"I'll handle it." My voice was steady. I picked up the Diary I had left on the table, strangely enough, The book remained in place. Almost as if it was glued onto the table. The moment my fingers touched it, I felt it—the shift. Gone was the subtle compulsion. In its place was something else: rejection, sharp and desperate. I frowned, the weight of it unsettling. "It's trying to get away from me."
Nicholas raised an eyebrow. "Dark objects don't usually resist touch."
"...I'm starting to feel insulted," I muttered. "What have I ever done to this book?"
"Perhaps existed in its vicinity," he offered, tone dry.
I rolled my eyes. "Don't act like an innocent victim now. You've known me long enough to expect this level of magical mayhem."
What followed could only be described as a farce. The Diary fought every attempt I made to open it. I wrestled with it like it was a living thing, while Nicholas—utterly unbothered—sat off to the side munching on popcorn from a conjured bowl.
"This looks awfully exaggerated," he observed between bites, his tone far too casual for the absurdity of the situation.
I gave the book a final tug and shot him a glare. "Why isn't it moving now that it's on the table?"
"Oh," Nicholas said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, "that table's cursed. Or, well, it was. I reconditioned it. Now anything magical that lands on it can't leave unless I say so. Very useful for unruly artifacts."
I grunted, struggling to pry it open. "Could've mentioned that before I started doing acrobatics with it."
"I was curious how long it would take you to figure it out," he replied, casually tossing another kernel into his mouth. "Plus the struggle was enjoyable to watch" Nicholas added with a chuckle.
"The book's just stubborn," I grunted, finally pinning it open. "My charm won out."
"Charm? That was brute force."
"Details," I shot back.
"let's test it properly. Try the standard approach."
I reached into my inventory and pulled out a bottle of ink, letting a few drops fall onto the page. The moment they hit, the ink was absorbed instantly—gone without a trace. Nicholas's eyes lit up. "Oh ho… it reacts to ink. That's something."
"Let's go a little deeper," I said, already rummaging through my inventory. "I've got some eggshell white paint here—don't ask why. Let's see what happens."
The paint hit the pages with a slow resistance at first, beading up on the surface like water on wax. But soon enough, it too was absorbed. Nicholas was now actively passing me fresh containers of paint from his conjured supplies while I dumped can after can.
After nearly six containers, we finally noticed it—a slow drip from the edges of the diary's pages. A clear, watery liquid pooling into a dish beneath.
Nicholas collected a sample and examined it under a charmed lens. "Ninety-eight percent water. The rest is a mix of electrolytes, lipids, proteins…"
"That sounds disturbingly biological," I muttered.
"Not far off from tears, actually," he added, rubbing his chin. "I think it's crying."
I blinked. "We made a diary cry?"
We traded incredulous glances. That's when I noticed a strange shimmer on the page. Viewed at just the right angle, the fresh paint had left faint patterns—like writing too pale to see.
I summoned a copy quill again held it over spare parchment. "Now," I said, "let's see what it has to say."
The quill scratched across parchment with relentless rhythm: first came the denial—lines and lines of frantic protest that this wasn't fair, that it had done nothing wrong. Then anger followed, profane curses and furious screeds that stained the pages black with hatred. Bargaining came next, almost pitiful in its desperation, offering us power, ancient secrets, anything to stop the torment. After that, depression sank in—apologies filled the parchment, pleas to be spared, confessions of misdeeds wrapped in sorrowful undertones. And finally, acceptance: a slow, solemn goodbye scrawled across the last page like a surrendering breath. The Diary had grieved its own undoing, and we had borne witness to every stage.
"...Did we just drive it mad?" I asked, half in disbelief.
Nicholas blinked. "I think… you did."
"One last test." My wand was steady as I called flame. To our complete shock, the Diary caught fire almost instantly—no resistance, no theatrics. One moment it was a cursed relic of unimaginable darkness, the next it was curling into blackened ash like it had always been kindling waiting for a spark. Nicholas raised an eyebrow as we both stared at the smoldering remains.
"Well," I muttered, "that was... fast."
"It's almost like it gave up," Nicholas said quietly. "Or maybe it had nothing left to hold onto."
I stared at the ash, feeling both triumphant and oddly let down. "That felt strangely anticlimactic."
Nicholas let out a long breath, equal parts awe and horror. "You may have done the impossible. And remind me—never let you near my library with paint cans."
I ignored his look. "It's gone. That's what matters."
He nodded slowly. "That, at least, is true."