Eris didn't panic. She didn't even gasp. The grimoire was a living vessel for her past wickedness; it had a habit of moving when it felt ignored, a sentient petulance that she had grown accustomed to.
She closed her eyes, following the psychic pull across the room. She walked to a bookshelf on the opposite wall, reaching behind a row of encyclopedias.
Her fingers brushed the cold, pebbled leather of the binding. She pulled it out and carried it to the center table, the weight of the book feeling heavier than it had that morning.
She flipped it open. The handwriting was her own, from a few years ago, back when she was the "villainess" of a story she hadn't yet realized was fictional. She saw the entries written in moments of boredom, of cruelty, and of a desperate, hidden fear.
She began to flip through the spells absently. There were curses of destruction, fire that could melt flesh from bone, hexes that could snap a man's spine with a thought.
