Page 123 of The Spellreader and the Phoenix

Max assumed the cleaning spells were top-notch here, because the space looked entirely dust-free and didn’t have the smell of disuse that he’d expect from a room that was rarely used.

The ceiling soared above them, with an absurd number of chandeliers affixed to it. Thankfully, the wall opposite them was nearly floor-to-ceiling windows, so there was enough light they didn’t need to mess with either chandeliers or spells.

The walls were papered in something with lots of ornate gold, and there was crown molding and decorative flourishes everywhere. There was even a musicians’ gallery looking out over the room, like that was a normal house feature these days.

The floor looked like it was made of actual marble, and Max decided he simply wouldn’t think about how much that cost—or the fact that it sort of belonged to him now, or would when all the paperwork was done.

Not important right now.

Instead, Max turned to Rory. “Want to see what we can make?”

Rory’s grin was huge. “I sure do!”

They opened the box again and pulled out the whole stack of paper this time. It was a lot. Max was pretty sure there’d been more spells on the box that had helped keep the papers compressed as well as preserved.

Rory was the only one who could read where the papers went, and they were out of order, which Max would have been inclined to be upset about, but he supposed if someone had just put them in order, then they’d be easier to put together. They wouldn’t need Rory and his mythical-ness or his bird eyeballs or whatever it was that allowed him to read the placement instructions.

It was a lot like trying to put a puzzle together without the box or the slightest idea what the image was. It was both incredibly irritating and something of an irresistible challenge.

They soon worked out that they should leave gaps between the pieces for them to walk along while they continued to place the papers—because once Rory told Max the numbers, he could at least help with the placement. It involved a lot of thumbing through the large stack of papers and pulling one out here and there to keep building out the puzzle.

Max supposed he should be grateful that they’d put the first piece on top, or it might have taken them ages to figure out what they were supposed to do.

His excitement began to grow in direct proportion to their progress. They worked out it was fifty squares wide and fifty squares long. (Rory had had the idea to look for blank edges so that they could essentially find the border of the puzzle.)

They filled more and more squares in, matching up the number on one piece to the number on the one that went next to it, and ensuring that it matched its neighbors on the other edges.

They lost complete track of the time, but even if the light had begun to grow a little pinker, it was still daylight when they finished.

Had they said they were going to play D&D today? Oh, dear. That might have to be tomorrow. They weren’t heading home until Sunday, and hopefully the others had found something to do without them. Mrs. Finch wouldn’t have let them starve. At the thought of food, Max’s stomach rumbled, but he didn’t have time for that right now.

Because with everything laid out, Max could see how the ink connected. As unbelievable as it was, this looked like a spell. A giant spell. Max couldn’t read it because it still had the gaps between the pieces—and it was impossible to take it all in from this close.

He glanced up at that useless musicians’ gallery.

Touché, Mr. Jones. Maybe I really do need this ridiculous house.

Rory grinned at him. “Time to push it together, right?”

“Yes,” Max agreed, excitement pulsing through him.

Whatever this was, he had never seen anything like it before.

They shifted the first row together from the top, then stepped into the narrow path below the second row and shifted it up and over to match the first row—and on and on and on, until all the pieces of paper were flush against one another.

It was definitely a spell, but Max still couldn’t read it from this close.

“Musicians’ gallery?” Rory asked.

“Musicians’ gallery,” Max agreed.

Rory bolted, and Max rushed after him. His legs might be longer, but he couldn’t match Rory’s speed. (Rory also couldn’t read the spell. There was no reason for him to be trying to get up there first. But he was laughing gleefully, and Max found amusement bubbling out of him, too. His life would never be boring with Rory, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.)

They thundered up the narrow stairs at what would probably be considered a reckless speed, but they made it to the top unscathed. Rory had turned back to grin at Max and wasn’t even looking down at the spell. He held out his hand, and Max took it, allowing Rory to pull him closer to the balcony edge.

“Ready?” Rory asked.

“Ready.”

They both looked down.

There was a moment where Max was simply staring at approximately 2500 pieces of paper that had been pushed next to one another… and then he was reading a spell.

It exploded across his brain like it had been catapulted there, and he couldn’t stifle a gasp.

Rory’s hand clenched on his. “What is it? Are you alright?”

Max wasn’t entirely sure that he was alright. He was also reasonably certain that if he and Rory weren’t bonded, he might not have been able to handle all this data.

“Holy shit,” Max breathed.

This wasn’t a spell. It was the spell. This was the World Spell. With this, they could theoretically try to design an updated spell that took human technological advancements into consideration, could cast it again and thus re-power it so that it could last centuries more.

At this point, Max didn’t even consider if they should. The number of events that had occurred to bring the two of them here right now, when everyone knew that the World Spell was struggling? He was a convert. He believed in fate or Magic or whatever.

He turned to Rory. “We need to find a Spellsmith. A decent one.”

Max would just have to hope that Magic was willing to lend a hand again, because that might be a tall order.