The Prof Croft Series: Books 0-4 (Prof Croft Box Sets Book 1) by Brad Magnarella (best business books of all time txt) 📕

broth they brought up and drank the water. If I hoped to recover my strength, I had no choice, I’d decided. And after each meal, I did feel stronger—which bothered me more than anything Connell might have told me. Probably the point.

By late the second day, I was strong enough to pace the room without frequent rests. I thought as I paced, still concerned by the absence of the Order. It had been a week now.

My direct line to the Order is a flame, I thought. That flame is held in a silver cup, fed by an oil crystal, and linked to the Order’s … switchboard, I guess you’d call it, through an incantation. So, material wise, I need a silver cup, an oil crystal, something to write on, and something to write with.

The last two would be easy. I was given a cloth napkin with each meal, and blood pricked from my finger would make a passable ink. It would just be a matter of smearing out the message and then folding and waving the cloth over the flame. Producing that flame would be another matter, though. Oil crystals were hard enough to find in the city, and the cup I was being served water in was some sort of brass alloy, not even close to silver.

Would substitutes work?

From the way Chicory had explained it, the combination of silver and the incantation I’d been given were my connection to the Order. Anything else, and the message would end up in a different dimension, or more likely as a pile of ashes in this one. Back in my library, my shelves held several books on alchemy, but little good they did me here. I blew out a hard sigh.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” a man’s voice said from behind me. “We’ve come to change your bedding.”

I turned to find two of the automatons, a young man and woman, entering, sheets and fresh pillows in their arms.

“Oh, sure,” I said absently. “Thanks.”

They nodded and went about their work. I watched them strip the bed, reflecting on how I’d uttered the thanks on instinct. Assuming the two were automatons, they were hardly sentient. I could have told them to piss off and cracked my chair over their heads, and they would have simply left, not phased in the least. But everything from their blinking eyes, to their subtle gestures, to the way they stooped to their work was all so convincingly human that I couldn’t divorce myself from the social norms that had compelled me to thank them. And to think that they were products of someone’s thoughts.

I stopped. Of course.

I let out a choked laugh, prompting the automatons to glance over. Fresh energy surged through me. I hadn’t been thinking. The Refuge, brought into being by the Elders a thousand years ago, was the product of thoughts. As an ideational realm, thoughts here had special manifesting powers.

I didn’t possess Elder-level magic, no, but I wasn’t talking about thinking a world into being. I only needed a cup and a crystal. Though I’d never manifested matter before, I had performed projection spells—taking something solid and projecting its likeness somewhere else.

I was betting that here the same process would work with thoughts.

I waited for the automatons to leave, then waited a little longer to ensure no one else was coming. As the sky darkened outside the windows, revealing the realm’s two moons, I left the room’s lamp off. I climbed into bed, rolled onto my side, and pulled the covers over my head.

“Oscurare,” I whispered, deepening the darkness around me.

Certain I was as concealed as I could be, I pictured the silver cup from my apartment, rotating it into a three-dimensional model in my mental prism. “Imitare,” I chanted. “Imitare.”

Energy coursed around the prism, seeming to harden the thought into something independent of my mind.

“Liberare,” I said, and released the thought.

The energy around my prism rushed out of me, and the image of the cup disappeared. I was sure the attempt had failed, when a moment later something cold rolled against my forehead. I worked my hands up into the pocket in front of my face until I was holding a metal cup. I brought it to my nose and sniffed.

Silver.

Holy crap, it worked.

I repeated the ritual for the crystal, manifesting the thought and then releasing it. Something pinged into the cup. I reached inside and rolled the oil crystal between my fingers. Okay, I thought hiding the cup and crystal beneath a pillow, now for the message. I extended an arm and pawed for the cloth napkin on the bedside table, then stopped myself.

If I could manifest the other items, why not the message?

Gathering energy to my prism, I composed the message, as though giving dictation. I found myself using the formal system the Order required, a case of an old habit dying hard, but I was also worried that if I didn’t defer to the Order’s specifications, the message would be tossed.

To the Esteemed Order of Magi and Magical Beings,

Re: Imprisoned in the Refuge/Chicory Dead

Urgency: Ultrahigh

Pursuant to your mandate, Chicory sent me to the Refuge about one week ago tonight to find and destroy Lich’s book. I succeeded in the task; however, in attempting to retrieve me, Chicory was slain. I am now a prisoner of Marlow and the Front, a group intent on subverting my will and magic to the Whisperer’s malevolent ends. I urgently request your help.

Humbly Submitted,

Everson Croft

I repeated the ridiculous message in my mind, imagining it handwritten on a sheet of parchment paper in lampblack ink. When the thought hardened in my prism, I released it with another “Liberare.”

The parchment settled in front of me. I took it and blew across the wet ink. Then, as casually as I could, I drew the sheets back, placed the cup with the crystal on the bedside table, and sat up.

“Fuoco,” I whispered, my heart pounding through the Word. I was sure that any second, someone was going to come through