Molly was nervous. No one had seen her take the book, hell, she doubted anyone even knew it was gone. Yet her fingertips were dewy with sweat and her heart felt as though it were trying to lift her organs up through her throat. With forced patience she set the tome down on her desk. It stuck out awkwardly over the rim. The candles around it quivered slightly, their orange glow repelled by the chipped metal plates that decorated its cover.

Carefully Molly opened the tome, turning to a page at the back. Images of fiery rings decorated the margins while a strange language twirled inward to the page’s centre, falling in on itself before spawning back into existence around the edge. Molly stood up, shifting her stubby wooden stool to the side before taking up a place in front of the desk. She glanced around, making sure that her bed and shelves had been pushed up against the walls. Slowly, she raised her right hand, pointing her open palm towards the centre of the room. Then she began to read.

The words were not human, and she felt her tongue struggle to bend and shift in the correct fashion. Beads of sweat began to creep across her forehead. She kept speaking. Her hand was shaking, she realised.

Then it started. Purple rings sparked to life around her fingers, runic symbols decorating the bands. They glowed, brighter and brighter still until energy began to gush from them, a tsunami of power that swept forwards. For a moment Molly feared that the energy would crash straight into her wall and bring the building down upon her. But as it reached the centre of her room it stopped, pooling against an invisible surface, swirling in a whirlpool of violet flame. Slowly the flames died down, licking at the edges of what was now a gaping void.  

It had worked, and on her first attempt. She could hardly believe it. There was no way they could refuse her a scholarship now. With a flourish of her hand she broke off the rings of magic.

Except they didn’t break.

Instead they tightened, biting into her fingers. Before she could scream a gale of searing wind hurtled through the portal, blowing hundreds of shimmering embers into her face. They stuck to her cheeks, went up her nose, burned in her throat. She couldn’t speak. The candles had gone out, wispy claws of smoke scratching at the ceiling. A throbbing, gurgling noise ripped through the portal, closely followed by a large, bulbous tentacle. It plastered itself to her face with a wet thwack, viscous liquid dribbling down her nose, into her mouth. A voice screamed its way through her brain while energy like nothing she’d ever known shot through her body. In seconds her conscience had been wrapped in muggy strands of purple flame.

It burned, burning her away, burned until all that was left was a malignant shade of violet.

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