Prohibited Magic is the third book in the Grimoire Society of Dark Acts series. Episode 10 is up on my Patreon—it’s pay-what-you-like—and it’ll go up later on Kindle Vella.
Episode 10: Trapped in the Grimoire of Blood’s magical realm, Gertrude is the only one who can save herself and August—or be permanently stuck.
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What Prohibited Magic is about:
With Grimoire Society of Dark Acts’s magic book and crystal ball in the hands of the parasitic Ruin Rats, Carmichael’s decision to take the Book of Blessings and infiltrate the magical gang has left Dark Acts magically crippled. Gertrude is trapped in Grimoire Assassins’s magical realm; only the never-before-seen Grimoire of Blood can save her. Dark Acts and its allies split up to stop the worsening imbalance in the Magic Societal Universe, an unprecedented state with unfathomable consequences.
Episode 10: The Potion in Question
GERTRUDE
Gertrude looked out at this magical realm that was waiting to “read” her and clenched her teeth. Having no further information from August or the realm itself to help her, her eyes wandered aimlessly, as if the answer as to what she should do next to locate the Grimoire of Blood might be written on the wind.
She frowned, feeling too hot in some areas of her body and too cold in others, a perfect complement to the realm’s bizarre contradictory nature.
Finding the Grimoire of Blood and escaping this place all relies on me, but I feel frozen. What if I do the wrong thing?
This was not Gertrude’s strong suit. Decisions depending on her—that was for Carmichael, and Gertrude preferred it that way. She wasn’t a leader. She wasn’t a decision-maker. And she didn’t want to be.
Around Gertrude, the realm responded with harsh, cold winds that whipped against her face and caused her skin to prickle and her hands to tremble; the flowers and tall grasses bent and bounced about.
“What are you doing?” August hissed at her, shivering.
“I-I don’t know,” Gertrude said, turning her face away from him. She’d always been tough—she’d had to be in the past and in her society. But the not knowing. The guessing. It poked at a vulnerable soft spot inside.
“Neither of us knows,” August argued, “but at least try. Do something normal so the realm can understand you.”
Gertrude raised her eyebrows at him. “What would you consider normal? I can stand, I can sit, I can walk around. What else is normal that you think will tell the realm anything about me?”
The wind became wintery, biting, and some of the flowers began to wither before her eyes.
August’s gaze wandered around the realm. “Whatever it is, it’s not what you’re doing now.”
Gertrude clamped her index finger and thumb to the bridge of her nose and rubbed. “I’m in a society called Dark Acts; I don’t know what normal is. My normal before the group was not normal, nor is my normal in the group.” She dropped her hand and instead held her opposite arm, feeling uncomfortable, like she didn’t belong here. It shouldn’t have been her doing this. It should have been Carmichael. Or Anne. Or Knox. They could handle it. They always knew what to do, and if they didn’t, they somehow did in the end.
The sky flashed bright with lightning that struck only twenty feet away, sending dirt flying in all directions. Gertrude gasped as she jumped, and some granules of dirt struck her face, carried by the wind.
August took a few steps back. “You’re angering it.”
“That’s not helping!”
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© Christie Stratos 2023