Oh, right. The opening page was the same in all the books of magic. Fort had seen those words back when he’d first arrived at the original Oppenheimer School. Dr. Opps had taken him to be tested on which form of magic he had more natural talent with, Destruction or Healing. At the time, he’d had no idea what the poem meant, but now the words took on a different meaning.

“One for the body, bones and skin” had to be talking about Healing magic. The mind line was telepathy, and time probably referred to Clairvoyance, the magic that Cyrus had studied. So had a bunch of other students, but Cyrus was the only one to not go insane doing so. Fort shivered at the very thought of what that school must be like now.

The other lines, though, he wasn’t quite sure about. Destruction had a spell to control the ground, which had dirt and streams in it, so maybe that was the one about the world? Which left only spirit and space. Summoning had to be space, which sort of made sense… Summoning opened portals to other dimensions, which was like crossing through space. Not that Fort understood how in any way.

So what was the line about spirit referring to?

He was getting distracted. The poem didn’t matter, not while his father was waiting.

His heart beating faster with anticipation, Fort turned the page, ready to absorb the Summoning magic spell to create a portal to another world. He took a deep breath, then read the words for the first spell:

Teleport Within the Same Plane.

A horrifying sinking feeling turned Fort’s stomach over, and he shook his head, quickly turning to the next page, which was blank.

No. No! The next page was also blank, and the following one, and the rest of the book. Fear closed around his heart, and he quickly turned back to the first page and read over the first spell.

When an object must pass between nonadjacent spaces, yet still within the same reality/probability time line, a teleportation circle can be opened, connecting those two spaces.

NO! Teleportation, not dimensional travel?! Within the same reality, it said.

“No, no, no, no, no, no,” Fort whispered, shaking his head, staring at the words on the page before him. Something began bubbling up inside him, and he wasn’t sure if he was going to laugh or cry or just set the book on fire. “No. No! NO!”

Suddenly he couldn’t even think past his rage, and he threw the book as hard as he could straight at the nearby kitchen cabinets. The crash as it hit was so loud that someone might have heard it, but Fort didn’t care. He slammed his fists down on the floor until pain shot through his hands, then bent over and curled up over his knees, holding his head down as he screamed into the floor.