Hunted Sorcery (Jon Oklar Book 2) by B.T. Narro (chapter books to read to 5 year olds .txt) 📕

“Of course. I have also spoken with the king. Leon said he will join us later to make sure you don’t kill yourself.”

I wasn’t sure Charlie knew just how scary that sounded. “All right…”

“Leon tried to help me with these experiments, but he can’t reach the notes we need to really test my theories. This won’t take long, Jon. You should’ve found the time to do this earlier. Soon you’ll see why.”

“I’m ready now,” I said.

“If you had read more of the book you borrowed from the library, I wouldn’t have to explain much of this.” He sounded irritated.

I thought of reminding him that it wasn’t as if I’d been lounging around. All of my time had gone toward a purpose. But I didn’t want to start the day with an argument.

“I’m sorry, Charlie. Go ahead.”

“Leon explained to me that he already proved to you that adding uD to a spell hardens it. He did this with Waterwall, correct?”

“Yes.” He’d showed me the spell Water and then casted the same spell while adding uD to it, changing it to Waterwall. It was easy to remember, because he’d dropped all that water on Michael shortly after.

“But what we’re going to do now is figure out exactly what D does, and which octave of D is strongest.”

“Why?” I wondered.

“You will see,” he said slyly.

There were two Charlies I was wary of. One was an angry Charlie, who was likely to throw a tantrum like a child. The other was this Charlie, the excited Charlie who was keeping a secret from me. This was the Charlie who’d pulled a dead bat out of a bag while we were eating supper. This was the Charlie who had been working on a curse without most of us knowing. And now he was testing theories by using me.

“I don’t understand something about this,” I told him.

“Because we haven’t even begun.”

“No, not that. I don’t understand why you think these experiments will help the others if Leon can’t even reach the notes required.”

“Because. Rrgh.” He fisted his hands in his hair. “I can’t explain it! You will see!”

“As long as you’re sure this isn’t going to kill either of us.”

“I’m sure,” he answered without taking a moment to consider it. Charlie wasn’t exactly known for being cautious, except when it came to avoiding physical altercations.

“Now you need to cast lD, D, and uD at the same time.” He spoke of this as if it was as simple as snapping my fingers.

“Three octaves? Why?”

“You will see!” he replied with anger.

“It’s not that simple.”

“Rrgh, it should be for you!”

“Just because these notes are within my range doesn’t mean I’m familiar with them.”

“You are! You use D all the time.”

“I use uuD,” I told him.

“That’s what I mean by D. You use a variation of D all the time with dvinia. They’re all the same frequency as uuD just half, half, and half. Octaves are easy. I know you know this. It’s how you learned Heal with three F’s so quickly. You already knew uF.”

I supposed he had a point. “Still, it’s going to take me at least an hour or so, and you still haven’t explained why I should spend my time on this yet. lD, D, and uD is not a spell I’ve heard of.”

There was his mischievous smile again. “It’s not a spell anyone has heard of because it’s not a spell. It’s proof.”

“Proof of what?”

“You’ll seeeee!” he said as he ran off toward the great hall.

“Where are you going?”

He stopped and turned around. “Did you want me to stand here the whole time you practice? I have things to do.”

“Fine, go.”

I noticed Michael walking over to me. He was certainly close enough to have heard the conversation, but just as he was about to speak, Charlie yelled out, “Don’t distract him, Michael!”

Michael froze with his mouth open. Then he turned on his heels and walked away from me.

*****

I thought it would be difficult to learn to use the three notes without knowing why they mattered, but Charlie turned out to be right. It was easy for me to familiarize myself with them.

I had forgotten that I had been using D to learn Identify, as it was one of the four crucial notes of ordia. That meant I just had to familiarize myself with lD and uD.

I did so in about a half-hour. I spent the rest of the hour trying to cast all three notes at the same time. Charlie came back then.

“You still can’t cast it?” he asked with disappointment.

“Just wait,” I said, eager to see what this spell would turn my mana into.

I was used to splitting my mind four ways, which I had to do every time I casted Expel. Therefore, it was no longer a struggle to split my mind three ways like I had to here, even when using notes I was not accustomed to using.

Charlie folded his arms and tapped his foot impatiently before I finally managed to get all three notes right and push out my mana while holding them at the right frequencies.

The feeling was like ripping off a hangnail, but instead of physical pain it was more like a mental cramp. In a blink, my mana shredded off and clustered together, hardening before my eyes as I groaned from the discomfort.

I wanted to hold the spell longer to get a good look at what was happening before my eyes, but I couldn’t stand the mental anguish any longer. I collapsed to my hands and knees, straining just to keep my head up.

To my amazement, my mana didn’t disperse like it would when I finished casting any other spell. Instead, it had hardened and now floated to the ground like snowflakes.

“I knew it!” Charlie shouted. “I knew it! I knew it!”

I still didn’t understand what this proved. My mana looked like sheared ice on the ground. It felt delicate as I scooped some up, smooth and slippery, streaming down from the sides of