Carmiabell: The Black Apple

Chapter 13

"W... was that a-" Phoebi's mouth stretch into a shocked 'O' as the words stumbled out, shaky and thin, from her frozen vocals.

Silence filled the room as the three of us grappled with what we'd just seen.

Possession of an ice sheet was a direct ticket to exile-thrown out of the only land that even knew the word peace.

After the fall of the great Neporian, the ice sheet had been invented to maintain a truce between rivaling factions. Etched with ancient magic, it carried a set timer; once its limit struck, the sheet turned into impure ice, consuming itself from the inside out, leaving behind a corrosive, infectious liquid.

After the rebellion of the Twelve Witches of Flames and Ice, it was deemed one of the forbidden conjures, burned and banished from knowledge, never to be seen again.

"You'll have to bear with me; autumn's weather seems more like winter this year, so I... overcooked some of this," my mother announced, stepping out of the kitchen with a tray piled high with donuts. "Just try not to eat the burned parts, yeah?" She chuckled, proud of her own joke. "We only have one toilet, after all!"

Told you, weekend meals were always her secret ploy to keep me home.

The three of us barely acknowledged her joke, which didn't seem to bother her in the least. "I'll be upstairs if you need me," she added, before retreating to her room.

Thank goodness she didn't notice the faint crackling noise on the floor by the front door. The liquid from the ice sheet was scorching through the mahogany, leaving a path of bubbling ruin behind, like acid eating through innocent wood.

Could it have been... the midnight prowler? The knocker had been swift-impossibly so. I hadn't scanned the street carefully, but one thing was for sure: no one had been close enough to drop that sheet off and vanish.

°*°

I had been waiting for what felt like the "right" moment to share my encounter with the midnight prowler, though it wasn't the ideal timing I'd hoped for-especially with Damon absent. Still, given what had happened, I couldn't keep it to myself any longer.

Talking about it felt absurd, like describing a dream-okay, maybe more like a hallucination-but at least I was speaking to people who'd seen their own share of forbidden magic. As a result, they believed me.

I chose not to share my wild guess, though. There was no way Damon's eyes could actually glow. I was just overthinking things because I didn't fully understand his lanera.

One thing was clear: someone knew we'd come across a black apple. But Zuina, ever the mischievous troublemaker, convinced me that it was just another coward who didn't want his or her secret uncovered.

Zuina's sweet-talking made the whole ominous situation sound almost charming-though I had to admit, darkness didn't really have a "pretty" side, did it?

The trip to Damon's home felt longer than I expected. With Phoebi and a witch-our coachman-both as long-winded, the journey seemed to stretch out twice as long as necessary.

By the time we reached Hirc Estates, my stomach was ready to riot. I had been ignoring it for as long as I could remember. But I could no longer hold on to it. Everything broke out like an overinflated balloon popped by a twig once the carriage stopped in front of a giant black gate.