When We Collide [ON HOLD]

4.8

Xael

"Okay, it's been like five minutes and we haven't found anything," Zahra whispered.

Everyone was spread out, searching for the spell book. Since the office was big, we all had our own assigned parts that we were searching thoroughly. There were cupboards, drawers, stacks of books — everything was being searched.

Suddenly, Jacy stood straight. "I swear there was a spell where you could summon an object close to you?"

"Advocabit," I said without looking up.

Lucien looked at me with an open mouth. "Why didn't you tell us that earlier?! It would have saved a shit ton of time!"

"Shhh!" Jasper shushed. He was trying to find where Norman and Haliade were last using their minds.

"Don't you think Norman and Haliade would have thought of that? They wouldn't leave their book of spells unprotected, open to just being summoned. If we're lucky, they haven't put a spell on it to conceal it from the naked eye," I retorted easily.

"There's a spell to become invisible?" Tristan asked.

"Yes. It's Celare," I answered.

"So I can hide from whoever we're fighting? That's handy," Zahra laughed. I sucked in a long breath, shaking my head.

"See, dear unintelligent sister, it doesn't work on living beings. Only on objects."

"See, dear irritating brother, since when did you know so much about spells? And when did you have time to memorise them?"

Lucien and Jacy were now staring at me, wanting to know the answer too. Tristan smirked. He knew I knew I tried to find out as much as I could about spells; I looked at Jasper. His face was carefully blank, but I knew he knew exactly when I'd memorised these spells. I doubted that he took the time to memorise them himself, even from my mind — he was probably too busy listening in to others' thoughts. I would do the same. Any information is helpful, right?

"I just memorised the easy ones from the spell book in the library."

"There's another spell book?" Zahra asked.

"There's a library?" Jacy questioned.

"Yes," Lucien answered before I could; I looked at him in slight surprise. Seeing my face, he explained,

"The library's on the floor where Amos is. I just ... didn't think anyone else knew," he said, giving me a strange look.

"I've been there on several occasions," I said, going back to searching. "Only recently, I found the spell book. It's useless though — most of the pages have been ripped out except the ones with the useless spells. I memorised those but it wasn't enough. The ripped pages are probably in here though — which is why we need to get going."

A few minutes later, Jacy sighed in frustration. Then she focused on the desk in front of her and said, "Advocabit!"

Nothing happened.

"Told you," I said in a bored voice.

"Better be safe than sorry," she replied, rolling her eyes at me with a slight smile.

"I think it's a good idea," Lucien said, shrugging. "Advocabit!"

"Advocabit," Jasper followed in a voice drained of emotion. For a second, I felt like I needed to console him, reinstall the life into the trees in his eyes — my protective streak was acting up — but then I realised that I couldn't until we got Tazanna back. I also realised that he'd stopped trying to find where Norman and Haliade had last used their minds. He probably couldn't — something was most likely interfering with his abilities. The fear of losing Tazanna, I presume.