the book, seeing the plant begin to sparkle, the color becoming vibrant, the stem and leaves plumping.

“Tenn!” I shouted, roots sprouting from the cut end of the flowers. I planted the roots in the soil and finished the incantation. “Di ankh nehep sem.”

I closed my eyes for a moment, letting the magic drain and settle. When I dared open my eyes once more, the apartment was once again brightly lit, and a smile broke out on my face.

The roses stood tall and strong, roots woven through the soil. A bit of a glow still kissed the petals, though even as I watched, it faded. It was perfect, probably even better than new. In the right container, it would put even the fanciest of floral arrangements to shame.

I stared in silence for a moment. When I couldn’t contain it any longer, I got to my feet. I jumped off the blanket before it had the chance to slip from under me and ran to the bathroom.

“I did it!” I shouted as I stared at myself in the mirror. “I did iiiiiiiit!”

I did a little dance, screaming with wild glee.

This. Was. It.

“I have magic. I have magic!” I felt my face and arms. “And I’m still alive!”

I broke into laughter, then ran back into the apartment, heading for the chair—the only thing in this place that looked remotely lived in. “I have magic!” I yelled at the chair.

Suddenly weary, I made my way back to the blanket and collapsed on top of it.

The bag knocked over, and I scrambled to get it upright again, pushing the dirt back inside. I zipped up the sides a little to help hold things in place and pushed it off the blanket.

“I have magic,” I whispered, laying down on the blanket, careful to keep clear of the dirt remnants.

I knew just who to give the roses to. Arya. It would be her Christmas present, a hope for things to come.

Because if I could bring a plant back to life, there was a good chance there would be magic to bring a person back to life.

I closed my eyes.Just for a minute,I thought, as my mind drifted to thoughts of the grimoire and all the endless possibilities it held.

I started when the edges of a dream gave me the sensation of plummeting through the floor. I pushed myself up, unwilling to succumb to sleep, but collapsed again. I took a moment and stared at the ceiling.

This can’t be right.

I rolled onto my side and forced myself into a seated position, squinting at the writing around the spell I’d just done. There was some handwriting there, personal notes someone had left behind that were hard to make out. It looked like super-fancy cursive. The page was torn in the middle, further obscuring one of the words.

“Usessomethingessence,” I muttered what I could make out.

But what was the something? That blank had been bothering me for a while. I flipped the page and saw a little of the torn area hadbeen bent back. I tugged gently at the edges and found an L, an O or an E, with maybe an I or a T or H between. I decided the middle one was an I and the end was an E, making it L-I-blank-E.

“Somethingessence,somethingessence.”

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