Witch, Wolf, Woods

CHAPTER 14: BREAKING THE RULES

The next morning, Katja did her best to put the events of the previous night out of her mind. Had she not had the possibility of deciphering the remaining spells on the necklace and creating an enchanted wolf to hold on to, she might very well have stayed in bed indefinitely, hiding from everyone and everything.

However, now more than ever she wanted a magical companion, and knowing she had a way to end her solitary existence gave her strength.

She sped through her work that day, ate the dinner she'd taken from the kitchen in her bedroom, then headed with resolute footsteps to the library.

There were only a few sigils left to decipher, but she hadn't been able to find any books mentioning them on the first level of the library. One of the librarians could have helped her, but she didn't want to ask, both because she didn't want to risk their pitying expressions when they looked at her and because some part of her suspected they might not like her looking into what were clearly rarely-used spells.

Thankfully, as if the founders of the library had known some people would be unlikely to seek the aid of a librarian, they had created another way of finding books—the Leiten Stone.

Resembling a crystal ball filled with swirling blue and purple clouds, it rested on an ebony pillar, a pile of parchment beside it. You simply placed your hand on the Leiten Stone and thought about the knowledge you sought. The stone would glow and letters and numbers would appear on the top piece of parchment, providing the reference locator for the book or books, listing the floor they were on, as well as the specific shelf.

It would have been nice if the Leiten Stone also provided the page number within the book where the information was contained, but Katja didn't expect magic to do everything for her and felt like it was enough to know where to start.

Making her way to the Leiten Stone, she touched the wolf necklace for luck, then placed her palm against the cool stone. Closing her eyes, she pictured one of the marks she was trying to decipher, then waited for the scratching sound of pencil on parchment; even though the words simply appeared on the page, someone must have thought the sound of something being written was a nice effect.

She pictured another mark, and then another, until she'd envisioned all the remaining marks.

Lowering her hand from the Leiten Stone, she picked up the parchment and studied it...sure enough, most of the books it recommended were on the second floor; two of them, in fact, were on the third, and lowest, level. Katja's heart sped up as she headed to the wide stone staircase leading to the second level.

"This is it, Wolf," she whispered to the pendant. "We're almost there!"

Katja wasn't used to feeling excited about something, and the unfamiliar but very welcome feeling put a spring in her step, causing her to practically skip down the stairs before quickly collecting the books the Leiten Stone had recommended.

Placing them on a table, she pulled out her page of unknown sigils and began flipping through the texts, copying down useful information whenever she came upon it.

"This is complicated," she said at one point, keeping her voice low, even though she was fairly certain she was the only one on the second floor.

All of the sigils she'd just deciphered had to do with transformation and the changing of one thing into another, which didn't make sense, although she hoped it would in time. She carefully worked her way through the texts, then reshelved the books before making her way down to the third level.

Something about the third level always made Katja feel on edge, likely because it housed the Hexen's most dangerous books, although she resented hearing that label applied to the books themselves. It wasn't the books that were dangerous, it was what certain people might do with the information they contained that necessitated caution.