I spent an entire month catching up on everything I needed to pass the academy's entrance exams.
Selene had shown me the Vladiscar family's secret spell. [Knowledge Drain]—a forbidden reading incantation from the Age of Silken Grimoirs—allowed the caster to absorb entire volumes of information directly into their mindscape. Books, scrolls, grimoires—it didn't matter. With a single casting, the written word sank into your thoughts like blood into a vampire's veins.
Instead of turning pages, you drowned in the minds that wrote them.
There were dangers, of course. Overdraining triggered migraines, nosebleeds, even neural echoes that lingered like ghosts behind the eyes. Worse still, using it too frequently without proper meditation risked Script Madness—a degenerative mental fracture where your thoughts were overwritten by warring authorial voices.
Still, the spell accelerated my studies far beyond expectation. When I was relying on mage hands to flip through texts the old-fashioned way, I had estimated at least two months to cover the material. But with [Knowledge Drain]?
I had another month. Just one month left until departure.
And strangely… I think I've grown used to this new life in Vladiscar Castle.
Now that I no longer needed to spend countless hours each day hunched over vellum and musty tomes, I finally had the freedom to do whatever I wanted.
I spent most of that time with Penemue. The little cutie absolutely loved the attention. I even taught him to fetch. Every time I threw a bone—well, a skeleton, really—he would bound after it and bring it back to me. Gah, it melted my heart every single time. He really was the best boy. The bestest good boy!
The days blurred together after that, in the best possible way. No more ink-stained fingers, no more dry eyes from candlelight study—just me and Penemue in our own little rhythm.
Sometimes we'd explore the old courtyard, where weeds had overgrown the stone tiles. He'd dart through the grass, chasing after crows or the occasional wisp of shadow that slipped from the crumbling arches. Other times, we'd sit by the hearth, him curled up against my leg, skeletal frame warm from the fire's glow.
I even started experimenting with little tricks. With the right flick of will, I could make bones click and rattle in midair like a puzzle waiting to be solved. Penemue thought it was the most exciting thing in the world, leaping up to snatch them before they finished assembling. I laughed more in those weeks than I had in... hmm, can't remember the last time. Well, it's whatever.
When I wasn't showering Penemue with my love and affection and bathing in the Mirror-Frost Baths, I was learning about the fundamentals of plants and alchemy with Mr. Stitch.
Selene had suggested the lessons.
"He's the only one who can teach you the difference between a thorn that cuts and a thorn that curses."
I had agreed. Simply because I was bored.
The first lesson took place under the witherbloom trellis, where vines grew from a sealed sarcophagus and wrapped around floating stones engraved with alchemical sigils.
Alchemy was the magical science of essence transmutation—the extraction, refinement, and recombination of material and metaphysical properties into new forms. It required both scientific precision and arcane intuition.
Where spellcasters shaped mana through will, alchemists worked with the essence of what already exists, coaxing it into new configurations through formulas, rituals, and catalysts.
Mr. Stitch did not speak, but from the beginning, he taught me that alchemy is not control but coaxing.
He showed me how essence flows like sap, not oil—slow, living, and patient.
I learned to listen to the rot of compost, to feel for spiritual temperature in bone ash, to hum with the roses while cutting them so the thorns didn't bite.
By the end of the lessons, I learned quite a bit. It also got me thinking about creating a new spell. Although Mr. Stitch couldn't speak, he could communicate by using a very frightening skill called Noctemancy.
Noctemancy was the art of navigating, extracting, or distorting the mental and emotional landscapes of sentient beings. Rather than reading thoughts like open books, it was about descending into their "Mindscape", a shifting inner realm formed by memory, trauma, belief, and desire.
Practitioners were called Noctemancers. Mr. Stitch had assured me after my expressing my worry when he had "told" me, that he didn't use it to pry into others thoughts and memories, but to simply "speak" to the others in the castle.
Although I got comfortable with him using the skill, it still worried me that any component noctemancer could just pry into my mind at any time without my knowing.
So I learned the defense spell [Chimerancy], the discipline skill of defending, reshaping, and camouflaging the soul's inner world. It was both a defensive art and a form of psycho-magical architecture, turning your thoughts and memories into misleading constructs or deadly traps.
Practitioners were called Chimerants. I didn't particularly like the name for it, but who was I to complain about another's naming sense. (Rude! 😩)
So after learning [Chimerancy],it got me thinking. How could I improve this? So the rest of the time till I had to head out for the academy, I spent it creating a spell skill that could surpass Chimerancy.
In order to do that, I had to cross-reference three key spell schools:
Glamourcraft (to build the illusion)
Warding (to trigger upon detection)
Cursemancy (to distort the intruder's perception)
I combined these under a foundational concept: a mask spun from memory-shaped silk.
With help from Mr. Stitch, I acquired the following:
Ghost-thread silk: Harvested from spirit-spiders that wove between tombstones. Used to bind the spell's structure and memory-hold.
Emotion-soaked lace: A piece of mourning lace from my mother's belongings, soaked in guilt and longing. This served as the emotional anchor for the illusion layer.
Vellum parchment soaked in Widowroot ink: Used to map the spell matrix. Widowroot only grows from the graves of the betrayed.
A hollowed button—a gift from Mr. Stitch. It became the activation seed.
With everything set, tonight was the last day that I could perform the ritual with the supervision of Mr. Stitch and Selene. Tomorrow morning I and Selene would be heading off to the Academy.
The tower room was cold that night. Not the kind of cold that came from drafts or dying fire, but the hush of something ancient watching.
I sat on the stone floor, sleeves rolled to my elbows, a circle of iron-salt and crushed shadowvine surrounding me like a cage drawn in ink. Six bone candles flickered on the edge of that circle, their flame a pale violet, casting warped shadows up the tower walls.
To my left, behind the arching iron frame of a warped mirror, Mr. Stitch stood motionless—arms folded behind his back, the burlap sack of his face unreadable. His button eyes caught the candlelight in flickers. He did not speak—he never did—but he hummed. A low, threadbare tune. Something between a lullaby and a warning. It made the lace in my lap flutter just a little faster.
To my right, half-shrouded in shadow, sat Selene. Her posture perfect. Her arms crossed. Expression unreadable but present. Watching.
I pressed the small square of mourning lace between my fingers. The faint perfume stained in places with dried lavender and tears long since forgotten. I could feel the emotional residue still woven into the threads. Grief. Love. Regret.
Perfect.
Across from me sat the small offering tray gifted by Mr. Stitch earlier that week—lined in grave moss and cradling a curled piece of ghost-thread silk, the vial of Widowroot ink, and the tiny, hollowed bone button. I had added one final thing myself: a single drop of my own blood inside that button, sealed with wax.
I exhaled. My breath clouded. I reached for the ink first. With the tip of a bone needle, I scribed the sigil on the floorboards just outside my salt circle: a looping glyph that spiraled in on itself, then split like cracked glass.
I spoke softly as I wrote, "Let silence wear a face. Let truth dress in thread. Let liars find only what they wish to see."
Each word vibrated against my ribs.
Then came the ghost-thread. I wound it carefully around the mourning lace, threading it like a spider would, turning memory into structure. As I twisted, the silk shimmered—almost humming.
When I placed it in the center of the circle, it levitated. Only slightly. Just an inch. But it rose nonetheless.
My heart thudded. I closed my eyes and whispered the spell again, this time not as a recitation, but as a promise.
"You will not see me," I murmured to whatever might dare enter my mind. "You will see what you deserve to believe."
The lace began to flutter as if caught in windless breath. The candlelight flickered—recoiling, then stretching thin. The salt circle pulled tight, the air sharp with the scent of rust and ghost roses.
Mr. Stitch extended one gloved hand from the gloom, holding out a bone button filled with a single drop of blood—my own. Earlier, I had pricked my finger, placed the blood inside, and handed it to him without a word. Now it had returned to me, altered.
I took it. With deliberate slowness, and reached forward with both hands and pressed the bone button into the web of lace and silk. The drop of blood inside pulsed once—then vanished into the threads.
The hovering veil twisted, condensed—then disappeared, vanishing into my skin like breath into glass.
Gone.
For a long moment, there was no sound but Mr. Stitch's hum.
The mourning lace lay shriveled on the floor—burnt at the edges, lifeless. The candles had snuffed themselves. The ink glyph remained, pulsing faintly, a heartbeat embedded in the wood.
I slowly opened my eyes and sat very still. Inside my mind, just beneath the surface of my thoughts, I felt it:
A veil. A mask spun of my memories and emotions. Waiting. Listening. Ready to lie if anyone dared to look too closely.
I smiled faintly.
"It's done," I said softly. "Marrowlace," I whispered to the dark. "Veil of the Unspoken."
It was my first spell. My first weapon.
Selene unfolded her arms. "Test it later. Preferably not on yourself."
From the shadows, Mr. Stitch stepped forward, placing something at my feet—a small bouquet of soulblooming flowers, tied with a thread of black silk. They opened as they touched the floor, releasing a faint glittering mist into the air. Their scent was soft and bitter. Like memory.
Selene said nothing more. She stood and left the room, long cloak trailing like smoke behind her. She was most likely getting my supper ready. I noticed that that woman was scarily good at predicting what I needed even before I knew what I needed. Such a showoff.
Mr. Stitch lingered a moment longer. Then he bent low—not in a bow, but it felt like it was something older. A gesture of witnessing? Of approval? Or maybe mourning. This guy was really hard to tell what he was thinking. So annoying.
He vanished into the stones as silently as he had arrived.
I sat alone in the ritual circle, pleased with my self.