BOOK II

    Lucy tossed Serene’s gift onto her coffee table, then slouched on the couch next to it. She stared at its title, Thaumaturgy the Ascential, as though the book might hide a snake between its covers. She’d done well avoiding all things magic for the last six months—except for the dreams. There was no way to avoid those. 

   Her special dreams were nightmares, really. They never frightened her, yet that was the most horrific quality to them. Given the images they subjected her to, she should have clawed her way to consciousness every night, awakened covered in sweat. Yet, she woke rested and at peace.

    She walked the distance to her laundry closet, lifted out a box from behind a pile of linens, and returned with it to the living room. Splaying its contents next to the thaumaturgy book on the coffee table, she set down a glass jar full of bones, a small, lifeless branch, a tiny vial of clear liquid, a tin of black laminated BBs, and another large book entitled, Pantheob Aun Prophestry. The tome, bones, and branch were items she’d found lying in her bed upon waking from her special nightmares. The vial was the last remaining bit of witch water she’d collected from Whyte Manor, and the BBs were the weapon she’d crafted from the witch water to attack the raptgar lair the previous summer. These were all the magic items she possessed. 

    “Oh, right,” she said to the room and fished the athame Serene had lent her from her pocket. From another pocket, she pulled out the living gold necklace. Setting them both on the table, she frowned down at the collection, yearning to rent a boat right that instant to toss the lot into the center of Lake Pontchartrain. Truth be told, she’d pondered ways to rid herself of these things every day for six months, but her collection kept growing. “There’s no escaping this, is there?” she asked herself, feeling dread wane into resignation. “I’m caught in this web of magic now, aren’t I? I can’t go back to the blissful ignorance of a science-centric life.”

    She recalled her high school physics teacher once telling her, Science is all around you, everywhere, all the time. You can fall off a cliff and let gravity kill you, or you can learn how to defy it. Build a glider, jump off that cliff yourself, and soar. 

    She flipped the thaumaturgy book’s cover open. “Magic is all around me, everywhere, all the time.” Resignation became anger. “Hell if I’m gonna let ignorance of magic drag me to my death. When I die, I’ll be aware of all the stupid shit I did to bring it about.” With that, she skipped the book’s introduction and began reading its first lesson...