Story Thieves by James Riley Read Free Book Online

and she held out a hand toward Owen. “Come on, let’s get out of here. This was much easier than I thought it’d be!”
    Owen bit his lip, then shook his head. “Hold on, just let me take this in for one more minute, okay? Since it’s my only chance to ever see it.”
    Bethany looked like she wanted to protest, but instead nodded. “Just don’t take too long,” she said, then went to hide from view behind the Magister’s desk, waiting for Owen.
    Perfect, because Dr. Verity ought to be coming through the door any—
    The door exploded out into the study, knocking Owen against the wall hard.
    â€œHello?” Dr. Verity shouted, glowing with the light of his force fields and from the large green ray gun in his hand. “Sebastian? I rang the bell upstairs, but you must not have heard me, so I destroyed most of your tower instead.”
    From across the room and just out of Dr. Verity’s sight, Bethany’s eyes went wide with terror, and she frantically motioned for Owen to stay still. She had no idea what was happening, that the Magister sensed Dr. Verity was there, that Kiel was telling the Magister to save himself, but the Magister refused to stop his spell so the information about the Seventh Key would not be lost.
    â€œIf you’re busy, I can come back later,” Dr. Verity said, then shot his green gun directly at the Magister’s giant spell book, which first exploded, then imploded immediately after. Hestepped forward, aiming the gun at the Magister’s back. “Or, we could just take care of things right now, once and for all, my old friend.”
    Dr. Verity’s force field protected him from magic, fire, lasers, and a million other things. But one thing it didn’t protect him from was solid objects, especially metallic ones. For some reason the force field energy got disrupted by metal, which wasn’t a big problem when your enemies all used ray guns or magic.
    Of course, the doctor always had other protection as well, but here, after making his way through the entire tower, all he had left was his force field and Owen knew it, since the book had been pretty explicit about that fact.
    Owen hefted his metal bat and took his baseball stance. Just like Little League.
    Bethany’s mouth dropped open, and she shook her head over and over.
    Owen just smiled.
    â€œGood-bye, Sebastian,” Dr. Verity said, and his gun began powering up to fire.
    â€œHello, Dr. Verity,” Owen said, then swung his bat right at the doctor.
    The bat hit the mad scientist with a hollow metallic thunk, and the evil doctor actually spun around once before collapsing to the floor, hitting his head hard. The force field powered down with a whine, leaving just an old man in a lab coat lying on the floor of a magician’s study.
    For a moment there was silence, as Bethany was too shocked to even move. That moment quickly passed, though, and she stood up. “What did you do?” she asked in a tiny voice. “Owen . . . what did you just do ?”
    â€œI saved the Magister,” he told her, raising the bat in the air like a sword. “Bethany . . . I just saved the Magister! Do you know what this means?” He shouted in triumph, then turned his gaze toward the ceiling and addressed his audience. “Hey, everybody reading the book! Don’t worry, the Magister doesn’t have to die now! I saved him! He’s going to be okay! You’re welcome  !”

CHAPTER 8
    B ethany stared at Owen, her mouth hanging open. How could he have done this? He changed the story! He changed the story  ! In all her years of visiting books, she’d never interfered with the story, not once . She’d avoided the main characters, no matter how much she wanted to see them, just so there wasn’t even a chance of this happening.
    Owen must have come in specifically to do this, to save the Magister. He’d tricked