Page 63 of Seer

Cal nodded. “I swear it did. I picked it up and dusted it off. It had some weird writing on it, like runes, maybe? I touched some of them, and....” He pointed at the typewriter.

I got down on my knees and examined it. Cal knelt next to me, his magic brushing reassuringly against mine.

The typewriter was black, with open space underneath the keys, which were attached to the mechanism that put the letters on the page by individual metal rods. But instead of letters on each key, there were tiny wavy lines or curlicues. Each was different.

I stretched a finger toward the keys. Cal stiffened but didn’t say anything.

Leaning my body away from the typewriter as far as I could, I pressed what should’ve been the G key. The typing mechanism clacked and the paper carrier moved slightly, but that was it.

“Let’s try two keys.” Cal reached out and touched what should’ve been the X.

I kept my finger on the G. “Okay, on three. One, two, three.”

We pressed down simultaneously, both of us shouting and falling back when the typewriter changed into... a toilet seat. A white ceramic toilet seat, complete with lid. It was etched with runes, or whatever the writing was.

Footsteps pounded in the hall, and Edgar, Bettina, and my mom crowded the doorway.

“What happened?” my mom asked, her eyes scanning the room. She frowned at me and Cal. “Why are you on the floor with a toilet seat?”

Edgar nudged her, and they all came into the room. I got to my feet and gave Cal a hand up. The magic hummed happily when we touched, but I ignored it.

“Well? What happened?” Mom demanded.

Cal raised his eyebrows at me.

I gestured at him. “You found it.”

“Coward,” he muttered. Then he said, “Greg and I pulled out all the non-book items we could reach. I started dusting them off. One of them was a cat statue.” He held his hands apart to show how tall it had been.

They all turned their heads this way and that to look for the cat statue.

One side of Cal’s mouth quirked up. I grinned.

“I cleaned the statue off with a cloth, and there were runes or some kind of writing on it. I ran my hand over the writing to see if it was painted on or what. And the statue turned into a typewriter.”

They all stared at Cal, then they looked down at the toilet seat.

“Greg and I hit a couple of the typewriter keys.” He pointed at the toilet seat.

Edgar lifted one hand to his chest. “Bettina,” he said. “Do you think that’s the Elven weapon Karsha told you about?”

She hummed consideringly. “I’m not sure. She didn’t describe it at all. But how can a toilet seat, or a typewriter, or a cat statue be a weapon?”

“Intent,” Cal said. He pointed at the toilet seat. “We weren’t asking for anything in particular, so it just gave us whatever it wanted. Magic, at least in games likeDungeons & Dragons, requires you to know what you’re asking for when you cast a spell.”

I stepped back and made a sweeping gesture at the toilet seat. “It’s all yours.”

He glanced at me in surprise, and I winked at him. His face went pink, which was adorable.

Shit.

Cal bent over and gingerly picked up the toilet seat by the edges. I kept my eyes on his hands and did not look at his ass even once.

“Okay, I’m going to ask it to transform into a sword. Um.” He looked around. “I’ll just put it on this table here, so it doesn’t chop my hand off.” He set the toilet seat down.

We all crowded around the table.

Cal took a deep breath and said, “Please turn into a sword.” Then he swiped his fingers across several of the etched runes, yanked his hand away, and jumped back.