Page 44 of Love Lives
"You want the journal," he concluded, eyes narrowing.
"Show me yours and I'll show you mine?"
"Only under my supervision," he conceded. "And you won't get to keep it."
"I don't need to keep it." Honestly, I only wanted to satisfy my curiosity. There might not be anything in there that could help me, but I needed to do something. This was something I could do.
Puck rose from his chair. "I'll be back before you know it," he announced, and just like that, he was gone. Just like magic. I stared at the spot where he'd stood just a second ago. No matter how many times I saw him do that, I'd never get used to it. How could I? When I never even got used to the small amount of magic I myself possessed.
As promised, Puck didn't leave me waiting for long. I had just enough time to wish I had a drink or two in my hands before he was back.
"Here it is," he said, presenting the journal to me. I made to reach for it, but he pulled it back again. "If you damage this in any way--"
"I'm not going to damage it."
"Very well. Take a look then, and once you have, you will tell me all about these dreams you've been having."
"Sure." I reached for the journal again, and this time, he let me take it. I opened it to a random page in the middle. In spite of its age, the book was in absolutely pristine condition. No yellowing, no smudged ink, no tears or creases. It even kind of smelled like a new book. Atlus must have used some sort of magic to preserve it. The page I was looking at seemed to be describing some sort of spell too. There were a lot of runes with vague descriptions as well as measurements of different ingredients like sage and myrrh. Not exactly what I'd been hoping to see.
If this was his journal, wouldn't there be something about his life too? And about the person he'd spent it with?
I flipped to another page, further in the back. Here, I found a record of a day in the life of Atlus.Went to the market. They were out of dates. Keenan won't be pleased. He's been making amazing progress, though. Yesterday, he froze time.
I looked up at Puck, who was watching me carefully. "Was Keenan his child's name?" I asked. "The first dhampir?"
Puck took a moment to respond, then said, "It was." For some reason, he looked at me as if I was a math problem he couldn't figure out.
"I didn't know dhampirs could freeze time," I murmured, scanning the rest of the page. There wasn't too much there that was of interest, though.
"Dhampirs used a wide range of magic," Puck said. "True dhampirs, that is."
"Dhampirs like Keenan, you mean..."
"They weren't limited to just vampiric power," Puck explained. "They had Atlus's genes as well, and Atlus was one of the most powerful witches that ever walked the earth." His admiration for his idol shone through in his voice. "One of the reasons I'd love to get my hands on some true dhampir blood. Just think of all the ways that could be used in different spells, the possibilities that might unlock... I'm starting to think your blood might be even more interesting than that, though." A certain edge crept into Puck's voice as he said that. I couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was, but it made me close the book and look at him.
"How so?"
"Because you've spent all your life living as a regular mortal and yet..." Puck pointed at the journal in my hands. "Suddenly you can read a language that went extinct centuries ago."
I blinked, then stared at the book. It was in English, wasn't it?
But why would it be?
My stomach dropped.
Atlus had lived roughly a thousand years ago. Why would he have written his journal in modern day English? To make things easier for me? Certainly not.
Somewhat hesitantly, I opened the book again, to the same page I'd been reading before. It still looked like perfect English--until I really focused on it. The moment I saw the words for what they truly were, they stopped making sense. I blinked, and they came back into focus again. "Maybe it's some sort of spell?" I suggested. If Atlus had cast some kind of spell on this journal to make it survive well past his death, maybe he'd also enchanted it to make it understandable.
"I've thoroughly examined this journal," Puck said. "No such spell has been used on it."
"Then... How...?"
Puck's lips twitched up again. "How indeed. First the mark on your body, now this…" He sat in the chair that he'd abandoned only recently and laced his fingers together as he studied me. For a long time, he said nothing, but I saw the gears turning in his head. He was evaluating this situation--evaluating me.
The fine hairs on my arms stood up.
Why was any of this happening to me?
