Page 88 of The Spellreader and the Phoenix

“You’re not there,” Stella interrupted.

“But—” he tried.

“Nope,” Stella said firmly. “You’re still running for your life because you’ve got grabby hands.”

Rory wild shaped into a small bird—neutral colors, one that blended in with the stone—so he could scope things out. Sam was ready to rage, Max was very grumpily preparing spells, and Alex had an arrow cocked.

And then there was a thump from upstairs and what sounded like a cascade of books falling over.

Max looked up at the ceiling. “Dammit, Nōwē! You know better than to knock over the books!” He rose to his feet. “Let me go make sure she’s okay.”

“We’re about to roll for initiative,” Stella warned him, looking especially stern dressed up like this.

Max waved this aside. “Put me at the end. Or have Rory roll for me. I’ll be right back.”

They all started rolling. Rory was fascinated by battle because rounds took so long in real life compared to the seconds that they were in battle time. He was still getting the hang of actions and reactions and attacks of opportunity—and trying to remember he could use his movement at the end of a turn not just the beginning. Bonus actions, he’d learned, were the coolest. And some people had two or more attacks!

He was glad that he was here in real life time and actually got to ponder what he wanted to do, because there was no way he could figure out all the mechanics and actions fast enough to be useful.

“Okay,” Stella began, grinning at them. “Up first—”

The wrench was so sudden that Rory cried out, shoving to his feet and knocking the table even as he felt lifespans being altered. Max’s lifespan was being altered.

“Max!” he cried out even as he bolted for the stairs.

The other players were shouting at him, but Rory didn’t pay them any mind, just dashed frantically upstairs, hearing the thunder of everyone coming after him. He burst out of the stairwell and found Max on the ground in the hallway, half in the back hall and half in the front bookshop, hands wrapped around a knife that looked like it was perilously close to his heart.

There was the screech of a cat, followed by a curse and movement in the bookshop.

“Stop them!” Rory yelled as he skidded to his knees at Max’s side.

A lot of things happened at once. Max’s hazy dark eyes met Rory’s, and he tried to smile. There was the roar of an enraged bear. A buzz of magic that wasn’t Max’s suddenly whispered across Rory’s skin, and he caught a glimpse of a magic spell out of the corner of his eye even as a shield rippled over the door.

Rory ignored all of it. He yanked out the knife, letting it clatter to the ground even as he burst into flames.

Chapter Seventeen

Max

Max woke to the sound of yelling.

“We have to call 911!”

“We can’t call 911!”

“We have to get paramedics for Max! And we need firefighters for the bookshop! And we need the police for the robber!”

Fire? What?

“Use some common sense! Do you think the normal emergency response can deal with any of this?”

“What do you mean the normal emergency response? Who the hell are you people? What the hell is going on?”

Max felt weirdly spacey, but that sounded like a frantic Tom, and Max didn’t like that. Had someone said normal emergency response? Oh, no, who’d let the magic spell out of the bag? Alex was young and new to this, but that hadn’t sounded like them, had it? It had sounded more like David, but David was human…

Tom’s voice sounded even more hysterical as he shrieked, “Max is literally on fire!”

He was what?