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Then Natalie said, "Celeste, I'm sorry."

Celeste looked at her with tears in her eyes.

"Natalie, please! You can still stop this!" she begged.

"But I've wanted magic my whole life!" Natalie cried. "I thought if I could just become a witch, I'd finally be special!"

Bartleby made a low, exasperated noise.

"You don't have to be a witch to be special, but you do have to stop behaving like a complete idiot!"

Natalie looked down at the horrible spellbook, where the dark red writing was still crawling across the pages. Then she shook her head.

"No," she whispered. “No, I won’t do it.”

The witch shrieked again.

"Obey me!"

But Natalie shook her head more firmly.

"No!" she cried. "You lied to me! You promised to give me powers, but you were just using me!”

But the witch’s power wasn’t done with her yet. The dark tendrils around her ankles tightened.

Natalie gasped, staggering slightly, but she didn't give in.

"I reject your bargain!" she shouted. "I don't want your magic, and I won't help you anymore!"

The moment she spoke those words, the spellbook gave a terrible shudder. Its pages began fluttering wildly, and a horrible shrieking sound rose from somewhere deep within its leather cover.

Then the dark tendrils wrapped around Natalie's ankles dissolved into smoke. And finally, the horrible black ribbon around Celeste's wrist began to unravel.

I felt a surge of relief—by the Ancients, it was working! The witch’s power was waning!

The purple symbols flashed one last time, and then the ribbon split apart and fell to the floor. Celeste gave a startled cry, staring down at her freed wrist.

"Oh my God!" she exclaimed. "I'm free!"

“I am too!” Natalie exclaimed.

"Then do something useful!" Bartleby shouted. "Because Garrik can't hold those horrible things back forever!"

Natalie looked towards the spellbook, which was now writhing on the floor as though something inside it was trying to escape.

"What do I do with that?" she asked desperately.

"Destroy it!" Bartleby snapped.

"But how?"

I gave a furious roar, hoping they might understand what I was trying to tell them. Fortunately, Celeste did.

"Natalie! Throw it towards Garrik!" she urged.

For a moment, Natalie hesitated. Then she bent down, grabbed the horrible volume, and hurled it towards me with all her might. The book struck the stone floor directly in front of my talons.

I didn't hesitate. I brought one enormous claw down upon it, tearing through the leather cover and ripping the ancient pages apart.