up. There were shelves on every wall, and they climbed up to the ceiling, which had to be at least fifteen feet tall. “This shouldn’t take long at all,” she grumbled.
“Your optimism is catching,” Aviur said dryly. “Do try and tone it down.”
Nasima smirked. “I will do my best to contain my enthusiasm, but you know me—put me in a room stuffed with old books, and suddenly I want to break out in a jig.”
“Yes, because you’re such a jig kind of queen.”
“I’ve been known to dance on occasion,” Nasima said as she pulled a book from one of the shelves. Like all the others, it was large, at least eighteen inches high and eight inches thick. It weighed at least ten pounds. “Good grief,” she huffed. “What did they make these pages out of? Stone?”
Aviur pulled out a book and flipped it open. “Hmm,” he said, turning the pages. “Actually, they’re enchanted. Open yours.”
Nasima frowned but obeyed. She felt magic pulse through her hands as the book got even heavier. She placed the book on one of the three tables in the center of the room.
Staring at the pages, she realized there were letters on the page, but they didn’t make any sense. “What in Mother Gaia is going on?” she muttered. “The last time we were here”—though she couldn’t remember when that was—“these were legible.”
“The last time we were here, demons and witches and dark royals were not working together.”
“You think the witches put spells on these books?” she asked him.
Aviur placed his hand on the open page of his book and closed his eyes. Nasima watched as his hand glowed red. After a minute, he pulled his hand back. “It’s not elemental magic, nor does it feel like the magic of the underworld. That leaves witches.”
“How in the world would they have gotten access to this library?” Nasima wondered out loud.
“As curious as that is, I think we should focus on breaking the spells and worry about the ‘how’ once the world isn’t headed for the next ice age and first demon invasion.”
Nasima nodded. “Good point.”
“Cover yourself in air purification,” Aviur said. “I’m going to use cleansing fire. It shouldn’t burn you, but I don’t know what effect it will have when it hits the witches’ magic.”
Nasima whispered words in the elemental language and felt the air around her stir. It whipped around her until she was completely engulfed in a tornado that only touched her and nothing else.
She watched as the fire king raised his hands and began his own chant. She couldn’t hear his voice through the roaring wind around her, but she could see the fire shoot from his hands. The shelves and books were engulfed in a matter of seconds. Though it looked as if they would all burn until there was only ash left, they didn’t. The fire licked over them, and she could see the black magic being pulled out. The flames seemed to devour the witch magic and, as soon as a book was cleansed, the fire on it eased. The books that had been cleaned so far also appeared cleaner on the outside, as if they were brand new and not centuries old.
Nasima stayed covered in her power with the turbulent air flowing around her. As she watched, each shelf was covered by the fire until, finally, the flames subsided.
She released the wind and then jumped when the book in her hands suddenly went up in flames only to return to its non-burning state, but in better condition.
“I thought you were concerned about how the witch magic would respond to your magic,” she said, giving Aviur a withering glare.
“The library didn’t burn to the ground,” he pointed out, “I knew you were relatively safe.”
Nasima raised a brow at him. “That’s reassuring.”
“The words can be read now, air queen,” Aviur said, pointing at the book in her hands.
Nasima glanced down, and, sure enough, the words now made sense.
She held a book about demons, but it wasn’t about banishing them. This book was about calling them out of hell. “Why would the Vatican have a book on how to summon demons?” she asked Aviur as she continued to flip through the pages.
“I don’t know. What types of demons are we talking about?”
Nasima frowned. She flipped through a few more pages. “This book is an instruction manual on how to summon a … hazard demon.”
Aviur’s smile turned sly. “Aren’t they all hazards?”
“Apparently, this is a special type of hazard,” she said. “According