Laramine and I had wandered the oscillating corridors of the crystalline spire for the better part of two hours, aimlessly passing through ever-shifting, fractal doorways as they appeared; the young sorceress's ability to misplace her most prized tomes was astounding. "Darn it," Laramine's left eye twitched with sleeplessness, "Where is that spell book!"

"Which one?" I sarcastically gestured the maelstrom of sentient tomes that flapped their way through an adjacent corridor; this place, our home, was a madhouse custom-fit for its impish mistress.

"Hush hush, apprentice! It will come, it will come!" Laramine's scratchy voice was laced with genius-born mania; the half-sanity of a child savant gifted in matters of magic. Dark bags of exhaustion underlined Laramine's eyes, blue orbs that flickered with a spark of insanity.

She held my hand as we walked together along the endless spiral staircase leading up into the labyrinth above us — Laramine's guidance the only thing kept me from being lost forever. The sorceress's little fingers were warm against mine, her skin soft and smooth like polished marble under my palm; was I under a charm?

"Ah, there it is! There it is!" Laramine's tired eyes twinkled with elation as she spotted a fluttering spell book in the distance; she gave the book a whistle, as if beckoning a dog. "Come to Mama!"

The magical book heard her call, fluttering past a series of a ghostly, incorporeal doors before finally landing at our feet. Its rich, leather cover gleamed brightly under the light of spectral orbs, Laramine giggling madly as her fingers traced its binding. "Yes, yes, assistant! We're so close now. Close, close, close!"

"Close to what, exactly?" I asked, still reeling from the inverse vertigo of the ever-changing labyrinth.

Laramine looked up, locking onto my gaze, "To pleasure, assistant! To pleasure!"