‘Every point on a circle’s edge is the same distance to the center.’

Incessant white and bleeding shadows. Felix's eyes are closed as he walks in the sterile hall — the world presents itself through the sensations in his palm. Rough. Smooth. Cold. Warm. Sharp, jagged, soft; these were the feelings he knew well.

This is where he lived for the longest time. A decade, perhaps more. Looking back, those meaningless days are almost foreign to him. He never could remember anything of substance at the end of each day. Those halls were seas of fog, endlessly looping on themselves, populated by whitecoats and forgotten memories. Did he start here? What happened to the period between birth and youth?

Recollections grow hazy — the halls transform into sidewalks. Falling leaves and brisk chill. A walkway in the middle of a city. There were whitecoats here, too. Injections and prickly things, they gave him things. Pills. Injections. He stared for hours at a swinging pendulum, unable to understand what was happening.

The past is a shattered mirror caught mid fall. Within the broken shards of himself were fleeting memories and sensations with no consistency. The time keeps repeating itself in blinking red digits. He reaches out and catches a figment. Reflected within is a glimpse of his face, distorted by the wavy curve of melting glass.

And for some reason, none of this seems to bother him. The present will always overwrite the past. That is just a manner of logic. Despite the inconsistencies and malfunctions in his brain, he can understand that humans are creatures that live for the present. That is the fallacy that allows him to continue operating — blissful unawareness of the past and present, eyes locked on the time.

But that cycle has come to an end. Awareness grips him, draped around his neck like a choking noose. Was it a new life or reconnaissance that drove him to the town? When he got here and met the girl named Marie Weiss, surely something awakened. If she were the vanguard of the supernatural, then perhaps mere exposure forced him to change.

Felix recalls that moment now. The very second the click began to run. It was surely when he saw her for the first time — he looks down at his wrist. No time. Bare skin, something missing.

Execution of directive. Drowning seconds. Tracking and observation. Analysis complete, generating new objectives.

Query: Who am I?

Felix opens his eyes to gruesome pink. It leaks from shuttered drapes, painting the room with a mid-day murder. A sudden gust of air fills the room and licks the cold sweat from his brow — invisible currents cause unfamiliar blankets to rustle noisily.

His mind is coherent enough to process that he shouldn’t be in a room like this. It certainly isn’t the austere chambers of a catholic priest, nor the standardized furnishings of a hospital bed. The ornate wallpapers and rugs are completely lost on a person like him — he looks down at the silk blanket clutched in his fists and reflexively lets go.

Too expensive. His wallet experiences an existential crisis from just being here.

But there’s one thing that prevents him from getting up. As he sits up and looks around, his gaze snags on a girl in black.

She sits across from him at a coffee table, slowly flipping through a book bound in red leather. Her dress spills onto the ground, loose veils of stolen night. It almost looks like it’s made out of shadows. Combined with her deathly pale skin and luminous green eyes, she almost looks like a doll from another era.

He isn’t awestruck by her grace and undeniable beauty, but something tells him that saying anything will lead to his death.

The events of last night are more than clear in his head. With a gesture and chant, she summoned an entire realm out of shadows. Even almost ran him over with a sudden car.

She isn’t human. She couldn’t possibly be. The elegance and grace that she possesses is that of a statue’s; perfect and immutable. A beauty like hers would take many generations, many centuries to cultivate.

“Hmm? Finally decided to wake up?”

Without any warning, the girl returns Felix’s gaze. His heart palpitates in his chest — can’t think of anything to say.

He can’t place her age, either. Though her appearance is youthful, her dignified air makes her seem much older. Her big green eyes stand out from her pale skin and raven black hair, two emeralds polished to a mirror sheen. There seems to be something else teeming underneath the surface of those eyes; she regards him with such intensity that it feels like his chest might cave in.

A black lily sprouted in a midnight garden. Her petals surely contain only the most deadly of poisons.

But the silence is even more unbearable. Every second crushes him — she shares the same piercing gaze as Marie. He averts his gaze and forces out a question.

“Where… am I? Who are you?”

The girl on the other side of the room narrows her eyes. She closes her red book and rests her hands on the cover.

“Somewhere mysterious.” She considers him for a few more seconds before raising something to him. “By the way, is this yours?”

Clutched in her palm is the radio watch. Red light glistens off the tarnished metal. He’d recognize it, even if he were blindfolded.

“...Yeah.”

She tosses it towards him — the time piece flies in a perfect arc and lands on the blanket. Wordlessly, he snaps it back on his left wrist.

“Does Marie know about that?” The girl asks another question without even looking at him. She concentrates on a flat silver disk, rolling it between her fingers.

“I don’t think so,” he answers, looking over his watch. The numbers are still written in red LED, blinking at him. 3:48 PM.

The day had already come and gone. He skipped past his responsibilities and ended up in a strange room in an even stranger place.

The numbers were still chained to him. That much hadn’t changed. But now, he might be able to get some answers. “But it’s the reason why I tried to get her help. She… hasn’t given me much time to ask.”

“That sounds very much like her.” The girl, seemingly satisfied with his answer, eases her gaze. She places two fingers against her temple and huffs. “How bothersome.”

A vague, foregone conclusion. Felix forces himself to shuffle out of the expensive bed before it can charge him exposure fees. “Um, I’m really sorry about the bed, it’s — didn’t really mean to — is just too expensive and fancy and, uh…”

As soon as his feet touch the ground, he notices the distinct lack of shirt and jacket on his chest. He grabs a nearby pillow to shield himself from the girl’s prying eyes.

Yet the girl only raises one of her eyebrows. She doesn’t smile, but there’s a hint of amusement on her delicate features.

“...Where am I?”

The girl only smirks and looks out the window — blood stained evening sky. A black flash draws a line across his vision — he staggers back onto the bed with a yelp, heart jump started to full operational speed.

“Oho? Already back?” The girl says, rubbing the chin of a black clump on the table.

Felix is able to identify said black clump as a raven. A bird. It caws noisily, stamping its feet against a wooden table like a child throwing a tantrum. This one looks like it ate one too many sausages in its time.

The girl seems to have all but forgotten him Felix already. She looks out the window, idly grooming the shrieking raven at her fingertips.

As dense as he is, Felix can get a clue when he needs to. This was the same person who attacked both him and Marie last night, and judging by her attitude, she seems to have some prior history with Marie. Given that he isn’t in a hospital right now, he feels pretty confident in saying that this girl treated his wounds.

Now that he looks at himself, his wounds are completely healed. Although his mind feels sluggish and cold, all of his broken bones have been mended.

“He’s talking about you,” she says, suddenly turning her attention to him. The raven, still on the table, spreads its wings wide and flaps in Felix’s general direction. It pecks at the table, hops up on the girl’s shoulder, then looks away triumphantly.

“What?”

“He said your ‘saviour’ is home. Among other things.”

Felix gets the feeling the ‘other things’ part is probably closer to heart-stopping slew of vulgarities. He lowers his shoulders and takes a deep breath.

Any more questions would be in vain, especially to a person with no intent of answering them. So Felix just resigns himself to wait.

And only moments after he begins to shut off his brain, a furious stampede of footsteps rampages towards the room. Felix snaps his gaze up from his idle thoughts and raises his head at the same time the door explodes open.

“Erika? You haven’t done anything yet, have you?”

Marie Weiss enters the room with a booming shout, panting and heaving like she just ran a marathon. She takes a few steps forward, black briefcase in hand, then braces against the wall.

The girl named Erika doesn’t look up at Marie — she’s too busy paying attention to her book. Felix finally gets a good look at the corner: MODAL REALISM: AN INTRODUCTION.

“My, my,” Erika says. “You sure got back in a hurry.”

Marie scowls and marches right behind Erika, arms crossed over her white coat. “Of course I did. I know you, Erika. I know you just as well as you know me. If I got back even a minute late, you’d say something like, ‘Oh, maybe Marie can’t handle it. Better take care of it myself.’ Didn’t we have a deal?”

“You’re overreacting. Calm down, good master. Would you like some tea?”

Compared to Erika’s cool demeanor, Marie is her usual fiery self. She looks just the same as always — her wounds have also been healed.

Felix gets the feeling that both girls have completely forgotten about his existence. Which, in this case, isn’t much of a bad thing. He’s happy to slip underneath the $109.99/per hour covers and disappear from the home conflicts.

“I told you, don’t call me that. We’re on a first name basis, none of that weird title stuff.” She steps closer to Erika and looms over her. “Don’t we have a deal?”

Night and day. The dark and light side of the moon, connected by monster green eyes. Felix is tempted to say that they are sisters, but he already knows better. It seems like familial relationships always get complicated whenever magic is thrown into the mix, fiction or real life.

“I suppose we do,” Erika replies. She eases the chubby raven off her shoulder and points it towards the window — it takes off and flaps away, leaving a singular black feather in its wake. “Then again, I can’t say that this… deal was negotiated in fair terms. I do hope you know that you can’t just keep adding terms and conditions after you sign, yes?”

The two girls glare at each other. Felix attempts to angle himself so that he avoids the crossfire.

Then, after about a minute of tense eye-to-eye warfare, they break off their gazes at nearly the exact same time.

Such conflicts must be a part of day to day life for these two, Felix realizes. They must have been through a lot of things together.

Then, with a near theatrical sigh, Erika stands up and paces towards the door. “I’ll be in the Pisces lounge. Everything will be prepared by the time you’re done explaining whatever you will to him.”

As Erika walks by, Marie stops her with a firm hand on the shoulder. “Were you planning on doing anything to him?”

“Only a little magic,” Erika replies rather nonchalantly. She brushes Marie’s hand off her shoulder, picks up the black feather from the table, then leaves.

That leaves only two people in the room marred by the setting sun. Marie places a palm against her forehead and groans. “Gods, I can’t believe I had to skip last period and take the bus just to get back here. Knew there was something up with her — why can’t she just be a normal person? Well, I know that she isn’t human, but that shouldn’t stop basic manners. Gah. Why is everything just… so hard?”

Felix feels like it would be very rude to point out that Marie is talking to herself again. So he doesn’t.

Her attention falls to him, soon enough. “What? Come on, you have a voice. Speak up. Come on, talk a bit. Don’t try to feign ignorance, especially after what happened last night.” She pulls one of the seats from the coffee table in front of Felix’s bed, turns it around, and rests both of her arms on the backrest.

“Good afternoon,” Felix offers, not knowing what else to say.

“Skip the idle pleasantries.” Marie rests her chin on her arms, brooding at him. “What did you two talk about?”

“With that girl?” It wasn’t much of a conversation, all things considered. “We didn’t talk about much. But she seemed… nice.”

“Did she ask you to sign your name anywhere? Ask you for your name? Show you a mirror? Ask for your blood?”

“Erm…”

“Actually, no. Let’s take it from the top and I’ll explain everything step by step. Okay?” She places the briefcase down and pops open the golden locks. “Hold still for a few, would you?”

That wasn’t so much an offer as it was a statement. But Felix nods his head, nonetheless. “I don’t understand much of what’s going on.”

“That’s a good thing, y’know?” Marie puts a hand to her cheek and smiles a demonic smile. “If you did, I would’ve killed you by now.”

“...Good. Looks like your wounds and Kyvler’s effects have both worn off.”

Marie sits down in her seat, putting away the monocle she had been looking him over with. Blue arcane glyphs appeared within the glass as she scanned over each part of his body, which he did his best to ignore.

“So? How do you feel?”

Felix tests his arms. Slow motion strain. “A bit sluggish.”

Although he can move himself around, his arms and legs are steeped in invisible molasses. He can’t quite open his hand, nor can he close it. Stuck. Doll’s joints.

Marie stares at him with a rather grim look. Then, just as it looks like she might say something, she shrugs.

“...What?”

“Well, the important thing is that you’re fine now.” She shrugs again, then nudges the briefcase shut with her foot. “Erika’s saliva has very potent healing properties, but she didn’t like you enough to apply it. It required nightly treatments, anyways. So we ended up going the traditional way and treated your wounds with some concoctions and orisons. Prayers, but actually magic.”

Something clicks in Felix’s head. He recalls that Erika had a long, black tongue, though he never saw it extend out to its full length. “Is that how she healed you? I remember your wounds were pretty bad. How did she manage to apply saliva to that much of your body?”

Marie freezes. She looks away, blushing. She bites her lip and squirms in her seat. “I… don’t want to talk about it.” Then, shaking her head, she turns to him with a renewed seriousness. “Don’t worry about me — I’m fine. We’re here to talk about you right now. You’ve been out for five days, you know?”

Five days. The whole duration of a business week. Felix looks down at his watch and adjusts to the proper date and time.

April 17th, 2000.

“Five whole days?”

“You pushed yourself pretty damn hard. Took three days to undo the curse’s damage, a few more to fix all the wounds. I talked to everybody, and your school and jobs should be fine. Thank me later.”

A curse. The word is another reminder as to what caused him to wake up in a bed that isn’t his own. “Ah,” he manages to force out.

“Anyway, right now, you’re in the Schwarz manor, right in the middle of the Walter Forest. This is one of the guest bedrooms, but since we never get any guests, I guess it’s just a bedroom.” Marie walks over to the painfully red window sill and snaps her fingers.

The light instantly fades — a proper view reveals itself. Underneath lurid red, an evergreen forest spreads itself on uneven hills. Through the filter of the trees, a summer sunset over a roaring ocean. The sight, combined with the scent of fresh air, ocean salt, is intoxicating to a city boy like him. He may as well be looking into a photograph of somewhere far away.

“Before you ask, Erika uses her magic to conceal this space. Pseudo-non euclidean geometries. Can’t risk using the full thing here.” She rests her hands on the windowsill, and basking in the early evening light, she tilts her head. Emeralds in her head. “What I said before is still in play — I won’t kill you. But I can’t just let you walk free, either.”

In other words, his freedom or his life. To be honest, Felix vastly prefers his life at the current moment. “So… what do you want me to do?”

“I’d like for you to just fall over dead, but we can’t all get what we want. Plus I already promised to not make you dead, so in the meanwhile, you’re going to be staying here.”

He looks around at the grandiose room. The gold trimming alone is worth more than the church dorm he was staying in. “But I was contracted to stay with the church for some time. Won’t they get worried?”

Marie’s eyes widen. She lowers her arms and stares at Felix for a good few seconds before regaining her composure. “Right. Contracts.” She shrugs and looks out the window. “Well, I already explained the situation to that corrupt nun and fraud of a high priest. We’ll deal with the other things as they come along.”

Other things?

“But that’s besides the point. You’re our problem, so we’ll be dealing with you. Until we find a more permanent solution, you’ll be living under our supervision here.”

In other, other words, if he doesn’t do that, she’ll kill him. He massages the blood back into his hands and looks away.

His gaze settles on an embroidered curtain with patterns reminiscent of a two-headed eagle. The silk alone is probably worth more than his life — maybe staying here wouldn’t be so bad.

“You have to admit, it’s better than being killed, right? We’ll have to install some preliminary measures to make sure you won’t talk or give up any information for us, but you can still do the regular person things you do. Think of it as… witness protection.”

Part of him wants to object to how casual they’re treating his imprisonment, but he knows that he better just shut up right now. Compared to her, he might as well be a gnat. A gnat going up against a girl who can destroy reality with a few ridiculous sounding words.

“Are you sure about this?” he asks. Straining against his sore body, he pushes himself to his feet to face Marie. “That girl from earlier didn’t seem all too happy about this, and everything seems so expensive, and I don’t really want to bother—”

“Hm?” From the other side of the room, Marie regards him with a slightly murderous closed lipped, closed eyed smile. “I think you’ve done plenty of bothering already. Say. Do you really want to die?”

“No. I’ll shut up now.”

Felix does understand his circumstances. He should probably just do whatever Marie says for the time being — whatever Gabriel told about her wasn’t even the tip of the iceberg. When she gets mad, something much worse than a beat down happens.

And strangely enough, he doesn’t feel the desire to look at his watch. This place hides him from the numbers.

“Good. I was afraid I’d have to waste even more of my time explaining this stuff to you. Come with me, we gotta sign you up for some insurance. And tell you the other things.” With a small flourish, Marie pushes herself from the window and walks towards the door. “Can you walk?”

“Yeah.” Against his ailing body, he forces his legs straight and pushes them forward. One step at a time.

She watches him stagger towards the doorstep. Then, as he passes her by the doorframe, she mutters a quiet comment. “Huh. Guess his god-like stamina wasn’t a fluke, then.”

He stumbles into an unfamiliar hallway of dark, stained wood and shadows. Can’t see anything. “Are the halls supposed to look like this?”

“Oh yeeeaaaah…” Marie almost sounds bashful as she steps into the hallway with him. “We haven’t registered you on the nexus yet.” Slowly, she closes her eyes and raises her hands. Two small glyphs appear on her wrists — the panels on the roof rise up into nothing and expose the sunset sky. “So, uh, try not to step away.”

The hallways brightens, now shimmering with evening light. “Just curious... what happens if I don’t?”

Marie purses her lips, then looks away nervously. “How much do you like shish kebab?”

“A little. It tastes alright with naan.”

She nods and regards him with a dubious look. “You might not like it anymore after your kebab gets shished.”

Needle through meat. Barbequed. Roasted until tender.

“O-Oh.”

“Yeah.”

She shrugs, then starts walking away. Felix struggles to catch up with her — his very bones feel like they might crumble. He hasn’t hurt like this in a very long time.

When Marie notices that Felix isn’t keeping up with her, she turns around and rests a hand on her nape. “Say, you sure you can walk by yourself? You did take a pretty nasty bruising.”

“I’m fine,” Felix says through gritted teeth. “But next time, could you invest in a wheelchair?”

“Of course. I’ll grab the wheelbarrow from out back and dump you into the well.”

Naturally, her voice was bold and firm, a sound that belonged to a rose that didn’t care how many thorns it had — the flower simply is. He finds himself smiling to the thought as he pushes himself along.

“Appreciate it.”

“Don’t thank me, thank Zhuge Liang. He must’ve seen what kinds of garbage we’d have to move around in the future.”

She is simply a scalding person. A flame. An admirable existence, unwilling to yield. Beautiful, in its own right.

After a few more steps, she turns around with a smile. “It’s going to be a long walk, Felix. If you need a shoulder to lean on, I’ll find the nearest window to help you take a shortcut through.”

He’s almost stunned by how dazzling her smile is. He manages to pull himself together and ripostes. “Gee, thanks, Zhuge Liang.”

Marie looks at him with a strange gaze. Then, as a shadow creeps across her face, she rolls her eyes and grins. With a shared laugh, they continue through the hallway with no roof, watching the sun set on the forest around them.

The manor is bigger on the inside than on the outside. Of course it is. A witch residing in a reasonable abode that doesn’t defy the laws of physics would be in bad taste.

To Felix, the entire ordeal seems a bit overwrought. To start, almost all of the rooms in this section of the manor haven’t seen any human habitation. He can tell by the complete lack of imperfections — everything is perfectly arranged, clean, smells nice, yet cold as a corpse. With streams of red evening light flowing in, the halls are immaculate collages from ancient paintings that haven’t quite been finished.

If he didn’t know any better, Felix would think this place was a haunted house. Moments after the thought pops into his head, he figures that’s precisely the mood that the inhabitants were going for. Props to them, he supposes.

Felix follows Marie into the manor’s main foyer, a world of wood, marble, and light. They came from the west wing on the second floor, about halfway up the coiling stairs. He follows her down to the ground level and looks around. There’s a decades-old rotary phone connected to nothing in particular and a black iron fireplace on opposite ends of the room, an almost preposterous dichotomy. Neither object looks like it belongs in the neoclassical manor, yet here they are.

“When was this place built?” Felix asks as they reach the bottom of the stairwell.

Marie reorients herself in the center of the stairwell — the glyph surrounding her wrist falls to the ground and disappears. “The manor? Absolutely no idea.” She turns to him and rests a hand on her hip. “Reckon it was magic from the start, in any case. Think my ancestors built this with a safehouse in mind.”

A witch’s hut. Chicken legs, Folk legend. Baba Yaga’s blessings. But Marie is German, not Russian. “Can… this place move around?”

“Whaddya mean? Like, teleportation?”

“Yeah. There’s always been legends of what witches can do, so, y’know…”

She sighs and starts walking to an open door on the north. The lights are already on. “We’re going to have a problem if you try to verify the truth to every single legend involving witches. Really, you’re just setting yourself up for disappointment.”

To the south, two imposing doors surrounded by colourful glass. The entrance. Felix turns away and echoes Marie’s words. “Disappointment?”

She only responds with a small shrug of her shoulders.

Felix walks with her until they reach a set of four closely placed doors. He figures these doors are important because there’s horoscope symbols carved into them — Aries, Pisces, Aquarius, Taurus; one symbol marked at eye level on each.

Marie stops and turns in the middle of the doors. “Anyway, Pisces is the lounge, Aquarius is the nearest bathroom, Taurus is the kitchen, Aries is the… smaller dining room. Try not to wander in there. Might be haunted — can’t tell.”

“Do the symbols mean anything?”

“Oh, the Astrology bullshit? Maybe to others, I guess.” Her face turns into a small scowl as she regards the Aries-Dining room door. “We get some visitors from time to time — people from our world. These doors were a replacement for the ones that were broken during a… mild disagreement.”

“If doors were broken, I don’t think it was a mild disagreement,” Felix helpfully observes.

“Listen. As a man of science — or, at least, I hope you are — you should probably already know how obnoxious people who follow horoscopes are. Same applies to people in magecraft and witchcraft. They’re the types of people who always see a mundane-ass event with no correlations and suddenly inject their junk opinions.” Marie is getting visibly worked up — her cheeks flush red. “Zodiac this, symbol that. ‘Oh, you chose one patty on your cheeseburger instead of two because you’re a sagittarius.’ ‘Ohmygosh we were meant to meet because I’m a Cancer.’ Oh, yeah. You’re real fuckin’ cancer, I can tell you that. It just goes on and on and on and on, like everything ties into a cosmic conspiracy that depends on what month you were born. A month. A month. God fucking damnit.”

Felix finds the notion of a practiced witch bashing another pseudoscience quite amusing. Something something pot calling kettle black. But this pot can actually blast holes in reality. He grins and nods along to her words.

“Don’t even get me started on the bastards who believe in Homeopathy, real buncha motherfu—Hey. Wait. I’m not going to get started.” Snapping out of her rant, Marie glances at Felix with furrowed brows and pursed lips. “Alright. Shut up and sit down somewhere.”

She steps to the Pisces door and places her hand on the brass handle. Felix follows.

The inside of the lobby is surprisingly modern — almost feels like he just stumbled through a portal back to normalcy. A television set. DVD and cassette player. Sofas, coffee table, fans, even a small bowl of chocolates and hard candies. Barring the exorbitantly expensive furnishings, this place is a room that could be in any household. But the whole price thing is a hard hurtle to get past.

Seated in the middle of the familiar display is a girl far removed from the idea of mundanity, still engrossed in a book.

“Apologies for the wait,” Marie says, bowing her head slightly. “He agreed to the terms.”

Felix does not recall agreeing to any terms and services. But, just like the other times, he shuts up because being right isn’t worth his life.

Marie takes a seat close to Erika. They look at each other, exchange a silent conversation, then Marie takes a cup of tea already prepared for her. “Thank you,” she mutters, smiling a little.

Erika smiles in turn. “Anything for you, dear.”

They seem to have gotten over their earlier disagreement. A strong bond, Felix supposes. But this also leaves another conundrum: where should he sit?

He is left in a social deadlock. He could sit beside them, but that would just be plain awkward. He could take a seat opposite from them, but there’s only two tea cups and platters prepared. The very implication that he would sit at the same table at them could provoke untold tension. It would imply that he wants a cup of tea and other social nudgings that he’s not fully aware of himself.

So he decides to just find an unrelated chair that’s in the general vicinity of the two. Getting too close seems like a bad idea, so he finds a very welcoming rocking chair near the TV. This ends up with Felix getting two inquisitive looks from the girls, but it’s better than getting a fireball to the face.

“...So,” Marie says, breaking the silence. “You’ve got everything ready now?”

“Of course. We still need to investigate the cause of all these disturbances.”

Erika shoots him an ice cold glare — any warmth has evaporated in a flash. Seems like her tenderness is for Marie alone. Not that it’s a problem. Felix would rather drown himself than deal with a Marie-adjacent individual. One is more than good enough.

He also gets the feeling that she would vastly prefer him dead right now.

“Assuming that you yourself aren’t the cause,” she continues, narrowing her eyes.

That was definitely directed at him. He raises his hands in defeat and stifles a sigh. “I may be up to things, but I assure you, there’s no hostile intent behind them.”

“Likely story.”

“If you don’t believe him, we have the insurance policy, don’t we?” Marie adds.

Erika grumbles something, then slowly raises her porcelain teacup to her equally porcelain lips. “I suppose we do.”

“Insurance policy?” Felix asks. Again.

The resulting look the girls give him confirms that he really shouldn’t have asked that.

“Oh yes, the insurance policy.” Erika holds up her hand, as though waiting for something to appear. The shadows around the couch seem to be dragged to her palm, little of ebony wisps that rapidly form into a long, thin needle. She twirls it several times and gestures to Felix with it. “The question is: who gets to do the honors? This does need to go somewhere important.”

He watches Erika’s eyes crawl over him, raw disdain manifest in the emerald. He does not appreciate the insinuations that come with that statement. Especially when she points the needle towards his eye.

Marie seems awfully nonchalant about the whole display. She sips at her tea and looks away. “Whatever you do, make sure you don’t kill him, alright?”

“What are you going to do with that?” Felix asks, leaning as far back in his chair as possible.

But Erika only gets up with a cold smile.

Alarm bells go off in his head — he already has a pretty good idea of what she’s going to do with that thing. But there’s no point in running, either. It’s not like he could outrun either of these monsters, even if he really tried.

He blinks. Erika is no longer in front of him — a vice comes down on his left shoulder with the intensity of a semi truck. He winces and looks up into the blank expression of a broken doll.

“What do you value the most? Your eyes or your heart?”

The needle is a thin black dot from where he sits. Held high above Erika’s head, it’s fairly obvious what she intends on doing with it. Felix can’t even squirm — his body is rebelling against him. Heart hammering in chest. Stomach in throat. Just being near this girl is triggering some primal instinct in his brain stem, overwhelming his brain with twinned fight and flight. Paralysis.

She shouldn’t exist in this world. Wrong. Wrongwrongwrongwrongwrongwrongwrong—

“Hm. Eyes it is.”

“W—”

Something cold preferorates through his right eye. The ice doesn’t stop — it drives inch by inch, centimeter by centimeter. He can feel it rubbing against all the important things in his head — eye, brain, bones — the needle stirs up the inside of his head. Mind is melting.

The thing injects a skull’s worth of oily cold fluid inside him. It drips down the hollow tube of his spine and throat and chest and diffuses through his body; he can feel it twisting and turning, a sensation like drowning in gelatin. He can’t even gasp for air as something cold and dark worms its way into his heart — his blood feels like it’s thickening black within its veins.

The curse he experienced before is nothing. A cage has dropped around him, shrouding him in a world of darkness. He can’t see anything. He can’t feel anything. After a few moments, he’s not sure if he’s real anymore.

“There. All done.”

Then, it all stops.

Erika is sitting beside Marie, gently sipping on her tea. Both of them act like nothing just happened.

Felix wrestles a few breaths into his trembling lungs and sits up, grasping at his head. All that remains is a coiling chill around his spine and the sensation of being watched.

“W-What did you just—”

“Doooon’t worry about it,” Marie says, cutting him off. She places down her teacup with a loud clink and regards him with a cheery look. “Erika used one of our family’s runes. I’m no good at that kind of stuff, so she’s going to be handling your house arrest bracelet… per se. She’ll listen to me, so as long as you don’t piss her off, you should be fine. Isn’t that right, Erika?”

She reaches up and starts rubbing the top of Erika’s head — the act almost seems profane. Several strands of hair fall between the black-haired girl’s eyes as Marie pets and hugs her companion.

“N-Not here,” Erika mutters, looking down into her lap. An unusual purplish blush tints her cheeks — if she had a tail, it would certainly be wagging right about now.

On the other side of the room, Felix is trying his best to ignore the lingering sensation in his back. It almost feels like a lump in the back of his throat, except the lump is a boulder, and the throat is his entire body.

“Did you really have to do that?” he sputters. “I already get what’s going on. Everything feels weird. That was beyond terrible — I can still feel the inside of my skull right now. I don’t want to feel the inside of my skull.”

Marie almost looks surprised at his outburst. Then, she gives a dismissive shrug. “Y’know, normal people would be terrified from something like that. And here you are, mildly annoyed.”

“Thanks. I guess.”

She furrows her brow even further. “That wasn’t a compliment.”

“Uhh… no thanks?”

“...Anyway, now that you’ve seen more of proper sorcery, I should probably explain what’s going on. Erika’s magic is something else, so don’t compare me to her. She’s an entire tier above me in terms of competence.”

Felix would rather not let his mind wander on this topic. Last night is just a blur of lights, force, and colours to him — thinking any further on it would probably break his brain.

Erika glances at Marie with an almost accusatory look. “Are you sure about that? I think your potential is much greater than what you give yourself credit for. My spells and techniques took decades and centuries to cultivate. You managed to improvise a magical dirty bomb on the fly.”

“Wait. You were watching?”

“Of course. I never actually wanted to kill you.”

Marie buries her hands between her thighs and pouts. “You certainly didn’t hold back, though.”

Erika looks back at Felix. “Of course. Before I got there, I had no idea of what that boy was capable of. But now that I’ve gotten a good look at his body, he doesn’t even have any ether conduits. Did you even try killing him? His body has no resistance to magic — even a grazing shot from Burst would’ve killed him.”

Marie clears her throat very loudly and crosses her arms. “A-Anyways, business? Business.” She gesticulates very aggressively to the spot across the coffee table. “Come on, you bastard. You’re making this incredibly awkward. Don’t make me come over there and drag you to this damned spot.”

For some reason, she raised her voice. Felix tilts his head and gawks at her a little. “Wait, is this not okay? Eh?”

Something invisible snaps in the air. She hops to her feet and glares at him. “Oh, now you’ve done it.”

Oh no.

Marie came over there and dragged him to that damned spot. She even found a saucer and violently poured Felix a cup of tea. Violently.

“Alright. Now that that’s taken care of, let’s begin.” Marie clears her throat and crosses her legs. “I’ll make this as short as possible to make up for the meandering.” To her side, Erika averts her gaze out the window.

Felix takes a sip of the tea and nods. “I’m listening.” Chamomile mixed with peppermint. Strange, but not entirely unpleasant.

“First off, you’ve been marked with a slightly modified rune of necessity. I’m sure you’re familiar with runes already — I guess they’re already a thing in pop culture.” She shrugs. “Saves me some time in explaining, I suppose.”

Sigils one can draw for power. Straight forward enough. Felix hasn’t had a chance to look at himself, but there’s probably something somewhere on his body now. “And I’m guessing that it’ll kill me if you trigger it.”

“Yep. It’ll be painless, at least. Like a house arrest bracelet with lethal poison.” Marie’s grin widens into something dangerous. “Or, if you’d like, we could remove your mind. Perhaps you’d like to become a doll? Maybe a statue? Erika wanted to turn you into a newt.”

“Would save us many months of trouble,” Erika comments.

Felix carefully considers the offer. While two of those options sound like immortality, he kinda likes being human. Opposable thumbs are a big plus. “I’d rather not, thank you.”

“Bah. Well, that brings us to the second thing. As much as we’d like to concentrate our attention on you, we’re dealing with other things at the moment. So until those other things are dealt with, we need to keep an eye on you. This is both for your safety and ours.”

Makes sense. Felix did hire that one self-proclaimed magus detective to investigate on his behalf — he can only wonder what happened to him. Might be others that had similar ideas.

“Moving on, because you’ll be staying here, you’ll probably be exposed to a lot of our secrets. I don’t exactly trust you to keep your mouth shut for life. And if you get caught by another mage, they could pick through your brain for information. We can’t have that happening now, can we?”

“What’re you planning on doing with me, then?”

Marie nods. “When we deal with our enemies or reach our objective, we’ll either send you off to ‘witness protection’ or find a way to erase or modify your memories.” She makes some very deliberate air quotations on the first term. “Mull it over. You shouldn’t take a decision like this lightly — and before you get any ideas, no, we won’t be sending you off to wizard school. At best, you’ll end up as somebody’s assistant, and at worst… well, try not to think about the worst case scenario.”

“Duly noted,” Felix says. He looks down at his now lukewarm tea and downs it in a single gulp. A dollop of air gets in a place where it shouldn’t be — a bit of peppermint ends up in his nose. Marie doesn’t seem to notice his coughing.

Some small part of him was hoping that this would end up with some secret magical academy adventure. At least she has the audacity to crush his hopes very early on.

“In the meantime, you’ll be stuck here for a bit. Starting tomorrow, you’ll be heading back to school and work — but I’ll have my eye on you during the day. Erika will be watching you during the night. If either of us see you blab, we’ll kill you. On the flip side, we’ll try to protect you if anybody attacks. Which, given the events of the past few nights, is most certainly going to happen.”

So he’s basically been dragged into their fight. Should’ve seen this one coming. “So… what exactly are you fighting for?”

Marie freezes up and stares at Felix. Then, she slowly narrows her eyes. “I thought you already knew.”

“Uh…”

“Hoo boy.” She rubs her temple like she just realized something important. Or, rather, she just stumbled upon a big-ass rat in her pantry. “I really should’ve seen this coming. Your behaviour was way too erratic to be deliberate.”

“His conduits aren’t activated, nor are there any ongoing magical effects embedded in his soul,” Erika says with a bored glance. “It surprised me, too. He’s completely normal. Completely, completely mundane.”

“And he’s only recently started showing signs of self-awareness.” Marie taps her lip, deep in thought. “Could be brainwashing. Is Project MKUltra still a thing?”

Wait. “You mean the CIA mind control program?” asks Felix.

“Witches have many enemies,” Erika says. “I hope you are aware of just how lucky you are right now.”

Marie looks down at her tea, scowls, and drains her cup. Then she pours herself another cup and drains that one too. “Gods. What a pain in the ass. Let’s go get some actual fucking food before I have an starvation-induced aneurysm.”

Although Felix didn’t want to admit it, his stomach was probably about ten seconds away from cannibalizing itself. The human body doesn’t just shut down during unconsciousness — five days in a coma means five days without drinking or eating.

While Erika and Marie argue whether they should get takeout or cook at home (their argument devolved from a normal conversation to a half-screaming match about whether Americanized-Chinese restaurants should actually serve salads), Felix took care of the localized desert in his mouth. He sneaks into said kitchen and laps at the sweet nectar of a waterspout like his life depends on it. He’s pretty sure that it does, actually. Takes around one minute of drinking until his throat stops screaming at him, and about another until his body is fooled into thinking it just ate actual food.

Erika was trying to dehydrate him to death. Not that he can blame her. He’s just an outsider to them.

A dark world of magic. Felix coughs as some water goes down the wrong pipe and braces against the kitchen’s sink. Running water sound. He tries to scrub his hands with dish soap. Dirty.

Sudden sentience and secrets worth killing (and then some) for. The idea that he hadn’t truly been sentient until now is just a little terrifying. What was motivating him? Is his mind truly his own? If he leaves this manor and returns to regular life, would the urges take over once more? All these questions, yet all he can focus on is the cool fullness in his gut.

Just a puppet of meat. Fever dream logic. This would start making sense once he restores his body back to nominal condition. Hopefully. Maybe.

He knows he’s doing a pretty shit job at rationalizing all of this. His mind doesn’t seem to be willing to work with him — vague thoughts of dread pop in like radio commercials. Some of the highlights: Is time broken? Keep listening to find out! What happens when a second is no longer a second? Learn after a message from our sponsors! 11:35 PM? 11:39 AM! What is real? Tune to radio station hz 32.4 AM and—

“Hoi. Dork.”

Real words reach him. He glances around, eventually visually stumbling on the doorway.

Marie is leaning against the doorway. There’s a bunch of cowlicks on the left side of her head, springy blonde and black electrostatic twigs. She yawns and scratches her cheek.

“Wow, you kinda look like shit right now.”

“Thanks.” Felix pauses. “What time is it?”

She gestures to an ancient brass clock above the refrigerator. 5:45 PM. It clicks and spills over into another minute.

Somehow, he didn’t notice the contraption. Somehow.

“We’re getting some takeout. Chinese. You want anything? General Tso’s is on special at Chen’s — we can cover this one. Though, honestly, never knew why it’s called that.”

MSG laced chicken. Sweet and sour. Felix massages his temple and tries to straighten his thought fragments into a coherent sentence. “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”

Marie lowers her hand and straightens her back. “Don’t give me that. I gave you some water, but you must be pretty hungry right now. And I really don’t want you demolishing the fridge when we’re not looking.”

Relentless as ever. Felix rolls his shoulders in resignation and raises three fingers. “I’ll take a large special with some mapo. Extra spicy.”

“Mapo?” She raises an eyebrow. “Huh. Never actually seen anybody eat that before.”

“Hey. I like it.”

“Mhm. Turn off the water when you’re done playing pool volleyball.”

Running water. Felix twists around and shuts off the tap. “Done.”

“‘Kaaay.” Then she’s gone.

In and out, just like a ghost. A spectre. Hopping through portals to other worlds. Felix takes a deep breath and stares at the popcorn specs on the ceiling, flushing out his mind.

In confusing times like these, the human body’s desires can help guide one’s actions. He focuses inwards and takes check of his senses.

Thirst, sated. Hunger, in progress. He needs a new change of clothes, a shower, and maybe a through scrub of the inside of his skull. Almost feels like there’s a decade worth of dirt lodged between the creases of his grey matter. Dirty.

After making sure he can’t hear Marie’s footsteps, he rakes his fingernails down the left side of his face, then starts washing his hands again.

By time they return to the Pisces lounge, the sun has already abandoned the day. Marie flicks on the lights and dumps the plastic bag filled with food on the coffee table — rectangular boxes closed tight with rubber bands spill out.

Felix helps himself to the box that Marie and Erika sneer at; red oil bleeds out between the styrofoam cracks. He grabs a pair of disposable chopsticks, finds the seat he was at before, and gets to work. The top flap opens up to mapo on orange-ish chicken on fried rice. Smells spicy, pungent, oniony, spicy, garlicky, gingery, and really, just spicy. Only spicy. Spice has overtaken sensibility. Extra spicy might’ve been a mistake, but it’s already in front of him.

“How exactly did you get these delivered if this manor is concealed?” he wonders out loud, stirring everything together.

“We usually open up a door in the obfuscation veil for delivery guys,” Marie says, handing a bottle of green tea to Erika. “Truth be told, we used to abuse the ‘thirty minutes or its free’ places. In our defense, the pizza was pretty bad. Like, we asked for mushroom, pepperoni, and olives, but we only got olives with a side of pizza.”

“Huh.”

Erika clears her throat and shoots over a sidelong glare. “You said something ridiculous again, Marie.”

Marie looks legitimately surprised. “Did I say that out loud? Oops.”

At home, it seems like Marie has no internal filter. She says whatever comes to mind without thinking about it — he wonders how she manages to control herself in public. Then he shoves a few pieces of chicken in his mouth.

The cooks didn’t hold back on the spice. His tongue is already screaming after a few pieces — feels like a firecracker went off in his mouth.

“Anyway,” Marie says, staring at Felix, “while you’re still new to this whole magic biz, I think it might be best to establish some ground rules. Background information.”

Felix nods, half in agreement, half from spice sweat.

“Don’t get me wrong. This is mainly so I don’t have to deal with you asking stupid questions down the road. Got it?”

“Grgnrghrnhn.” He swallows a mouthful of mulch and bobbles his head in yes. “Got it.”

Marie nods triumphantly, takes a few bites, then sips a soda pop. To her side, Erika’s raven picks at stray grains of rice, occasionally stealing larger chunks from the various boxes lying around.

“You’re going to become fat if you keep this up, you know?” Erika mutters, shooing the thing away. It caws in retaliation and flies away with a spring roll — Felix gets a mild chuckle from the antics.

“I won’t repeat myself, so listen carefully.” Marie squares her shoulders and places her hands in her lap. “You may have noticed that we’ve been using different terms for magic users interchangeably. There’s a big difference between a wizard, witch, shaman, whatever, but technically, all of those fall under the term ‘magus.’ Don’t worry too much about it. Just don’t go around calling everybody a wizard. You’ll piss some people off.”

Felix glances between the two green-eyed girls. “And I take it you two are witches, then?”

Marie shrugs. “Close enough. It shouldn’t matter all that much — what you should really know is the nature of the arcane.” She sighs, then nods to herself. “Magecraft, magic, and all of their derivatives is the exploitation of gaps in humanity's unconsciousness. You wouldn’t believe how many disagreements and theories are still around today, but everybody agrees that there is a starting point to the universe. An ‘origin.’ The core of everything, a place beyond time and space, like Yggdrasil on space-time crack. The goal of most sensible mages is to reach that core in some way or form — they seek enlightenment, in a sense.”

Everything starts from the origin. The root. Perhaps something beyond the Big Bang. That alone seems like a pretty damn good reason to keep magic secret. “Wait, what exactly do you mean by ‘humanity's unconsciousness?’”

Marie winces at the question. “...Man, it’s hard to explain this all coherently in a single go.” She slaps herself on the cheek and slams her fist into a palm. “Alright. Humans are creatures that create the world. There’s lots of life on the planet, but we’ve ended up as the dominant species. Why? Because we’ve remodeled the earth. We built fires. Farms. Villages, towns, cities, civilizations. Earth has become a world of humanity. This extends to a metaphysical level — our understanding changes the world around us. In particular cases, like observer-based wave–particle duality, us merely observing a phenomenon can change the outcome. Clear enough?”

Humans can influence the world around them. A particle can act differently depending on whether one is observing it. Wave or particulate. “Clear enough.”

“Now, don’t worry, this influence applies to us on a collective level. Our influence only goes so far — there’s still some gaps in the ‘weave’ of our world, undefined concepts and points of power.”

The face in the mirrored mall comes up. The world itself was trying to kill them back then. He suddenly realizes the implication Marie was trying to protect him from.

Other existences can develop in a place without humans. After some consideration, he immediately flings that revelation to the recesses of his mind and moves on. “And that’s where you magic folk come in.”

“Yep. We’ve taken advantage of these existential gaps through techniques that can interact with the ‘weave’ of the world. It gets even more complicated, if you’re interested.”

Felix’s head is already spinning a little. “Maybe later.” His food is already a soggy lukewarm mush — he forces the rest down just to get it over with. “So… why do you need to keep all of this secret? Wouldn’t telling me all of this be dangerous?”

Marie smirks, resting a hand on her nape. “The body and mind have to be refined from a very young age to be capable of magic, typically. And since you’re impotent, telling you all of this should be fine. The problems come up when too many people know, or use these gaps — theories, if you want a proper term. The gaps get real big and destabilize humanity at large, and if things get bad enough, the world might just end one day. But don’t worry about that, either. There are plenty of automatic corrective safeguards in place, but we regulate ourselves specifically to not deal with those safeguards.”

This seems like it could all be avoided if people just didn’t tug at the fabric of reality. Then again, reality-warping powers do seem quite nice. “So you kill any outsiders who find out.”

“Don’t take it personally. It’s an unspoken rule in our world — much like how you’d look both ways before crossing the street. No offense.”

“None taken.”

Actually, a little offense. Being constantly reminded that he’s nothing is starting to get on his nerves a little. But maybe it’s just the spice wringing his brainpan.

“Phew. Whew. That was a lot of talking.” Marie digs out a brown bottle of oolong tea from the pile of styrofoam and takes a few long drags from it. Several beads of tea dribble down from the corner of her chin.

Almost as if on cue, Erika produces a handkerchief and dabs at Marie’s mouth. “You really didn’t have to do that, dear.”

“Nnnrgnnh. I’d rather deal with an idiot who knows what’s going on rather than a completely bumbling one.” She suddenly looks very embarrassed as soon as she spots Felix looking at her — both of them avert their eyes. It’s one of those mutual second-hand embarrassment situations.

“A-Anyway,” Marie says, visibly trying to regain her composure, “Last thing, the organizations that help manage all of this. There’s two big main ones with a lot of small branches: The Order and The Syndicate.”

“Sounds ominous,” says Felix.

“They definitely did pick some scary sounding names,” says Marie. Erika lets up and allows her to continue rambling to her heart’s content. “In the past, The Order used to be pretty secretive. Big religious organization that hunts creatures that ‘don’t belong in God’s world.’ But if you take ten seconds to consider their traits — use stakes, crosses, holy stuff, call out to God with a big capital G, happen to be the big organization stuck in Rome — I think you can put it together.”

Crusades and witch hunts. “...the Vatican?”

“Yeah. They’ve taken the role of secret witch hunters, and most of them think mages are creatures to be purged.”

Felix definitely saw that coming. The Vatican is always up to something.

“On the other hand, The Syndicate is the collective conglomerate alliance of all the different magic societies in the world. They’ve got a lot of sway over how mages operate — there’s some rules nobody can break without coming into some serious repercussions. Fate worse than death repercussions. And while both organizations come into conflict very often, being diametrically opposed and all, they both agree on keeping magic secret for everybody’s sake.”

Then, was the local church he was staying with part of this ‘Order’?

“I think I get it now,” Felix murmurs, rubbing his chin. A world where secrecy reigns. Like cutthroat corporate politics, but a little more mythical. “But… who are you fighting against? You said you were going up against an enemy earlier.”

“That’s the thing — we don’t know yet.”

“You don’t?”

Marie slumps back into the purple sofa and heaves. “As Erika said, we’ve got a lot of enemies since we have connections to both organizations. The best guess I have at the moment is a freelancer or unaffiliated mage who’s trying to steal our magic. We thought you were working for a mage at first, but it seems like you’re anything but. Hmph.”

Essentially, they took Felix hostage in hopes that he would have that answer. A bold move, he supposes. An act of desperation that is an ill omen of times to come.

“We did confiscate that caliper and IR gun of yours for now, but hey, you’d look like a weirdo carrying things like that around anyhow.” She sucks in a breath, as though to continue, but she cuts herself off and shrugs.

It seems like Marie still has a lot to say, but they’ve completely run out of food to talk over. All that remains is a cool draft from open windows, blowing around the scent of a devoured meal.

Felix doesn’t really know what to think — the sheer amount of information was a little overwhelming, especially when half of it implies that the world could end at any moment. But for some reason, it seems so… normal. It makes sense. Just like how the regular world could end in an unfortunate meteor collision, there are rules for the supernatural as well.

An ordinary person would be freaking out over all this by now. But at this point, he can scarcely call himself normal — normal people shouldn’t be able to witness a world beyond humanity and remain completely functional. Maybe he’s just been insane all along.

“That should be it, for now.” Marie says, yawning. She reaches into the plastic bags on the table and pulls out three crescent shaped cookies in plastic wrap. Everybody takes one. “Let’s clean up and call it a night.”

Afterwards, Marie is very insistent on showing Felix to his new room. Alone. She’s already there by the time he’s done washing up in the kitchen sink, hanging a lantern of blue flame from her fingers.

In the main foyer, he watches her place the lantern in the center of the moon-soaked chamber.

“Since you might be an assassination target — and a very easy one at that — I’ve decided to give you the safest room in the entire manor.” Marie looks towards him and breaks into a wide grin. “I trust you have no complaints?”

Felix does not like that look. Not one bit. Especially when it comes with another one of her definitely-not-question statements. “None at all.”

“Good.” She lowers her palm to the lantern on the floor and focuses. “Variable activation: Proximity. Set. Connect points F1 to L4. Distance: Null. Set. Override Nexus settings, density activation of null. Set.”

Her words cause her fingers to emanate a faint blue light — the flames within the lantern leap out from slits in the glass and greedily lap at her fingers. Then, as soon as the flames settle down, she picks up the lantern and tosses it at Felix.

He manages to catch it by the copper wire handle, barely. “Whoa — are you sure you should be throwing around this?”

“It’s going to take more than a fall to break anything woven with mana.” She rests both of her hands on her nape and looks at the front door. “Think of that thing as your room key. It’ll form a door directly to your room wherever you activate it. Go on, give it a try.”

Felix considers the lantern. There’s no visible buttons or switches — when he lifts the thing to his ear and shakes it, he doesn’t hear the sloshing of oil. There’s no fuel.

Marie gawks at him as he’s trying to figure the thing out. “Wait, are you stupid? Don’t be a coward, just shove your hand into the flames.”

Hand in flame. Felix looks at his right hand, then the thin slotin the lantern’s glass. He takes a breath, then shoves his hand inside.

Cold. Ice is the first sensation that tickles his skin — the blue flames wreathe and coat his hand, almost playfully. They stick to the tips of his fingers as he pulls out. “Do I just…?”

“Place your hand against any wall and the formulae should do the rest.”

He nods, then hobbles over to an open spot beside the dial phone table. He places his hand against the wall — the flames etch themselves into the wall, burning bright. They solidify into a rippling blue rectangle, about twice the size of a normal door.

“Whoa,” he says, backing up a few steps. He looks back down at his hand; the remaining wisps of flames slough off his fingers and rise upwards, filling the foyer with gentle waves of aquamarine light. “Double whoa.”

“Hm. I guess it looks kinda pretty, sometimes.” Marie looks up at the floating fires and sighs. “Guess that’s what it may look like to an outsider. Everything is beautiful when you don’t know how it works.”

They stand there for a while, just watching the flames mingle with the stars. They reach ever upwards, dancing, swaying, fading.

When the light eventually fades, both Marie and Felix are still standing where they were. Marie scowls and places a hand on her hip. “Well, what’re you doing? Come on. Hurry up. Step in already.”

Her expression is the same as back then — the look she has when she wants to say something, but isn’t willing to. She’s holding back. “...Was there something you wanted to say, earlier?”

Marie’s brows furrow. Her hand slips from her hip as she scrutinizes him with her emerald gaze. “It’s really hard to hide things from you, isn’t it? Sometimes, I wonder which one of us is more dangerous.” She sighs and crosses her arms, looking upwards. “Are you really just going to accept all of this? You’ve seen things that would drive people insane, yet you haven’t flinched.”

“I guess I have,” Felix muses. A reply formulates in his mind — there’s no additional need to philosophize further. “I’m a little nervous and confused about everything, but humans are adaptable creatures, right? I know I haven’t explained myself very well, but everything just seems… new.” He looks down at his wrist and chuckles. The watch seems so strange, now. Where did he get it from? “Seems like I’ve come down with a sudden case of pseudo-amnesia. Like I just… turned on?” He shrugs. “But that’s alright with me, too.”

Marie stares at him for a while, baffled. Then, she just shrugs. “I may as well just open your skull and manually flip through your brain. There’s really, really something wrong with you.”

“Yeah. Probably. Probably definitely.”

“Hmph.” She crosses her arms again and turns away. “Well, make sure to keep that lantern with you. We’re not going to come looking for you if you trap yourself in a room with no doors or something.”

“My thanks.” Felix raises the lantern with blue flames, nods, and smiles. “...You’re a really kind person, aren’t you?”

He gets a mocking chuckle in response. “Save it, Jesus Science Boy. Text me if you need anything — you already have my number. You can leave whenever you want, but be back by sundown. Front door will unlock for you. Forest will guide you here. Now scram. Before I kick your ass for real this time.”

“Got it.” He takes a deep breath, holds it, and crosses through the portal of blue flames.

Moments after Jesus Science Boy passes through the mirror gate, it flickers and snaps shut into a thin azure line. I reach out and swipe away the residue — he’d probably appreciate stumbling into somewhere better than the foyer in the morning.

Life is probably going to get complicated around here. Even more than it already is.

I groan again and look straight up in the well of moonlight — the moon has grown over the past few days. The light has overtaken the dark side. Soon, there will be a full moon. I’m no werewolf or vampire though, so that doesn’t really have much meaning besides a bit of nostalgia.

It was a night like this one when I arrived in this manor.

We came fresh off a journey across the world. I remember standing in the moonlight and thinking just how beautiful everything was. I remember breaking into tears for some reason and sobbing in the cold night.

The girl that had accompanied me throughout the journey kneeled down, stared through me with piercing green eyes, then decided to comfort me after some long deliberation.

“There, there,” she said, patting the back of my head. “It’s alright. I’ll be watching over you, from now on. Hopefully we don’t have to go through the ‘etching’ ritual again.”

Back then, I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t know anything — I was just a blank slate with some vague emotions. A little unbecoming of a girl that was already five years old.

The girl must have read my empty gaze, because she patted me on the head and tried an awkward smile. “If that old crone wants me to do chaperone business, I’ll do it my way. From now on, I’ll be your teacher, protector, and partner.” She tapped her chin, then smiled a gentle smile. “I can’t tell you my true name yet, but you can call me Erika. Nice to meet you.”

I tried to find the words to reply to that, but I only sobbed harder. I don’t know how I managed to get through airport security while nonverbal — there must have been some trickery afoot.

The girl realized something as I sobbed into her arms. “Oh, right. You don’t have a name anymore. Guess I should probably fix that.”

She held me until I stopped crying. Then, as I looked into her doll-like face, she touched my cheek and nodded to something. “Alright. From now on, your name will be—

“Marie.”

My name. It comes from somewhere behind me, stern and quiet.

You don’t even need to speak of the devil anymore — just thinking about them is enough. Maybe hell finally moved to monitoring thought crimes.

I stand up and turn to the direction of the address. As expected, Erika stands on the staircase, staring at me firmly from the eastern corridor. Her eyes, like mine, pierce through the darkness — the rest of her is cloaked in a veil of shadows.

“Don’t worry.” I stretch my arms above my head and yawn. “I haven’t forgotten our circumstances.”

She blinks. “Have you? Even ignoring this latest series of attacks and invaders into our territory, you’re still going to inherit your family’s legacy shortly.”

I haven’t forgotten. When my grandmother leaves this mortal coil, everything she leaves behind will be left to me. Her spells, her Sigils, her crests, her secrets — her enemies. I have no known living relatives, so everything will fall to me. It’s a rabbit hole so deep that it may as well be a black hole.

Worst case scenario, someone has learned that I’m the Weiss family’s scion and is trying to pry everything from my cold dead hands. But it’s no use stressing until I figure out exactly what’s going on.

“I’ll handle it. The moment Felix crosses me, I’ll personally cut off his head.” I tilt my head and offer an inquisitive hand. “Plus, if you really wanted to, you could kill him and I would never find out. I’m sure you’ve already killed plenty, plenty of people since we’ve come here.”

Something in Erika’s perfect expression twitches. Her hands ball into fists as she looks down, then back at me. “My job still remains the same. I will protect you, even if I have to protect you from yourself.”

With an indignant expression, she turns and walks away into the darkness. I can’t hear her steps after the tenth.

That leaves just me, alone and awkward in the depths of the night. In the comfort of my own home.

Not only do I have to deal with the enigma that is Felix Conti and his anonymous benefactors, now I have to deal with a very jealous Erika. If she didn’t believe what I told her after the incident that night, it’s going to be impossible to convince her with words. I’ll have to find some other way to get through to her.

“Gods, what a pain.”

I clutch my head and let out a groan of annoyance to my audience of stars and night sky.

I’m not old enough to drink yet, but I’m pretty sure situations like this is why people drink. I make a mental note to take an extra one if I manage to reach twenty-one.

Felix took a long time analyzing his new room. He’s still analyzing his new room.

It’s the size of a hotel double suite, furnished with polished stone floor and rugged, rustic dark stone walls. While rather austere, there’s a desk, bed, miniature electricity generator, a pile of his belongings from the church, several jerry cans of gasoline, and questionable stains and marks on the ground. The front door is an antique thing of iron bars, and there are a few uniquely shaped box-sized windows on the eastern edge that provide a stunning view of the ocean. They’ve been barred off with iron bars, of course, for his safety.

All in all, not awful. He could do without the cold ocean wind blowing around, though. It’s a bit cold.

“Nope,” he mutters to himself.

No matter how he spins this, he can’t get over the fact that Marie is making him stay in a medival torture dungeon. Despite everything thrown at him over the past while, this is the only thing that has left him genuinely speechless.

Although there was a token effort to decorate the place with spare carpets and lanterns, manacles and other cruel implements line the walls. There’s lights hanging from suspiciously stained hooks on the ceiling. Chains rattle like shoddy windchimes in the draft.

Suddenly, he hears the flapping of wings above the rattling — a black blur flies through the tiny prison windows and lands on the table. It’s carrying a small white piece of paper in its beak.

“Oh,” Felix murmurs, hanging up the room-key magic lantern on a hook near the front door. “It’s you. Hello there, birdie.”

The raven drops the piece of paper and caws several times; it spreads its wings wide and starts strutting around on the table.

He isn’t sure what to make of it. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Do you need anything?”

It closes its wings, tilting its head. Then it launches itself at him — Felix jumps back, but it ends up landing on his head and pecking at him. Then, as unceremoniously as it came, it barrels out the window into the night with a very sassy ‘caw.’

After he gets over the initial bewildering, he picks up the paper and reads it:

The bath and shower room is the third door right from Pisces. Text me if you need anything. Try to get along with Erika, please.

There’s another fortune cookie taped to the typewriter-made note. A useless offering, a completely pointless show of kindness. But still, he gingerly takes it and opens both his own and the new one.

YOU CAN LEARN MUCH FROM PEOPLE WHO ARE DIFFERENT FROM YOU, and TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY. Two stock phrases with little to no meaning. He places them both in his back pocket and sits on the bed.

He sinks a few inches into the mattress — it’s almost shockingly soft and warm. The blankets are thick enough to stand up to a harsh winter day, as well. He lays his head down on a cool pillow and closes his eyes.

He can still hear the ocean. It’s nearby, a roiling rumble of waves crashing against rock. A natural sound that erases one’s troubles. It washes away the lingering thoughts of doubt and the questions nagging at him.

For some reason, he feels like himself here. Like he just woke up for the first time.

Although the questions that he needs to answer won’t completely disappear, he’s found a sanctuary of sorts. It’s a good start to deciphering himself.

“Little steps,” he mutters. Then, tucking himself in, he surrenders himself to the gentle pull of sleep.