(December 2024)

CheshirePope turned the page of his family grimoire, frowning at the lines of tiny, cramped writing across the thick parchment. Doodles lined the edges of the page with what he could only imagine were reference images to the rite, but looked more like… was that a cookie? Either Aunt Phyllis was very bad at drawing, or she’d been high as a kite as she’d written this one out.

Believable, the way she often tucked into her stash of potions. Very entertaining at parties, but now, when he needed to get this ritual to work, very frustrating.

He would parse out every line of this text, cookies be damned. His life depended on it.