Howl

Chapter Fourteen

Artemis's POV

    "Are there any runes for learning things quickly?" Howl asks me.

    "Oh, yes!" I respond sarcastically. "There are runes for speed learning, specified to any topic. There is a rune for learning potions recipes and memorizing them by heart!"

    "Excellent!"

    "Have you ever heard of sarcasm?" Goodness, he could be daft for such an excepttional wizard!

    "Sarcasm?"

    "Yes- it is a false answer in which-"

     "I know what sarcasm is, Artemis," Howl snaps, his smile growing thin. "I am just not used to hearing it, especially with such important matters."

    "Why can't Solomon just go find someone else? It can't be that hard to gather people with abilities that can't be controlled!"

    "Several things: one, she can control you with me and vice versa," was that an emotional confession? "Two, most wizards and sorceresses are born with their abilities."

    "What? Weren't you born with yours?" Unnaturally gifted wizards? He must know more than he is telling me . . .

    "Well," Howl frowns, his features contorted in frustration. "No, actually. Calcifer, the fire demon who moves this castle," Howl nods around the small foyer," is my original source of power. I came when demons fell from the skies. I was only a child, so I thought that these demons were beings from fallen stars, as they appeared. Calcifer and I were bound together in ways a human soul should never be with another creature."

    "Are you still boud to Calcifer?"

    "No, my curse was broken by-" with the glance it the floor, I understand that Sophie was the reason for Howl's freedom from the demon. "But, the last of my list of reasons why Solomon wants you specifiacally is your bloodline."

    "What do you mean? I don't even know who my own father is! My mother left me as a child, and all I have to show for her is her name and-"

    "What do you know about your mother, Artemis?" Howl gains an intense look to his eyes.

    "Her name was Athena Azland and she left me in the woods when I was four, with a pack of wolves chasing us, so that she could go live with some rich man halfway across the world."

    "Your mother was not called by the last name Azland. Your mother was Athena Ashford," Howl corrects me.