The Magician's Dream (Oona Crate Mystery: book 3) by Shawn Thomas Odyssey Page B

experience was not a violent one. It was simply that she suddenly had access to a far greater power than she had ever experienced before. The energy and knowledge seemed endless: a vast presence, which presently belonged to her . . . allowing her access to an enormous library of magic in its rawest form.
    She could feel the personality of it, of the house. As if it were a person. No, not one person, but people . Multiple personalities ran through the magic, all of them offering up their particular strength and ability, and yet it was one magic. One source. The house. She need not have feared it, she realized now. It wanted her to use its deep powers and awaited her command. The choice was hers.
    “Use only what is necessary,” Uncle Alexander said from beside her and released her hand.
    Oona was not sure she knew what that meant. She was still connected to the house but was unsure of what to do. Curiously, she decided to test her new powers. Pointing her wand at the cup on her uncle’s desk, she uttered: “Alum.”
    She had meant only to levitate the cup, as she had done with the book at the library, but the magic that streamed from the tip of the wand caused not only the cup but everything else in the room to float off the ground, including the desk, the chair, the Wizard, and herself.
    Deacon squawked in surprise as he lifted off the mantel without so much as a flutter of his wings. Only Samuligan remained rooted to the floor.
    The experience took Oona so off guard that she lost focus and an instant later everything dropped back to the floor with a bang.
    “Oh, dear,” she said, only just managing to keep her footing. “Sorry about that, I didn’t mean to . . .”
    The Wizard braced himself against a bookshelf. “It’s all right. It is vast magic you have access to, along with your own remarkable skills, not to mention that wand. That’s what this is all about. Learning to control that energy. Now, try to get through that door.”
    Oona peered at Samuligan and for a moment she felt sorry for him. With the sheer amount of magic she had at her disposal, he did not stand a chance. The faerie grinned, as if reading her thoughts.
    “Shall we dance?” he asked tauntingly.
    Oona shrugged, aimed her wand and said: “Borium.”
    The spell, which was meant to shove Samuligan out of the way, only bounced off his dark suit of armor, ricocheting across the room and causing the entire fireplace to shift sideways along the wall. Deacon leapt from the mantel and fluttered to a nearby bookshelf.
    “Watch where you’re aiming,” he said.
    Oona hardly heard him. She was staring at the faerie who was wholly unaffected by the spell. At first she could not understand what went wrong. The spell had been tremendously powerful. She could still feel its after-effects.
    And then it came to her, she understood. The faerie armor. She remembered how, four months ago, Red Martin had managed to get his hands on a faerie-made piece of armor: a glove that repelled all magic. And now here was Samuligan with a full suit.
    How am I supposed to get past him if the magic just bounces off?
    Samuligan continued to smile mockingly at her. Perhaps a spell to move him physically was the wrong kind of magic. What she needed was something to get him to step out of the way on his own.
    But she knew of no such enchantment, and her frustration quickly boiled over.
    “Move!” she shouted in a childish voice, and to her surprise a second spell shot from her wand. Once again the spell bounced off the armor in a jet of white light, this time colliding with the black dragon-bone desk.
    The desk shuttered against the impact. It first bulged and then twisted, a roar emanating from within. Oona jumped back, startled, as the desk began to unfold. In the space of two heartbeats, the slumbering desk pulled upright, stretched out a set of bonelike wings, and raised its long neck toward the ceiling. It roared again, this time revealing its skeletal head: a dragon