A Spell for Shadows: Rosewilde Academy of Magical Arts by Marie Robinson & B.C. Palmer

Author:Marie Robinson & B.C. Palmer [Robinson, Marie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harbinger Press LLC
Published: 2019-08-16T05:00:00+00:00

Amelia

I fully intended to have that conversation with Hunter. I just decided, after several awkward, failed attempts, that it might be better to wait until winter break, which loomed just a week away, along with this Academy Summit event. I was rehearsing that conversation for about the two hundred and sixty-fifth time, not that I was counting, during Percy’s—Professor Turner’s—supposed class on Abyssal Magic and Outsider Cults, when he actually managed to say something that caught my attention. It wasn’t an anecdote about his personal travels or rare manuscripts he’d gotten exclusive access to, for one thing.

“Which brings us,” he said, “to the subject of the Outsider Gods themselves.”

My ears practically burned. I sat up straighter in my seat and put my pen to the notebook in front of me for the first time this class. For the time being, Hunter was set aside in my thoughts.

Professor Turner paced behind his desk, pensive, before he came around to the front of it and leaned against the edge, his gaze sweeping the room in a melodramatic fashion. “There is some belief,” he said grimly, “that speaking the names of the Outsider Gods is enough to draw their attention even from beyond the bounds of our reality. Therefore, they have been given monikers; pseudonyms which, it is hoped, will not rouse their attention when spoken.”

If that was true, Az-Harad had me under a magnifying glass. I felt like that was the sort of thing that should have been introduced on day one of the class. Thanks, Professor.

“That said,” he went on, “no one really knows whether it’s true or not. Which is the problem of the Outsider Gods. All those that have much knowledge, like the famous, if unfortunately short-lived, magician Abdul Alhazred, who is one of our few firsthand resources regarding these mysterious beings, have a tendency to go mad in their research. However, I have been fortunate—if one can call it that—to peruse a list of these beings and their many names.”

I wanted to tell him to please get on with it. Two seats away, I saw Hunter white-knuckling his pen as he stared down the rows of seats in the small lecture room, probably thinking the same thing. My eyes lingered over him, willing him to look my way. He kept staring so harshly at his desk I was surprised it hadn’t caught on fire. Professor Turner kept droning on since he never gave us anything of value without first giving us the story about how he came to it.

He pushed off the desk and began to pace along the front row. “About eight years ago,” he said, “I was on an excavation to a buried temple about sixty kilometers southwest of Fayum, Egypt. The excavation had been difficult. The builders of the temple, and the generations of cultists who had used it as their sanctum, had lain a series of nasty wards and enchantments on the outer walls, the inner chambers, and the entrance to the sub-level where their rituals and worship took place.

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