Fire and Ice puzzle

[ShadowNose]

I'm stuck on a puzzle that you come to after entering the flooded area of the sewers. There is a bound book on each side of the hallway - a red crystal in the left one and a white crystal in the right one. A magic mouth is in the wall across the room, but you cannot enter the room. There are 2 statues, the left one with nothing in its hands and the right one with a water fountain. I've frozen the water fountain with an ice lance and I've lit the other one with a fireball. Now a stone tablet with 2 open slots at the top appears and the bindings on the books disappear. I've grabbed each book and placed it on its side of the tablet and handles appear. I can't quite make out what the magic mouth is saying and I can't seem to get the handles on the books to rotate. So I'm not sure what the next step is. Any help?

[ploog]

I can’t get to my rig at the moment, but I’d try hovering my hands over where I’d think they should be. Many of the object interactions in Mage’s Tale require not placing your hands physically on the objects with which you’re Interacting. A good 6-inch plus gap seems to work well.

[ploog]

Just jumped back in and tried it out. You’re very close.
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SPOILER WARNING
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Maybe you can’t turn the handles because the handles don’t turn.
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And consider what you want the water to do, Moses.

[ShadowNose]

Yes! I figured it out. Thank you for the hint without giving it away! I was finally able to hear the voice as well.

[ploog]

That was one of the cooler puzzle animations. Though I kinda wished there was some trigger or timeout that would have released the waters if the player didn’t get out fast enough.