The Witch's Toy ✔

34: as it should be

Orias.

The name echoed through my mind, bouncing off every corner only to wind up back where I first heard it. After spending the rest of the day with Raum, quietly watching as he went through countless sheets of paper, scribbling stuff down and stamping them with some kind of seal, I'd naturally been sent to my room to rest for the night, but somehow, I was here instead.

I didn't know whether it was myself who walked all the way here or if it was by some kind of magic that brought me here. At this point, it could be either. It didn't take me too long to realize that my grandmother's so-called "companions" were not normal beings. Maalik had already confirmed it the moment he saw me.

Cursed demons. They were something like that.

"You came here by your own volition, by the way." Orias gently lead me past the towering bookshelves — all the way to the far wall where a set of stairs led to some kind of open space. "Just imagine my own surprise when Uriel's granddaughter suddenly found this hidden room. Samael told me you were different than a lot of other children your age, and I don't doubt his words."

When we reached the top of the stairs, it seemed like I was in someone's room. A bed was pushed all the way back to the corner, a silver rack holding clothes right beside it. Orias let go of my hand before sitting down on the fluffy rug that covered a quarter of the hardwood floor. Patting the space in front of him, he beckoned me forward.

He tilted his head to one side. "I'm curious; how did you find this place?"

"I don't remember." It was true; one moment, I was in my bed, eyes slowly drifting close and the next moment, I was here, wide awake.

"Hm. Sleepwalking, then?"

I looked down at my fingers, fiddling with them. If anything, I kind of wanted to go back to my room, even if I was restless and probably couldn't sleep. It seemed cozy up here, but there was nothing much that I could do.

"Would you like to read a book?" Orias nodded to the shelf behind him, extended his hand down below where tens of thousands of books were. "If you don't have a preference, I could recommend some reads. Entertaining children's books, of course."

To this, I nodded. Reading was one of the things that I truly enjoyed doing.

He disappeared out of sight for a moment, leaving me momentarily shocked, but then reappeared a minute afterward, a stack of books in one hand. Setting them in front of me, he held a finger up to his lips, his lips curling up at the edges. "I probably shouldn't have done that, but I didn't want to keep you waiting. Let's keep this a secret between us, okay?"

I nodded again, then turned my attention to the books in front of me. The covers weren't filled with the colorful, glossy pictures I was used to, but rather blank, their titles completely wiped blank.

"Fantasies. When I first came to earth, I found them quite interesting." Orias tapped on a leather cover. "Though, you won't have the slightest clue what they're about unless you read them."

I slowly opened one, smoothing the front page with my fingers as I read the first sentence, then the next. It pulled me in quicker than I thought, and in the time it would take for me to blink, the words had already sucked me into their fantasy.

•••

My eyes flew open, my blank mind suddenly overwhelmed by thoughts. I sat bolt upright, that calm atmosphere of the library leaving my body immediately.

The last demon.

Seeing him in my dreams — a memory coaxed to the surface, told me that I would be seeing him soon in some kind of fantasy brought to life. I'd be seeing him at my school's end-of-term party.