Persie Merlin and the Witch Hunters - Bella Forrest Page 0,100

have been a terrible idea.

She wiggled her eyebrows, still giggling. “I left the kind of message that’ll make Victoria wish she’d worn her brown suit today. ‘You think you’re all-powerful. You think yourselves superior. The day will come when we show you are nothing but dirt beneath our feet. Your days of power are over. You are in our world now.’”

“You didn’t leave any evidence behind?” I had to be sure, given that she’d been wielding chopsticks as swords about an hour ago.

“Not a lick! I made sure of it. What about you? How did Operation Softly Softly Catchy Cursey go?”

“I appreciate these creative names.” I laughed and waved the copied curse in her direction. “I think I got what I was looking for, but I won’t be able to conjure up an antidote myself. That isn’t my field of expertise, but I know someone who can help.” I didn’t say any more about what I’d found than that. I felt horrified by the curse in my hands, but I didn’t want to cast aspersions on Victoria before I had concrete evidence. Even with Genie, I couldn’t begin theorizing without being certain. Perhaps there was a part of me that wanted to remain decent and honorable when it came to Victoria, despite what I had seen.

Someone else could still have stolen it from her Grimoire, and it was entirely possible that Veritas had managed to acquire a dangerous piece of magical technology that had gone awry because they didn’t know how to use it properly. I knew of one such item—a Devil’s Bomb—that could emulate what had been done to Reid. They were very rare, but they did exist. Devil’s Bombs were orbs crafted from Arabic gold, which usually held the spirit of a djinn. The spirits were imprisoned in the same way a genie got sucked into a lamp, and, once released with the right incantations, it melded human and djinn together. Who was to say there wasn’t a Fear Dearg version of a Devil’s Bomb? If such an item had fallen into inexperienced hands, then it could well have been the cause of this—instead of someone deliberately inflicting a curse. Maybe I was being naïve, but I found it difficult to think ill of Victoria.

Genie nodded. “Then lead the way to our mysterious assistant.” Her eyes brightened. “Ooh, that’s what I’ll be! I’ll be a scholar’s assistant’s… assistant.”

I chuckled. “You have no idea how many times I’ve been snowed under with work and wished that was a real thing.”

“I’m not called ‘Genie’ for no reason. Don’t you know I grant wishes?” She flashed one of her most disarming smiles, and I almost forgot what I was supposed to be doing.

It occurred to me at that moment that we were alone together in my study. Had we not had the pressure of an infectious monster curse on the loose, this would have been another chance to kiss her. Alas, there were more pressing matters afoot, and we needed to get going before Victoria came looking for me to finish our conversation.

“This way.” I walked past her and out of my study, looking down at the ground and trying not to think about the heady waft of her perfume that hit me as we came within touching distance.

Walking through the Institute’s hallways with Genie bounding along beside me, I was reminded of the vast scale of this place, with its cavernous ceilings and imposing stone and glass structure. I had been here for almost six years—first as a student, then as a scholar’s assistant and Repository caretaker—and the magnitude never failed to inspire awe.

Fifteen minutes later, we arrived outside the medieval door of the Hex Lab, complete with a rusty black iron knocker in the shape of a stag’s head. I reached for it and heard the bang of my knock echo through the room beyond.

“Where are we?” Genie whispered furtively. “It’s got creep factor coming out the wazoo.”

I looked left and right, noting how dingy and narrow this part of the Institute was in relation to the rest. “I’ve never noticed that before. I suppose it is a bit… shady. I imagine that’s because it was built around the ruins of where the old castle’s dungeons used to be.” I shrugged off the sudden prickle that ran up the back of my neck, thinking of all the ghosts that must have been floating about down here. “But this is Ariana Gilmore’s laboratory—scholar of hexes and potions. Nothing weird, I