Chapter 31
“You sure you’re up to ghost research after being blown up?” Jahla asked, turning to eye him as she moved further into the secret library. “Not to mention, it’s already ten.”
Her gaze seemed way too focused on his poor, barely-there baby hairs. “Stop looking at them. And I’m fine. I took some meds for my head, and I ate something. Admittedly, the headache mostly went away after I ate.”
She stared at him, her brow raised in judgement.
“I didn’t skip a meal. Noble always makes sure!”
Noble scoffed as he walked into the secret library behind them. “He ate part of a sandwich around five, but his meal was cut short by a toddler having a meltdown, followed by a toilet exploding. And from there, I couldn’t seem to get him to stop moving long enough to finish eating.”
Ollie laughed hesitantly and pointed out, “I mean…I didn’t faint or anything.”
“No, you just blew up a tree,” Jahla deadpanned.
“By accident. And it wasn’t like I didn’t have plenty of reasons to have a headache. Today has been a lot.”
“Mhm, so again, I ask, do you really want to work on ghost stuff right this very second?” she grunted, as her gaze roamed around the room. While she had peeked inside before, he was pretty sure this was the first time she’d actually stepped foot inside the secret library.
Jahla mostly didn’t help with the ghost things, which was definitely due to an unwillingness on her part, even if she was kept up to date on what was going on.
Her even hearing about it was, again, unwilling on her part, as she definitely didn’t always want to know.
However, she was unable to get away from him when he wanted to talk about it in the library.
Not that Ollie abused his boss authority to wander wherever he wanted during the day and talk about non-work-related things—he would… never do that.
“Yes, I am sure. While I may be down some baby hairs, the redness on my face is almost gone, and I no longer feel like I’m going to cough up a lung. Besides, I can always leave opening procedures to my cat, since he is perfectly capable of unlocking doors and turning on lights.”
And it wasn’t like Red could protest at the moment, since he and Annabel were still dealing with the aftermath of his little accident.
“Real responsible,” she drawled.
“I think so. Don’t you, Noble?” he asked with a giggle.
Noble smirked. “I’d say wanting to help a ghost move on would be the more responsible option when compared to wanting to sleep and rise early.”
Jahla snorted, but went back to looking around, approaching a shelf with interest. “Oh, that’s pretty cool,” she gasped as the word above the one she had approached lit up.
“Isn’t it?”
Ollie hadn’t realized it would do that anytime someone approached, regardless of who it was, but then, he was mostly in here with Red and Annabel.
And when Noble was there, he usually wasn’t looking around.
Which now that he thought about it was a bit shocking considering how much witch-related research the man had done in the many months before they started talking and dating.
Though, maybe it just meant he was done researching whatever he’d first intended to.
With a smile, he approached the ghost shelf.
“You know, that’s not even the really cool part.
Or rather, the helpful part. Though, the bookcases being labeled is super helpful too.
” He cleared his throat and mused aloud, “I want to help a ghost to leave the place it’s attached to.
You wouldn’t happen to know where I’d find something about that, would you, uh… bookshelves?”
At first, nothing happened, but then, just as it had every other time, a book lit up.
It was small, about an inch thick, bound in tan leather, and had a single word written on the spine in Hungarian, that translated to spirit or ghost. He wasn’t sure what he’d do if he came across a book that happened to be in a language he didn’t know…
Ollie supposed it would just mean it was time for him to learn a new one.
Giggling, he snagged the book from the shelf.
Jahla pursed her lips. “So…it just shows you what books will help? Like some invisible magical research librarian?”
“Oh, I may nickname it that. IMRL for short—oh, wait—no, I’ll name it Imral—heh.”
Something so helpful deserved to have a real name!
“Imral?” Noble asked with a chuckle.
“Cute, isn’t it?!” Flipping the book open, as with every one before it, the pages looked old but felt sturdy and almost new, easing any worries about accidentally damaging it through handling alone.
Skimming through the handwritten index, he smiled brightly when he found a chapter called, ‘A Vándor Szellem’, which translated basically to ‘The Wandering Spirit’.
As the pages weren’t numbered, he flipped through until he found the chapter he was looking for.
“Let’s see… ‘Spirits typically all have…anchor points. Points…they are unable to move away from…beyond a certain distance. A spirit’s anchor point—’”
“What language is that?” Jahla asked as she peeked over his shoulder.
“Hungarian. Now, where was I…” He frowned, eyeing the writing before finding his place again.
“Ah—‘A spirit’s anchor point can be a place, an object, or even a person, though…the last is rare, and often…temporary. While anchor point can be a large…deterrent when assisting spirits on their journey into the…world beyond, there are ways to temporarily sever the bond, form new, temporary ones, and even ways to…permanently change a spirit’s anchor.
’” Flipping the page, he let out a happy hum when he found a spell taking up half of it.
“‘From this page on, to the end of the chapter, you will find a variety of spells… Specifically, spells of detachment…that will serve your purpose, based on the type of anchor bonds you are facing.’”
“Sounds like you are in the right place,” Noble mused.
“I mean, Imral hasn’t wronged me yet…unlike my grimoire.” Ollie jumped with a squeak, and Jahla did the same, as the book in question appeared out of nowhere, slamming down onto the table, before almost angrily flipping its pages open to the center.
The only one who didn’t jump was Noble, and Ollie honestly wanted to know how someone developed nerves strong enough to not react to a large book loudly poofing into existence.
Ollie peeked at the pages, then glared down at what he read. “Yeah, well, I have to say that is still less annoying than your advice of ‘figure it out’,” he said with an indignant huff, as Jahla peeked into his grimoire.
“What does it say?” she asked, unable to read it, just like all the other times before.
“‘A Tale of the Ungrateful Tree Destroyer. Chapter 1: Palm, Fire, Tree…Explosion!’”
His friend choked before bursting into a fit of giggles.
“It’s not that funny!” he snapped.
Noble’s eyes narrowed on his grimoire. “Is there ever a time it’s not mocking you in some way?”
He pursed his lips. “There was once or twice…” Giving his head a shake, he sighed and looked back down at the book in his hand that was actually helpful. “More importantly…spells.”
Ollie frowned as he flipped through a few pages, reading as he went.
“It seems the first few spells are all about detaching a ghost from an individual, with one specifically focused on permanently re-anchoring a ghost. Considering in this case the anchor would be a person, it makes sense to do that.”
He turned a few more pages.
“The next part is for objects, so the last section should be for places. Let’s see…
we’ve got re-anchoring from one place to another, permanently re-anchoring again, which is surprisingly very different when a location is involved compared to a person…
and—aha! Found it.” He beamed. “‘Temporarily Re-anchoring a Location-Bound Spirit’.
There are two different versions of it—one for when the new anchor is a person, and another for when it's an object. The only difference between the two appears to be the symbol drawn on the temporary anchor.”
“How temporary is temporary?” Noble asked.
“It says the duration is twelve hours, but you can end it early by erasing either of the symbols you drew.” He frowned. “Based on the droplets, it's ranked as a ten difficulty-wise, though I’m not sure why, because it seems pretty simple and straightforward.”
“It being ranked as a ten is less about casting difficulty and more about how draining the spell is once cast,” Red said as he padded into the room.
Red eyed Ollie narrowly as his witch sheepishly smiled down at him. The man’s freckled face was no longer red, and the soot had been cleaned away, but he was definitely running out of baby hairs at this point. “Exploded tree cleaned up?”
“Yes,” he grunted in disgust. “Now, about the spell. It is in fact almost effortless to cast, and just as easy to end. But the temporary bond is maintained through a constant, very direct connection to the caster’s magical pool.
“While spells that draw on a witch’s magical pool to sustain themselves, rather than being completely fueled by their actual energy source, tend to be more stable—and easier to maintain—the fact is that with this spell, both will be used up quickly.
The temporary anchoring will completely drain the caster in every way it can until either the twelve hours are up, the spirit has moved on, thus breaking the anchor, the spell is ended early, or… ”
“The witch passes out?” Jahla mused.
He smirked. “No, I was going to say, until the witch dies.”
“I could die?!” Ollie squeaked as the woman gasped and looked toward him in concern.
Red shrugged. “It’s a very real possibility for those with shallow magical pools who are foolish enough to not only cast the spell, but also ignore their body’s warning signs of impending collapse.
The ranking is very much set as a warning for new witches, as they are most likely to be the ones with shallow pools. ”