[Narrative Twist, Proceed, Idea]

  “Your late Rose.”

  “We both know I’m not late, I’m just barely on time.”

  Dong. Dong.

  “Ok fine, I’ve got a task for you today to refine your use of the Locate spell. Umm ok, you had trouble locating Damon and fast thinking did locate him but if you were better with the locate spell you might have found him faster. Someday that speed may save your life or the life of a friend.”

  “Ok, what should I practice locating?”

  “Go to Juliet’s world and locate and bring back five hundred snails, here’s a sack to put them in. No one can help you. Locate them and bring them back to me. At least five hundred, I’ll be counting them to check. Understood?”

  “Yep.”

  “Good, off you go.”

  Knock, Knock, Knock.

  “Sparky, Rose isn’t here, she went to work a while ago, did something happen?”

  “No, I sent her to Juliet’s world to practice the Locate Spell, I told her not to come back until she had 500 snails in her possession. I needed to get rid of her so I could talk to you, without Rose knowing. But not here, she can be annoyingly quick with a task when I don’t want her to be. Let’s take a walk to my tower.”

  “Ok, Sparky.”

  “First I think I know full well the answer but I need to ask the question. Do you want to protect Rose?”

  “Completely.”

  “To protect her, can you betray her?”

  We arrived at the ancient stone tower that Sparky called home.

  “Ok Lu, do you see that metal plate next to the stone door? Put your hand on the plate and it should feel a little warm, look at the door and say your full name.”

  “Lupina DeCais.”

  Very slowly the stone door slid up into the tower walls themselves. We entered and the door reappeared. I was astonished, there was a forest here, and just beyond a pond.

  “Do you like it, the wolf in you must, can you scent the herd of Elk just over that rise?”

  “How is this possible, are we in your book?”

  “No, we're still in Emain Ablach, the tower is magical, like the book shop and the bakery but the tower is for defense. This floor is in case of siege, there’s enough food and water in here to feed the entire town many times over.”

  “But it’s bigger on the inside, than it is on the outside.”

  “Yes isn’t it cool, I stole the idea from an Earth kid’s show called Dr. Who, but let’s go up to the second floor, I’ll make some tea. This is going to take a little while.”

  I have no idea if the second floor is as massive as the first, we climbed a circular stair not far from the stone door and when we reached the second floor, Sparky opened a door and we were in a long circular corridor. We passed a few doors and he opened another.

  “This is my study Lu, come right in.”

  I’d been in the grand library in Quintessence once and it couldn't be any larger than Sparky’s ‘study’. Built-in bookshelves floor to ceiling, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of books I couldn’t even hazard a guess. Sparky pointed me to a pair of chairs by a window that looked out over Wyldwood. I sat down while Sparky fussed over a bunsen burner, water, and loose teas.

  “We have Jasmine, Earl Grey, Gunpowder, Herbal. What would you like?”

  “Jasmine please.”

  He brought the tea and a huge bowl overflowing with cookies and sat down.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “You never answered my question Lu.”

  “Question?”

  “Yes, to protect Rose, will you be able to betray her?”

  “I don’t see how betraying her could protect her.”

  “Yes, yes I understand. Let me ask you this. If I was to give you some information to protect Rose, would you keep that information to yourself, knowing that if Rose had the information she would immediately act on that information putting her very life in danger.”

  “Yes, I think that I can.”

  “Excellent, sit back, I have a bit of a story to tell. When I was quite a bit younger I lived in Quintessence, I was a pretty powerful Bibliomancer and a bit reckless as young people can be. Unfortunately, I did some rather showy magic one night in front of a sycophant of Titania. The spell I cast on another author’s book was unforgivable, illegal, a capital crime. I not only usurped the author’s agency but that of every character in the book. I was called in front of Titania for judgement. She asked for my plea, guilty I replied, and she asked me to reverse the spell. I refused. She asked if I’d perform the same spell for her but on a different book by a different author. Again, I refused. She then banished me to the furthest reaches of Email Ablach for time to consider her request and as extra incentive she cursed me to be forever hungry. That was three hundred years ago. I found myself in Wyldwood and I’ve been here ever since. I’d created wonderful worlds in Quintessence, they were seized and distributed amongst the court mages. The reason that Titania hasn't had me executed is because she wants that spell cast. The only other mage in Emain Ablach that could cast that spell is Tolkien, and she dare not ask him, because he would remove her from the throne, just for asking. Now there is another mage who has the potential to cast that spell. I also know that she’ll never cast that spell. What that Incel attempted to do to Sienna is a capital offense, Rose had every right to take his life on the piss soaked mud of Paradise. But what did Rose do? She took him to the nicest kindest place she could think of, took away his tortured memories of a life on Earth, planted happy memories in his head in hopes that happy memories may propel this man into a happy life. This puts her life in danger. If Titania demands Rose cast a spell and Rose refuses, she’ll almost certainly have Rose killed, she might make the reason because you wrote a song together, it may be some other reason. Why would she kill Rose and not just kill me? The reason is that Titania knows that I cast that spell once, if I could cast it once in anger, I might someday be persuaded to do it for another reason. When Rose flat out refuses, I fear Titania will just have her killed or worse yet from Rose’s point of view. They could seize Juliet’s world, bar Rose's entrance, and turn it over to some cruel tyrant who’d piece by piece destroy it as Rose watched or extort her to cast the spell and that’ll destroy who she is.”

  “Sparky, you’ve told me a long story about something you did long ago, but you keep dancing around what you did and what Titania wants. Can you tell me what you’re hiding?”

  “Three things I’m hiding, one: Titania has sent her most annoying and dangerous spy and mischief maker to find out about Rose. His name is Mistralyn, he’s been coming to me for information as he believes that I’m desperate to get back to the capital. I’ve been giving him tons of information about Rose, almost all of it false. How weak she is, self-indulgent, greedy. I told him I was sending her on desperate missions in the hopes that she dies or dissipates her power in those books. I told him I was doing all this to get back into Titania’s good graces. He has no idea why Titania banished me, no one does. He’s attacked Rose indirectly twice now, first in Sienna’s world then in Juliet’s. He’ll never attack her directly because he is a coward. Rose knows about Mistralyn, not that he’s contacted me but that he works or formerly worked for Titania.”

  He got up and refilled the giant bowl of cookies.

  “The second thing I’ve been hiding is the nature of the spell, it’s simple enough. The author of the book was a cruel man who got delight in creating worlds where even crueler characters ruled over a population of slaves. The rulers went out of their way to make life more miserable for the slaves. The spell I cast is a sort of mirror spell. It took the small ruling class, made them the slave class. The huge slave class became the rulers, unfortunately they were so mistreated as slaves they wanted payback in kind. Very soon the former rulers who’d lived pampered lives died enduring the harsh conditions of the slave class. The killing and dying didn’t end there. The rulers with no one to rule started fighting amongst themselves, reasoning that they couldn’t survive without slaves, half tried to enslave the other half. Soon all but a few thousand had died. I thought I was doing a noble thing freeing the slaves. In the end I just wound up killing nearly an entire world. I should have been killed, not banished.

  ***

  “ Would you care for a donut?”

  Sparky placed a couple of dozen donuts on a large platter, on a table within arm’s reach of where we were sitting.

  “The third and final thing I was hiding, is the simplest really. Titania is greedy for power. She wants me to destroy Oberon’s book. Without it he’d not be able to survive an attack from her, for more than three hundred years she’s hungered for his power, she’s willing to do anything to get it. Torturing or extorting a young girl would just make that sweeter for her. So I’ll ask you for the third time, what will you do to protect her?”

  “Whatever it takes.”

  “Good, your job is to talk her out of traveling to Quintessence for any reason. I’m afraid that after the attack on Juliet’s world, that is going to be very hard to do. I’m very sorry to be dropping this on you. I know you love her very much and it won’t be easy to lie to her. But because you love her and want her safe you must. The third floor of the tower is now yours and Rose's. Just as you came in today and you can show Rose how to get in. The added advantage is you won’t have to go out into the forest on the night of the change just go down to the first floor forest. The tower is impregnable. I doubt even Tolkien could get in.”

  ***

  “Well how did you make out, did you get all five hundred?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you feel like you're better with the spell now?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Well, did you locate the last one faster than the first one?”

  “Yeah I think I did.”

  “Good, I saw Lu and already told her, I’m thinking of expanding the bookstore. So you two might have to move into the tower. You’ll have your own floor and Lu will have a place to transform. She seemed pleased about that.”

  “Umm ok, I’ll talk to Lu about it Ok.”

  “Yeah that’s fine I have to go cook, I’m having my favorite dinner tonight.”

  “What’s your favorite dinner, two dozen sweet rolls?”

  “No silly, escargot.”