“How high are we again?” Smokewell asked me.

  “Maybe fifty feet. Maybe seventy.” I shrugged as the Butcher King's abyss carried us through a forest of blood leafed trees that were taller than him. The ground shook with each step he took. And my teeth danced in their individual sockets at the same time. But we were clearing a lot more distance than we would have if we had been bounding through the forest instead.

  “Are you sure you remember exactly where the heaven in the heart of hell is?” I asked the abyss. I had to scream in his ear to make my voice heard.

  “Uh…no…”

  My palm had never struck my forehead harder than it did now. “What do you mean no?” I said.

  “These woods are misleading…I can't tell if we are getting closer or…going in circles…”

  “You created this place, you fool,” I said. “How can you not navigate through–”

  “Enough, Elsa,” Smokewell said, hopping onto my shoulder. “You can't blame the abyss. He is just a residue of the real person. Even though he might know the things real Godfrey knows, his intelligence is still fractured. And your control on him isn't really rock solid either.”

  I sighed. The cat was right. I screamed at the giant abyss to stop. The creature came to a halt. I took a deep breath and scanned my surroundings, gazing up at the blood leafed trees. Then I noticed something. “Wasn't it brighter when we arrived here?” I said.

  The cat eyed the blood foliages around us and hummed. “Seems like it.” She shrugged.

  ****

  That’s when I pulled out my hexonomicon and checked out the page with the dungeon instructions. For a moment, I stopped breathing when I noticed the time left before dungeon entrapment was twenty six hours. Then I whipped out Rowland's wrist watch. It had barely been five hours since we had arrived here according to the time in it. The time left when we had entered the dungeon had been about forty eight hours.

  “Wait a minute,” I mumbled and looked at Smokewell. “Don't tell me the Butcher King had tampered with the flow of time in this world?”

  The cat shrugged. “It's not impossible. We are talking about a literal god here. Someone who is stronger than the angels.”

  Then a possibility occurred to me and the realization made a part of my confidence waver. "Godfrey, how many hours are left before your duration of serving me ends?"

  The abyss was quiet for a while before he said, "Nine hours."

  I checked the time on Rowland’s wrist watch. It was just half past four in the morning. We had entered the forest at about half past twelve. Barely an hour later I had liberated Godfrey’s abyss from the tomb. He should’ve said that we still had around twenty one hours left. He had jumped nine hours ahead. It didn’t make any sense.

  No, wait…technically, Godfrey belonged to this world. As soon as he entered this realm, he accepted the time of this world as the time he lived by. So he wasn’t wrong in his head. This was still a big disadvantage, if Godfrey disappeared before we had used him right we would be vastly outnumbered against whatever lay in the way of getting to the Butcher King’s place. I had to find a way around this problem before we went any further.

  I felt my face twisting with a frown almost involuntarily. I turned to Godfrey. "Put us down and get back in the bottle for a little while."

  "What's the plan now?" Smokewell said as she looked up at me after we were back on the ground.

  The frown still hadn't left my face. My mind was still spinning from the new information that I'd discovered. If time really moved faster here than it did in Ravenwind then the chances of our accomplishing the quest before entrapment were slim. I had an idea for what could be done to tip the odds slightly in our favor, but before I voiced my plan I turned to the cat and asked, "Can't you think of something to help us get out of our current predicament?"

  "No," Smokewell said casually.

  I had expected that answer from her. But I had to ask just in case she had a better idea than mine.

  "Well, I have something close to a plan that might help us get to our destination," I said uncertainly. "But before that I need to know if carrying out a divination here would help us find a shortcut to the heaven in the heart of hell?"

  The cat shook her head and licked her paw. "Don't get your hopes up. We just found out that the passage of time here is strange. Then there are also these weird trees and those bird-like creatures that we spotted along the way. The natural conditions of this place have been heavily altered for whatever purpose the Butcher King wanted it to be this way. That also means that we won't have much luck trying to divine anything using the method that works back in our world."

  "What about you smoking those breadcrumbs?" I asked.

  "It will give us vague answers as always and I don't think those are going to help us much in a race against time," the cat said.

  I grunted in exasperation and said, "Then it seems my plan is the only one that might help us out."

  "I think it's about time that you spilled it."

  "I'm going to try crafting some spells to control Godfrey better."

  ****

  To my surprise, Smokewell didn't object to my idea. Not even a little bit. She just gave a nod and a shrug and headed over to one of the trees and settled in its crimson shade, getting ready to take a nap. My initial puzzlement was replaced by a realization. She was testing me.

  For her, this was nothing but a way of testing Lily and I and seeing how we used our abilities. From the very beginning, she had been letting us do our thing and follow our instincts. A part of me was impressed and wanted to commend her for letting us call the shots on our strategy. But I was just as baffled by the fact that the cat almost didn't seem to care for her well being or the possibility that if we failed to win, she would get trapped down here along with us and eventually die.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  And just like that my bafflement was replaced by fear and apprehension at Smokewell's rather reckless teaching methods. So I did the only thing that could help me distract me from the direness of the situation--I began my work.

  ****

  Spells in witchcraft were used as a supplement to enhance the effectiveness of a ritual. A ritual could still be conducted without casting a spell. But that made the ritual sloppier. A ritual was the strongest method of performing witchcraft but it was also tedious. And it also required more focus and less interruptions than other methods in the discipline.

  Rituals had steps that added to their strengths. Cleansing, pentacle, charging and topped by spell casting or chanting. This was the skeleton on which the flesh and muscle of the dark magic rested firmly. You could take out a few bones and string a few bits and pieces together to get the closest thing to your desired result. But you would also be making your chances of success thinner by cutting corners.

  I would have preferred to craft my supplement spells for the liberation ritual more leisurely without the sword of death dangling our heads like this. But ever since I had woken up as Elsa Grimly, I had learnt the lesson of beggars can't be choosers over and over again.

  It was almost as if the cat had read my thoughts and she called out to me from her little slumber spot. "You need to craft spells that are quick and easy. Considering the fact that you are going to use these creatures as battle servants, you need them to obey you at the drop of a hat. Take this situation as a blessing."

  "Easier for you to say that in the middle of your nap," I said, rolling my eyes.

  I couldn't really tell because of the shadow of the tree on her face, but my instincts told me that she was smirking at me.

  ****

  A witch's malice dictated what kind of rituals she could perform and what kind of spells she could cast. If a ritual wasn't infused with the right kind of malice, the result would be, well, nothing. That was the reason why I couldn't use the malice of knowledge to bend steel with bare hands like Lily could. And why Lily couldn't use her malice of wrath to summon abyssal beings out of dead objects.

  So pairing a malice with the right kind of ritual or spell was something like finding the right lock after finding a key. I tore two pages from my hexonomicon and drew a pentacle on each. Then I drew a bigger pentacle on the ground with my ritual knife. I placed my hexonomicon at the centre of the star on the ground and I drew two circles on either sides of the pentacle and connected the three patterns by carving lines on the ground with my knife.

  On one of the pages, I made an eye at the center of the pentacle so it resembled the pattern on my palm. At the center of the pentacle on the other page, I drew the head of an eagle. I checked the time on Rowland's wrist watch.

  It had been roughly ten minutes since I came up with the idea to perform the ritual and started to actually carry it out. Then I slit my palm--the one that didn't have the pattern of the liberation ritual--and I began to chant softly under my breath. "I yearn for the knowledge of sight. I yearn for the knowledge to see from the eyes of another. I yearn for the knowledge to perceive from afar. I yearn for the knowledge to see that which can't be seen by my own eyes..."

  I kept chanting as I bled precisely a single drop of my blood on each of the pages as I circled the ritual pattern I had drawn. I was simultaneously infusing the pattern with my malice as I walked around it. This was the enhancement ritual. And as the name suggested--it enhanced whichever spells or rituals I had described in the torn pages in the two separate circles. I had to circle the ritual pattern on the ground three times while bleeding a single drop on each page as I kept chanting.

  After I'd finished my third round, I stood over my hexonomicon and bled onto the pentacle embossed on its front cover. The blood seeped into the star shaped dent in the leather binding, turning the star crimson. Then the entire ritual pattern glowed a bright orange like a hunk of iron drawn fresh from the furnace. The two torn pages caught fire and twisted into the flames, turning to ash.

  The fire burned until only a pile of black residue remained in the two circles. Then my hexonomicon started to let off a soft smoke. Smokewell had risen from her spot under the tree and walked up to stand next to me, eyeing the ritual pattern curiously. "Seems like it was a success?" I asked her hopefully.

  "Well, the blood is gone from the pentacle on your hexonomicon," she lifted a paw to point at the book. "Go on, check and see if it actually worked or not."

  I nodded and opened the book to the page that was labeled with the heading: Liberation Ritual.

  New words had been inscribed in the blank space under the heading. Words that hadn't been there before.

  SUPPLEMENTARY SPELL: ....................

  "It worked!" I blurted in excitement

  Smokewell hopped onto my shoulder to look into the book. "You are not done yet, idiot," she said. "You still need to write the damn spell for the ritual to be complete."

  "Oh, right." I pulled out my crow feather quill and wrote the word, perceptio in front of it.

  Then I broke out into a laughter that I didn't know I wanted to belt out. "I did it. I created a spell. I can now control the abyss better." My feet were moving of their accord, my skirt twirling around merrily as I danced around the forest like an idiot.

  "Get a hold of yourself!" Smokewell scratched my face. "You still haven't tested it."

  I whimpered, holding my burning, bruised face. "Right," I said as I summoned Godfrey the Butcher once again.

  The giant abyss appeared out of the black mist and stood in front of me, head bowed, awaiting orders. I looked at the cat. "So, what do I do? Just say it like a regular spell or..."

  "You can say it or try casting it telepathically since your mind and his are connected because of that ritual. You just have to make sure to send the order to him as clearly as you can." The cat looked up at the Butcher King. "These creatures are still rather dumb. But their existence revolves around following your orders. They put your word above everything else. So make sure what you tell them can't be confused for anything else."

  I hung onto each word that the cat uttered with undivided attention. I focused on my bond between Godfrey and I, his loyalty to me and his devotion to my word. My gaze turned sharp with authority. That's when the abyss turned his head to look down at me, as if an electric signal had been transmitted straight to his mind.

  "Godfrey," I said slowly, I didn't scream this time since his entire attention was on me. "Find me the heaven in the heart of hell. Perceptio!"

  The abyss went stiff with attention, his head looking ahead. He launched himself off the ground, grabbing onto one of the tall trees and climbing up.

  I frowned. "What's he doing?" I asked Smokewell.

  "Following your command," the cat said as the giant abyss scaled the tree and disappeared into the crimson foliage.

  I kept looking up at the trees, waiting for him to return but instead I was struck by a vivid mental image of a mountain, its peak disappearing into the metallic grey clouds in the sky. The only place where the sun shined brighter than it did anywhere in this part of the world. On top of the mountain, was a wall guarding a mysterious ominous structure within. Heaven.

  I gasped when the vision disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. "I know it," I said. "I know where it is. Heaven at the heart of hell. I know the way. Like the exact path."

  Smokewell smirked up at me. "Seems like the spell really worked. Good to know. Call the abyss back. We need to get going."

  "Um, I don't think it's such a good idea to use Godfrey to get there," I said, "I'm not very confident about him taking us there on time before dungeon entrapment."

  "Who said anything about using Godfrey?" the cat said as she pulled out her opium pipe.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Remember all those souls I snatched the last time we were in heaven? Back when another one of your giant servants stomped them to a mush."

  "You don't have to keep reminding me of it." I said, deadpan.

  "This isn't about you, nimrod," she said and took a long, deep drag from her pipe. The swirling blue smoke at the well of her pipe grew thinner as she pulled on the pipe. "It's about putting those souls to good use now." With those words, Smokewell's body began to transform.