Chapter Five: Grimoire

The headmaster’s grimoire was said to be more than 1,000 years old, with its earliest spells written in Latin by Roman magicians. From that point, its contributions included every tribe who ever invaded Brittania, from the Anglo-Saxons to the Norse to the French.

Aidan and his peers had spent as much time in classrooms learning languages as they had learning to control and apply their natural magical powers. Those were the easy parts. The discipline and obedience were much more difficult for Aidan.

The girls were not so much rebellious as adventurous, and Aidan’s disdain for rules afforded them an ongoing series of diversions that gave them cause to use their own powers for their own fun.

The page he sought in the grimoire was written in Old Gaelic, a precursor to his native Welsh, so he understood it well enough to slam the book shut in frustration. He thought about giving up, accepting what all his teachers had told him, that true invisibility was impossible and settling for perfecting his camouflage spells.

His desire, however, was more powerful than his disappointment. The book did not dismiss the notion of true invisibility; it made it extraordinarily difficult to discover, but difficult was never impossible.

Aidan reopened the grimoire and read the fateful page several more times until he memorized every word. He heard laughter from outside the office. Aidan extinguished his light orb and moved in the darkness toward the door, where he passed through as he had entered.