Chapter 10 Raven
Raven
Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action for no other reason than because he knows he should not?
—Edgar Allan Poe, “The Black Cat”
Waiting for Atticus and Dorian is an exercise in patience, and I am not patient.
Back at home, I rotate between sitting on the couch or the breakfast table downstairs, or on the bed upstairs, and finally end up standing in the landing, hoping for the door to open.
I check the window, but all I can see is wet pavement glinting beneath the streetlamps.
The clock on the mantel tells me it’s three in the morning, and the street remains infuriatingly empty except for the occasional headlights of a slowly rolling car, or a stray cat darting across the lanes.
I jump when there comes a sharp triple knock.
On my feet in an instant, I rush to the door and yank it open.
“We did it, Raven. Holy shit, we did it!” Dorian’s voice carries as he holds up a leather-bound grimoire. He and Atticus look flush with excitement, their identical smiles lighting up the dark hallway.
“Shh. You’ll wake up my landlord,” I say as they slip inside. I have the top two floors of a town house, but the building is old, and the walls are thin. “What took you so long?” Dorian passes a look to Atticus. I get a strange feeling; something’s changed between them. “I was starting to worry.”
Then Dorian grins at me. “You weren’t kidding, the tunnels under campus are massive.
It’s basically an underground city.” He sounds a little breathless, like the adrenaline is still pumping through his system.
His cheeks are rosy, his hair windswept, eyes bright and clear.
Next to him, Atticus looks similar, although in his eyes the look of triumph is laced with something else I can’t quite identify. Is it disappointment?
“You have to come next time,” says Atticus.
“Next time,” I say, trying to smile but failing. The invitation somehow doesn’t feel so special now that it’s over. “So, what did you get?”
Atticus hands me the book before throwing himself down on the couch. “We grabbed whatever we could.”
“It’s in Latin; you’ll know what it says.
” When Dorian plants himself next to Atticus, he gives him a lingering look that he hides with a sweep of his glove through his hair.
Atticus returns the glance, a kind of half-lidded wink.
Something passes between them, and I’m not quite sure what.
Suddenly, I’m feeling left out all over again, and the loneliness is like an ice pick to the heart.
“Did something else happen?” I ask, probing, though hopefully not pressing.
“No, nothing,” says Dorian, shifting in his seat.
I know a lie when I hear one.
Sweat blooms across my palms. Jealousy takes hold. Do I even want to know? I try not to look at Atticus. I know. I know. It’s so silly to love a man who can’t love me back, but as they say, the heart wants what it wants, and I’ve always wanted Atticus.
Atticus explains, “Warden Stone was in the archive when we arrived, so we had to hide until he left.”
“Warden Stone.” Hearing the name, I feel foolish. After dealing with the protesters, he probably went to check on the archive, making sure the books were secure. I should have warned them after I saw him. “I wish you’d told me you’d be late,” I say stupidly and regret it immediately.
“How?” Atticus asks, confused. “It’s not like I could have called or texted.”
“No, I know, but…”
Dorian’s gaze slides to Atticus. “It won’t happen again,” he says. “Right, Finch?”
Atticus straightens up a little, shoulders back, and tilts his head as if listening to a distant sound. “Yeah,” he says. “We’ll have to find some other way to talk to each other across distances.”
It feels as though I’m not privy to something.
Like I haven’t seen them in years instead of hours.
I want to ask about it, but it’s probably nothing and Atticus is already opening the book and paging through it.
The writing is faded, the paper thin and fragile, yellowed and frail with age.
It cracks when he runs his finger across the surface.
“I vote we see what’s inside,” he says.
“I’m too awake to go to bed anyway,” I agree, taking a seat.
We gather around the ancient book as Dorian offers to make tea.
While he fills the kettle, we prepare ourselves, making room to work.
The coffee table is actually just the old trunk that I packed my belongings into, and he clears it of everything but the book, brushing away dirt and a few odds and ends.
“How did it go with Aspen, anyway?” Atticus asks.
“Fine.”
“Just fine?” he teases.
“What are you getting at?”
He glances in Dorian’s direction before replying. “Your energy is…off.”
I bat my hand through the air. “It’s nothing.”
Atticus presses his mouth into a line. “Still. You can tell us anything, you know that.”
I can’t. I really can’t. I like Atticus too much. And I know he won’t ever like me in the same way. I can’t help wanting him, wanting him the way he wants Dorian. I’ve always wanted things I can’t have. It’s like I torture myself on purpose, even when I know it makes me miserable.
Atticus watches me, and for an instant, it feels like he can see right through me.
I almost want to hide, but Dorian returns with the teapot, steeping with bags of black tea, a trio of mugs balanced in the other hand.
We arrange ourselves on the floor around the trunk.
Dorian sits opposite me, Atticus at my side.
I welcome the warmth of his body next to mine.
I close the book and study it. The cover is made from blue leather, the texture soft beneath my fingers.
A cross flecked with gold decorates it. I trace my fingers over the leather, feeling the grooves and indents made by the script, letting my eyes unfocus and my mind relax.
Something shifts, and the words make sense.
Nothing about them changes, but I do. I morph myself around the language, taking its shape, embracing it.
My tongue tingles as if I’ve touched it to a small battery.
“It’s written by a wizard by the name of Apuleius. There’s a stamp here. This book belonged in the Library of Alexandria.”
Dorian straightens, anticipation making his muscles grow taut. Atticus lets out a shuddering breath.
“Really?” he asks. “The Library of Alexandria?”
“Yes,” I say. “It must have survived the fire, probably brought to Sibylline for safekeeping.” Maybe Aspen was a little right.
If not for Sibylline, it would have been lost. The book feels ancient, like a tree with a million rings in its trunk.
Somehow touching it feels sacrilegious. I want to be respectful, but at the same time, I want to know everything it contains.
I open the cover, and the words practically leap off the page.
“It’s a book of incantations, all of them meticulously detailed, as if the inscriber was documenting them for future generations. A step-by-step guide to the arcane wisdom within the ancient language.”
Atticus and Dorian look at me, waiting, unable to do any of this without me.
Satisfaction worms its way inside of me.
They need me. Without my power, they would have no idea what this book contains.
When I flip another page, there’s a diagram of a man, naked, impressed upon a pentagram.
His head and splayed arms and legs make up the points of a star, and each point is labeled with an astrological symbol.
When Dorian sees it, he stiffens at my side. “What’s that?” he asks.
“It’s a ceremonial ritual, the invocation of a spirit.”
Dorian leans forward, his forehead creased.
“Do you recognize it?” Atticus asks.
“I’ve seen something like it,” he says soberly. He tugs at his gloves.
“What’s an invocation again?” Atticus asks.
“Calling forth a spirit into our realm, manifesting its energy,” I say. “It’s different from an evocation, where you call a spirit into the material world. In an invocation, you call a spirit into you.”
A worried expression crosses Dorian’s face.
“We don’t have to do anything like that,” I say.
“We should start small, try something easy.” We take performing our first spell seriously as we meticulously go through each page of the book for at least an hour until we unanimously agree on one: a simple conjuration to light a candle.
It was one of the first things a young magician learned back then.
There’s little room for error. Either the spell works or it doesn’t.
It’s reasonable for us to start small, after all.
Dorian seems more at ease with our choice at least.
“What do you need us to do?” Atticus asks me.
I check and double-check the instructions. It’s a straightforward spell. “This one only requires a vocal command and a sigil.”
“Sounds simple,” says Atticus.
“Atticus, can you fetch the candle from the windowsill there? And hand me my journal, please, Dorian,” I say. They do, eager to begin.
I open my journal to a blank page, where I copy the sigil as it is in the book, a simple triangle—the alchemical symbol for fire—writing the same Latin phrase on each of the three sides, exactly as detailed in the grimoire.
I explain as I work, “It says that the upright triangle is the symbol for fire, a representation of rising energy, of reaching above, whatever that means. The triangle is also the strongest of the basic shapes, or so it claims. Every line supports the others. Without one, it falls apart. Some sort of ancient logic.”
“Makes sense, I guess,” says Atticus, shrugging.
Dorian kneels on the other side of the coffee table, opposite me, and Atticus now hovers behind me, leaning over to look at the book.
I can smell his aftershave, that familiar scent that brings me back to the days we spent in his room, poring over books late into the night, moonlight breaking through the window.
It was a time of possibilities, of promises, of the future.
I want to impress both of them. I want to impress him.
“So what now?” Atticus asks.
“Just watch,” I say, placing the unlit candle over the paper where I drew the sigil. I push the book away and get up on my knees, stationing myself so I have a clear view of everything involved in the spell.
“I think I’m ready,” I say, but I hesitate.
Something holds my tongue. I want to do this, but I don’t truly know what is going to happen.
I could be doing this wrong. There could be a thousand things I don’t understand about this spell.
The anticipation sits like a stone in my mouth, preventing me from speaking.
This, right here and right now, is everything I’ve been waiting for, so what’s holding me back?
“Are you okay?” Dorian checks on me, concerned.
“I don’t want to mess it up.”
“You won’t.” Atticus touches my elbow, sending goose bumps shivering across my skin. Dorian offers an encouraging smile, a lifeline to latch on to.
“Okay. Give me a minute.” I take a deep breath, set my shoulders, and straighten my spine, staring at the symbol.
Lighting a candle seems so simple. Too simple. What if I did more? What if I could show Atticus and Dorian what I can really do? I notice Atticus watching me, and a swell of determination bubbles inside of me, like a pot ready to boil.
I clap my hands, the sound ringing out in the silent apartment, then I read the words aloud from the page: “Vocare…ignis.”
The air between my hands gets warm, like invisible sunlight cupped in my palm. It feels so good. Magic flows through my hands and down my fingers, tickling my skin. This is nothing like I’ve ever felt before. Power. Pure power.
More. I can do more. The sensation in my chest simmers. I imagine myself turning up the heat. Just a little more. Only a twist of the wrist.
There’s a blinding flash. The air crackles. Then everything explodes.
A bolt of what looks like lightning, white-hot and impossibly loud, hits the room.
A searing heat strikes my face, and a force throws me backward. All I can do is cover my eyes and cower, waiting until the heat and the light fade.
My ears are ringing, head spinning. Someone’s screaming.
“Raven!” It’s Atticus.
I look around me. The candle is on fire, but so is everything else in my apartment.
The room is alive with flame. It dances across the carpet and up the curtained wall to the second floor.
The heat stings my eyes, and the smoke is everywhere.
Flames roar, almost to the ceiling, and a thick gray cloud chokes the room as the fire alarm shrieks to life.
The spell book burns, too, and the pages turn to ash. “Shit!” The precious book that once escaped a legendary devastating fire now burns before my eyes. I slam the cover shut, but it’s too late. Much of it is already gone, the ancient paper consumed in mere seconds.
More screaming. Dorian’s shirtsleeve. It’s on fire. He falls to the floor. Atticus throws a blanket on top of him to snuff out the flames.
“Oh my God! Dorian! No!” I scream as I grab a pillow and try to extinguish what’s left of the fire.
There’s a voice in the hall and a fist pounding on the door. Furious bangs. “Hello? What the hell’s going on in there?”
I try to make it to the door, but it’s too smoky. Dorian’s face is tight with pain, teeth bared, his eyes squeezed shut. Tears stream down his cheeks. Atticus is yelling. Everything is burning.
Then Mr. Benson, my landlord, bursts through the door, a fire extinguisher in his hand, and he sprays the walls, the carpet, and the furniture.
White mist fills the room, dousing everything.
I settle beside Dorian. His shirt is ruined, the skin beneath it red but not burnt.
He’s okay, thankfully. The same cannot be said for my apartment.
It’s been almost completely consumed by the fire. What’s left is mostly ash, embers, and smoke.
“What happened?” Mr. Benson demands. He must have heard the commotion and come running. If it hadn’t been for his help, we’d likely be dead.
“Cooking accident,” I say. “Left the stove on after making tea. Thanks for, uh, putting it out.”
Mr. Benson just stares at me, a look of fury on his hardened face.
I’ll need to find a new apartment and pay for the damages on this one, but I don’t care.
I summoned lightning.