The Book Of Timendra

Chapter 14: Dragon in the Attic; Claudia Selene

Crystal glares at us from on top of my bed. "I can't believe you would break so many rules! You broke curfew, left campus, and you had the nerve to enter the forbidden, fuc*ing forest-"

"C- Crystal? Are you gonna tell-" Amber starts.

"I am not done! The forbidden fuc*ing forest, without me!" Eve and Amber let out sighs of relief.

"We're not even your friends. Why do you care?" I ask, suspiciously. Crystal shrugs.

"Sounds like fun, I guess. And you're my friend, Amber. We shouldn't keep secrets."

"Speaking of secrets-" Eve clapped a hand over Amber's mouth.

"We'll include you next time. Now we're tired. Can we please go to sleep?" She says quickly. Crystal gives Amber a look, like; Who does she think she's fooling?

"Mmkay. Well, if you decide to stop being a hypocrite, your welcome to sit with me anytime. Nighty night." Crystal says, blowing us a kiss, slipping into the darkness behind our door, and closing it behind her. I snap the lights back off, hoping Rosalyn, and Bluebell hadn't woken up yet. We go into the bathroom, stepping quietly. Eve taps the mirror, as Amber calls Divinity. Eve climbs through the mirror, and I try to follow, but As my face smashes against a warm scaly thing, I realise Divinity had already tried to go through, and was stuck.

"She's stuck." I whisper. I see Eve wrap her arms around something, and Amber put her shoulder against Divinity's invisible haunches, and shoves. I join her, and after ten or so minutes, Amber and I suddenly fall forward, into the mirror. I stand up, brushing off my robes. Amber adjusts her puffy hair, and we start up the steps, Divinity rumbling up ahead.

"How dare she call me a hypocrite? She doesn't know anything about me! What does that even mean? What could I possibly be being hypocritical about? I'm mean that's just pure idiocy-" Eve rants as we near the top of the lengthy flight of stairs.

"Why do you even care? You've been called worse." I ask, annoyed. Eve opens her mouth to answer, then closes it unable to.

Finally she says, "Exactly! Because it doesn't make sense! She could have picked anything-"

"Just shut up." I interrupt, and surprisingly, she complies. We finally reach the top. Amber immediately sets to work grabbing materials from her inventors station.

"Get anything flammable!" She orders hurriedly, pushing the objects to the center of the room, and moving on to the potionry section we share. I join her, grabbing all the herbs, taking special interest in the ones I know to release toxic gas when burned. Eve rushes back and forth throughout the room saving the books from when Divinity inevitably learned to spew fire, or worse, got the hiccups. Finally when we are done, Amber asks, "Do either of you know a fireproofing spell?" Eve and I glance at each other.

"No." With a sigh of exhaustion, Eve and I begin to sort through the books, as Amber takes her hammer to some scrap metal, making a large box, full of compartments.

"Got it." Eve declares, holding up a book labeled, "Fire; uses, dangers, advantages, and disadvantages." She scans the table of contents, turns to the right page, before handing the book to Amber. Amber's dark eyes pour over the page. She opens h er mouth to utter the spell, before shaking her head. She hands the book to me instead.

"What-" I start to ask before I'm interrupted.

"I'm not good at focusing my magic. It's better if you do it." Amber explains.

"But-" I start to object before I'm interrupted again.

"Either I'll let out too little and nothing will happen, or I'll let out too much and it'll explode. Either way it's a waste of perfectly good metal. You do it."

"Fine." I say, yawning. I don't feel like arguing. I just want to go to sleep. I push my palm onto the surface of the box, and read the words from the book, as I focus the magic flowing through my veins towards my fingertips. The box hums quietly as the darkness in the corners of the room gather around my hand. The metal grows warm beneath my hand. The candles gutter out, and the box cools to the touch. My heartbeat grows fast.

"Did you fireproof the whole room?" Eve asks sarcastically with that annoying patronizing tone of voice that only she cab achieve. I can feel my heart in my throat now. As a dark magic witch, it was a requirement to know about all the creatures that made their homes in the dark.

"Would that even be bad?" Amber asks, ever so innocently. My breath puffed out in short fast bursts.

"Without fire..." Huff. "We..." Puff. "Can't light the..." I held my breath, as I felt something brush past me. "Candles..." A cold gust of wind tickled the hairs on my neck. "No..." The floorboards creaked. "Candles..." the creaking grew louder, and steadier. "Means no..." Two bright red eyes came out of the dark, glaring at me. "Light." I cower on the floor as the eyes float towards me. They float around me, and light the candles around the room, revealing Eve across the attic with a match, and two candles floating in midair. One of the candles tilts lighting the last candle in the room, before floating back over the Eve. Eve shoves the candles back into their holders, and blows out the match.

"Are you okay?" Amber asks worriedly. I let out a sigh of relief.

"I'm fine. Let's go to bed. I'm tired."

"The great Claudia is tired?" Eve asks with sarcastic disbelief. "At night?"

"I'm tired magically." I reply, annoyed.

"Suuure."

"Does it matter? We're not done setting up for Divinity." Amber interrupts.

"We're not?" Eve asks.

"Yeah you're not. But I am. I'm going to bed." I reply, heading for the stairs.

"How can you just-" Amber cuts off Eve's incredulous retort.

"If she had stayed would she have helped?" I wonder if I should be offended.

Eve laughs. "I guess we are better off without her. She probably would have tried to sabatoge us or something."

"You're not better off without me! I'm amazing!" I yell jokingly up the stairs.

"Yeah, right!" Eve replies. I push the mirror open, and stepped through into the bathroom. I turn on the light, so if I woke anyone up I could say I was going to the bathroom. I close the mirror gently, and open the door. Rosey and Bluebell are still asleep, snoring softly within their beds. I start to get ready for bed, going back to the bathroom to wash my face, and brush my hair and teeth. I'm still changing into my pajamas when Amber and Eve come out of the bathroom. I finish pulling on my black shorts before climbing exhaustedly into bed. Before I can even close my eyes, the alarm clock begins to beep. Rosey and Bluebell are started awake.

"Ugh!" I groan.

"I know right?" Bluebell said.