I made one last lap around the stacks on the second floor, dragging my fingers along dusty leather spines, tugging out the occasional book to peer beneath or behind, almost hoping some hidden compartment would pop open and congratulate me for my effort.
But of course, nothing did.
I exhaled a tired sigh through my nose, letting the disappointment roll off my shoulders. I’d hoped—naively—that something on this floor would give me some clue leading to Elvina’s secret lineage, some whispered hint about the bloodline she refused to speak of, or how she could fold herself into the darkness of the shadows as though they belonged to her. But the shelves stayed stubbornly mundane, offering nothing but silence and smug indifference.
So I steadied myself, squared my shoulders, and turned toward the far end of the floor. Between two tight rows of encyclopedias was the thing I’d been avoiding. The gate. A tall, narrow frame of cold black metal shackled shut with a heavy chain and a rusted lock.
A few moments later and I was standing in front of it, unfurling the key in my palm, the metal catching the lantern light with a smug shimmer.
With a breath I pretended was bravery, I slid it into the lock.
I heard a sharp, decisive clack before the chains uncoiled with a metallic hiss, dropping to the ground in a neat pile as the gates swung open with such smoothness it almost felt choreographed.
I winced before stepping back, half expecting a gust of cursed wind or a spectral scream to welcome me. Nothing happened, which honestly felt worse.
"Here we go," I mumbled to myself.
Reluctantly—dramatically, even—I took the first step upward, the staircase curling higher than it looked from below. There was no sound save for the soft patter of my steps and the faint hum of magic crawling along the walls.
By the time I reached the top, the air changed—cooler, thicker, almost humming with unspent energy.
The hush hit me immediately. The third floor wasn’t just quiet—it was silent, oppressive, the kind of silence that felt intentional, like the entire room had agreed to suffocate all noise out of mutual respect.
The only light came from a few scattered candles, their flames burning in eerie shades of emerald-green that flickered without warmth.
The walls were swallowed in shadow; the few illuminated shelves looked as though they’d been torn from a necromancer’s fever dream. And scattered among them were dark hooded figures, each one gliding through the aisles with an elegance that suggested they didn’t walk so much as decide they had new places to be.
"Wow," I whispered to myself, raising my brow as the nearest figure drifted past. "Love the vibe—very ’secret cult meeting hosted by people who got bullied in wizard school.’ Honestly, all they’re missing is a blood ritual and a strongly worded syllabus."
Nobody laughed. Typical.
I began to move through the aisles, the sound of my footsteps muffled strangely, as if the very floor disapproved of noise and had decided to erase mine in compensation.
Half the books I passed were inked in languages I didn’t recognize—twisted glyphs and flowing script that shimmered whenever I looked away from them.
The other half seemed... alive. Their covers pulsed rhythmically, as though breathing; some had faint whispers leaking from their pages, the words curling like smoke that died before reaching my ears. It should have been terrifying, but honestly, after everything this place had thrown at me, I felt mostly inconvenienced.
Curiosity caught me by the wrist the moment I saw a thick tome wrapped in black leather that glistened like oil. I plucked it from the shelf without hesitation—because of course I did—and flipped it open.
The pages fluttered violently, flipping on their own until a burst of dark purple tentacles shot forth like a bouquet with boundary issues. One slithered across my collarbone, tracing a cold, wet stripe that sent a violent shiver through my spine.
I yelped—loud, undignified, echoing.
Before I could even swat it away, a hooded figure materialized behind me. Their hand darted forward, snatching the book and snapping it shut in one decisive motion. The tentacles vanished instantly with a moist, offended hiss.
"Oh!" I blurted, turning around with a nervous laugh. "Hi. I was, um... just browsing. Didn’t realize this one was... touchy?"
The figure said nothing, not even a sniff. They turned, gliding away as gracefully and judgmentally as possible.
"...Right," I muttered. "I’ll, uh—keep my hands to myself then."
I didn’t.
An hour passed, filled with several other magical encounters that varied in intensity but all maintained the same general theme of "Loona does something impulsive and is punished by forces beyond his comprehension."
One book tried to bite me. One tried to sell me something. Another kept changing languages every time I blinked. A fourth one insisted it was cursed and needed me to kiss it to break the spell, which I strongly suspected was a lie but also deeply respected.
Eventually, after enough wandering, near-death literary experiences, and mild self-reflection, I found it.
A dimly lit alcove tucked behind a carved pillar, the shelves here coated in a thin layer of dust and something darker. A black metal sign hung crookedly overhead with the word "Obscurus" etched into it, glowing faintly like dying embers.
My pulse quickened as I stepped closer, eyes sweeping across rows of tomes labeled in jagged silver script. Illusory magic. Umbral conjuration. Interpretations of eldritch sight. And—finally—shadow magic.
I reached forward reverently and drew out a volume titled Foundations of Umbral Craft: A Beginner’s Digest, its cover surprisingly warm despite the cold air.
Carrying it toward the open reading hall, I spotted a tray of tea placed precariously on a side table near the railing. Without even pausing to contemplate ownership or permission, I snagged a cup and took a careful sip as I located an empty desk beneath a hanging lantern of green firelight.
I cracked open the book and immediately began flipping through its pages. Most of the passages were abstract, discussing how shadow magic wasn’t merely absence of light but a living, reactive essence shaped by intent, emotion, and lineage.
Some pages crackled slightly beneath my fingertips, as though the ink was resisting my touch. But then—
"Ah hah!" I exclaimed, slamming my finger down on a promising paragraph nestled beneath an illustration of a shadow weaving through a sigil grid.
Shadow arts have long been associated with the ancestral bloodlines of three ancient houses: House Veylith, House Mor’Calen, and House Dreskyrn. These families pioneered the structured practice of umbral manipulation, instinctively channeling darkness as an extension of their heritage. Two of these houses fell during the internecine shadow feuds of the early centuries — conflicts resulting in the near-eradication of practitioners. Only one house emerged intact, House Veylith, continuing its lineage and secrets through its hidden descendants.
I leaned back slowly, letting the information settle like smoke in my mind. Three houses. Two destroyed. One left standing.
"She’s from this house," I whispered to myself, tracing my finger along the name House Veylith. "She has to be."
And then it happened.
I didn’t mean to spit the tea. Truly, I didn’t. It was good tea, too—fragrant, warm, vaguely minty with a suspicious undertone of "this probably costs more than my life."
The spray arced beautifully—tragically—across the open page, sizzling as it hit a line of ink that curled away like a scalded cat. I slapped my palm over my lips and choked down the rest of the coughs, tears forming at the corners of my eyes.
I slapped my chest a few times, all while blinking rapidly at the words in front of me as though they might rearrange themselves into something sensible.
They didn’t. They remained exactly where they were, smug and devastating.
House Veylith: Highblood Status
Saints above, Elvina was a Highblood. Not just some middling noble brat or a petty pretender masking insecurity with theatrical arrogance, but an actual Highblood—one of those upper-crust serpents bred from centuries of privilege, old magic, and generational rot.
My mind spun in a slow, nauseating circle as I processed it, every thought wobbling like a plate on a stick about to topple. I sat there very still for several long breaths, as though I feared if I moved too quickly the information would leap off the page and strangle me.
But once the shock settled—like dust finally choosing where to land—it hit me that knowing this wasn’t a defeat. It was leverage. Precious, golden leverage.
I felt my spine straighten just a little, my shoulders square, as if this knowledge alone restored several inches of height I never had to begin with.
I reclined into the creaking wooden chair, clutching the tea cup like it was the only thing tethering me to reality, letting the shock swim laps through my mind before it settled like an oily residue across my thoughts.
I returned to the book, my fingers trembling faintly, and continued flipping through the brittle pages with renewed hunger. And that was when I saw the margin notes—dense, angry strokes written in a hand far more human than the printed script.
Seal Notice. Sections Ahead Designated Hazardous Due to Sensitive Historical Content. Proceed at Risk.
Naturally, I leaned in closer.
There, nestled beneath a block of censor bars so thick it looked like someone had gone to war with a quill, was the beginning of something... juicy. No—scandalous. An official name was scrawled above the redactions like a title card to a theatrical tragedy.
The Veylith Conspiracy: A Shadow Scandle of National Scale.
The text after outlined a sprawling network of criminal sophistication that stretched far beyond simple corruption; it described Elvina’s family—her proud, secretive, holier-than-thou Highblood lineage—as the architects of an empire of deception.
They had forged counterfeit noble identities for wealthy criminals. They had covered up assassinations with surgical precision. They had replaced dead heirs with impostors so perfect even their mothers wouldn’t have noticed. They had blackmailed entire bloodlines with fabricated "ancestral sins," twisting centuries of honor into fragile glass they could shatter on command.
It read like a fever dream of corruption, the kind of scandal that should have burned half the country to ash.
And, as the book emphasized with almost theatrical exhaustion, even these horrific accounts represented only the smallest fraction of what was actually done. The rest had been buried—not metaphorically, but literally: sealed archives destroyed, witnesses silenced, investigators bribed or vanished, entire paper trails purged.
I sat there, trembling with awe, because all of it—the deceit, the manipulation, the brazen arrogance—fit Elvina like a glove. Suddenly her self-righteous smirk made perfect sense. She wasn’t just arrogant. She had been born into a dynasty that fed on arrogance like a delicacy.
"So that’s why she’s so touchy about her past," I whispered, laughter bubbling at the edges of my voice.
But the Chapter wasn’t finished with me yet—not by a long shot.
My eyes drifted down toward the most heavily restricted section, the text beneath the redaction bars flickering faintly as if the book itself wasn’t sure it wanted to let me see it. But I pressed my thumb to the page, and the ink reluctantly parted, unveiling a short segment written in small, hurried script.
It spoke of some sort of... nursery.
Not a place with toys, lullabies, or any of the precious nonsense one would associate with innocence—but a laboratory disguised as a lineage vault, where heirs of the Veylith family were "enhanced" through rituals involving the harvesting of living souls.
Slaves, criminals, undesirables—anyone the family deemed "suitable material" were drained slowly, their essences used to weave unnatural shadows into unborn children.
I caught a few fragmented phrases. "...heirs enhanced by..." "...harvesting of living..." "...soul extraction chamber..." "...results inconsistent... unstable..." "...subjects: Miko, Rylla, Ichren..."
And then—Elvina.
Her name, written clearly, unhidden, unashamed.
I felt my breath leave me in a long, slow exhale. A chill ran the length of my spine, but it wasn’t fear. Oh no. It was something far pettier, far more satisfying.
If this information ever came out—if this truth slipped, ever so innocently, into the public’s eager little ears—Elvina’s rank, her prestige, her ambitions would collapse like a rotten pillar of prestige. She would never ascend. She wouldn’t even tread water. She’d sink under the weight of her family name.
And saints above, what a wonderful thought that was.
A laugh bubbled up inside me, rising through my chest in little sparks until it burst out of my mouth in a sudden, uncontrollable shout of manic joy that shattered the silence like a brick through a window.
Every hooded figure in the room froze. A dozen heads swiveled toward me with eerie synchronicity. Somewhere far across the hall, a candle snuffed itself out in despair. But I couldn’t help it—I laughed harder, clutching the book to my chest as the absurdity of it all shook through me.
I flipped through several more pages—half to calm myself down, half to wring every last drop of advantage from this book before it could bite me again. There were diagrams, spell charts, footnotes on shadow manipulation, inherited affinities, bloodline techniques—nothing directly useful without training, but enough to give me the edges I needed. Enough to twist the knife when the match began.
Finally, unable to contain my triumph another moment, I slammed the book shut with a crack that echoed through the silence.
I shoved back my chair and sprang to my feet, adrenaline zinging through my limbs like lightning. My boots skidded on the polished floor as I took off in a skipping, borderline unhinged sprint toward the stairs.
I was halfway across the hall, practically vibrating with glee, when—
BAM!
A collision so sudden and violent my bones rattled. Something—or someone—hit me chest-first, knocking the wind out of me in one ugly wheeze as we both toppled backward in a chaotic tumble. Books rained around us like disgruntled birds. Scrolls rolled across the floor in every direction. A heavy tome bounced off my ankle, eliciting a noise so pathetic I hoped no one heard it.
I landed sprawled on my back, staring at the ceiling and reconsidering the merits of sprinting indoors.
I groaned, blinking stars from my eyes before I lifted my head—and froze.
Because sprawled across from me, dazed, flushed, hair tousled from the impact and books scattered like feathers, was him.
It was that boy...Tora.