I'd gone to the library a bit earlier than usual after class to scope it out a bit. If Lord Woodman wanted a book from there, I'd prefer to just grab it when I had a spare moment.
The library was divided into several sections, and each of those sections was broken up into languages, including English, French, and Latin. Each of those language sections was then broken down further into aisles containing books in specific subjects like alchemy, demonology, or what have you. If that sounded horribly complicated and too many books to conceivably fit in a single building, then you'd be right on both counts.
I'm not sure how exactly, but the library itself was evidently some sort of changeable space, with books and shelves appearing and disappearing as needed. You could usually find what you're looking for if you looked in the right section of the library, but sometimes you had to find a librarian to help you coax whatever you're looking for back into this side of reality.
I was unclear whether the library was intentionally confusing by design or if it was just a byproduct of having so many books of magic in one place, but I was a bit inclined to the former. The spell books in Angitia's library were more animated than those Lord Woodman toted around with him on occasion. The books would occasionally change colors if you got too close or whisper to you in different languages if you stayed too long in certain parts of the stacks. I honestly did not know why the books behaved that way. I thought it was probably a nonsensical magical reason the Sylas Thornes of the world could explain, but I'd have no hope of ever grasping.
What I did know, with some certainty, was that the books in Angitia's Library were reasonably dangerous, and not things I'd enjoy trifling with.
The whispering had already driven one girl in my year completely insane. They found her in a pool of her own blood after slicing her own ears off to "quiet the voices." Whoever found her was apparently able to get her to the infirmary in time to get the bleeding to stop, but she's one of the lucky ones. A few kids, not just freshmen but sophomores and juniors, had gone into the stacks by themselves and not come back out, fully disappearing without so much as a discarded shoe left behind. Current theories amongst the freshman included some sort of horrific blob creature haunting the stacks looking for tasty young wizards to swallow whole and slowly digest, and some sort of sentient grimoire that was hunting for someone worthy of wielding it's eldritch powers and incinerating anyone who didn't live up to it's standards.
I supposed that it didn't really matter what was or wasn't making students disappear, it was all just another way the curriculum at Angitia tried its best to weed out the young wizards it considers too weak and untalented to make any meaningful contributions to society.
It was generally safest to just stick to the outer edges of the different sections of books and if you decided you had to venture in too deeply, then find a librarian willing to go in with you.
Oddly enough, the restricted part of Angitia's library wasn't actually that dangerous compared to the rest of it. But that's mostly because they had thoroughly enchanted the shelves to not let a peep of mana or Narrative escape from the pages of the books held there. Those books were allegedly powerful enough to make the rest of the library look like a jaunt in the park if they're allowed to go wild.
The only thing that distinguished the restricted section from the rest of the early portions of the other sections was a single red ribbon that stretched along the outer edge of the bookcases and the series of stone owl statues that sat in sentry around every corner.
Students weren't allowed inside of it without explicit academic permission from no fewer than three teachers and only in their senior year. Mostly, the restricted section was used by faculty and visiting scholars who wanted the chance to read The Collected Memoirs of Agnes Sampson, The Oral Traditions of the Tara Druids, or any of the other grimoires Lord Woodman had mentioned in passing.
I really wasn't sure why Angitia even had it, or any of the "dangerously powerful books" it contained if most of its students weren't allowed near them, but apparently nicking texts from it was one of the reasons Lord Woodman decided that sending an Irregular to the godforsaken school was a bright idea.
Before the study session that day, I noted specifically where the restricted section was in the library, squeezed in between the German and Polish language sections, and how it was roughly a ten-minute walk from the library's main entrance.
I'd have to break into it. Probably either that night or the next, before I lost my nerve and blew my first real task for Lord Woodman. I didn't think he'd react well if I took too long, either. Experience had taught me that Lord Woodman's patience was not one of his finer points.
***
"You don't know any combat spells?"
I tried not to meet Rosamund's bright sapphire eyes. "Ah no. Afraid not."
The two of us were alone at our study session. Mason evidently had to do make-up work for an assignment in demonology, and Iroha had vaguely said she had something else to do. As Rosamund and I had gone over the class work we tangentially shared, translation homework for French class concerning some mediaeval wizard who was fond of challenging people, nulls and fellow mages alike, to duels. I had mentioned I didn't know any combat spells, leaving out the fact that the only spell I could cast with some consistency on my own was the stealth working I'd stumbled onto during my venture into the mausoleum. I hadn't expected such a quick response from Rosamund, though.
She looked at me like I was some creature from the bottom of the sea who'd made it to dry land and was asking her how breathing air worked.
"Not even the—" She made a vague gesture with her hand that wasn't even remotely helpful. So I just stared at her.
"Oh, come now Theo, you have to know this it's the one everyone knows," Rosamund seemed to focus and a thread of Narrative sharpened in her hand, forming into a Working.
Bend. Shatter. Break.
She pushed it forward and there was a snapping, cracking noise as it touched the table. I looked down to see a substantial crack in the wood of the library table.
Someone cleared their throat, and Rosamund and I turned to see a librarian glaring at us through a pair of horn-rimmed glasses.
"Sorry!" I called to her, and the librarian responded with another glare that could have curdled milk.
I turned back to find that Rosamund had already fixed the crack with another Working.
"Would you mind teaching me that?" I asked her.
Rosamund frowned at me slightly, like she was trying to figure something out. Then she shrugged. "Sure, I suppose I can, but would you mind doing me a favor if I do?"
"Favor?" I asked. "What sort of favor?"
"Well, you see," Rosamund looked uncomfortable. "Do you think there is any way you can get Iroha to let Mason and I… have lunch alone once in a while?"
"Alone?" I repeated, and Rosamund couldn't look me in the eye.
I then realized why that probably was. "No," I said, dumbfounded. "You and Mason? Since when?"
"Since not yet!" Rosamund said quickly, putting her hands out. "It's just… well, I was hoping he might realize I'd be open to it if we spent more time together. Alone I mean and well—"
And Iroha and I were around them essentially whenever they had any free time. "I can certainly give you all space, but you need to talk to Iroha if you want her to do the same," I told her.
Rosamund frowned. "No, Theo, I really think it would sound better coming from you. I don't think the girl likes me terribly much."
"Well, she certainly doesn't like me," I muttered. Particularly not after the whole "almost vomiting on her" incident.
Rosamund crossed her arms. "You make sure Mason and I have a few meals to ourselves or no deal," she said flatly.
I groaned inwardly, but I forced myself to nod. Iroha would likely treasure a few meals where Mason wasn't dragging her into some sort of long-winded story about Shang or his inane relations. I certainly would enjoy not having to listen to it. "Fine," I said.
"Alright," Rosamund said with a sigh. "I suppose that's good enough." She leaned forward. "So my father taught me this spell before I boarded the boat here. The trick is to imagine your mana focusing into a sort of ball."
"A ball."
"Yes, a spinning little ball of force that desperately wants to explode outward. The difficult bit is to make sure it doesn't blow up before it connects with what you want to hit."
I looked down at my hand and tried to imagine it, a ball of force, something twisting and breaking.
Nothing happened.
Rosamund frowned.
I tried again, taking threads of mana and building it into a ball. Something that would shatter and explode when it hit a target.
Something seemed to compress in the air, a tightening as mana left my channels and worked itself into a spell. I tried to remember the feeling the Narrative had echoed when Rosamund had first cast the spell. Hadn't it been something like—
Bend. Shatter. Break.
There was a blast of air in the room, expelling from my hand. The papers around me and Rosamund blew around in a snowstorm, and worst of all, everything had the distinctive smell of a charnel house. Death and rot. My eyes burned hot with tears and I fell to the ground clutching at my stinging eyes as the Working blessedly fell apart.
Rosamund was right next to me, coughing violently, and a furious sort of squawking that I could only assume belonged to one of the librarians, filled the silence.
"What did you do?" Rosamund asked, between violent hacking spasms.
"The spell!" I said defensively. "The one you just taught me!"
"That is most certainly not what I taught—"
It was at that point that the angry librarian reached us and asked us to leave.
***
That night at dinner, I caught Iroha before she entered the cafeteria queue.
"Hey would you be open to getting dinner with just the two of us tonight?" I asked.
Iroha blinked at me. "I suppose that would be alright," she said.
The two of us walked through the dinner queue together and I noted a confused-looking Mason being led away by Rosamund. I patted myself on the back for a good turn done as I loaded my plate up with a heaping pile of spinach and mashed potatoes. I even rewarded myself with a single slice of beef that I'd try to scarf down.
Iroha and I sat at a table for two at the end of the cafeteria opposite from the one Mason and Rosamund were sitting at, to minimize the risk of Mason seeing us and deciding it might be a bright idea to wave us over to sit with them.
There was a bit more back patting on my part as I sliced into my steak and put the first bite into my mouth. I couldn't even describe how delicious it was, we never ate cow much when I was younger, but when we did, Mum always made it taste amazing, but that was beyond even my wildest expectations and made even better by the fact that my necromancy hadn't seemed to kick in to tell me how the wretched creature had died.
I sighed contentedly and took another bite.
I'd like to think it was my being in an enraptured state of meat related pleasure that I didn't initially notice how Iroha was staring at me. Either that or my brothers were always right, and I was, in fact, a complete and utter moron.
"This is… pleasant," Iroha said in a voice that clarified that it really wasn't.
"Yeah?" I said, slicing into my next bite of meat, grabbing a little bit of potato and green beans before putting it all in my mouth.
"Yes…" Iroha dragged the word out a bit. With a stray hand, she pushed a lock of black hair behind an ear and cleared her throat slightly. "Theodore, I am… grateful? For your attention…"
My what? That finally got me to look up from my plate and finally see how uncomfortable Iroha looked. Her shoulders hunched slightly, and a crease formed between her eyebrows. I slowed my chewing a little bit.
"Yes, I know I certainly don't have many… prospects among the British nobility," Iroha said in the sort of careful voice I was sure some people found soothing. "But I am not really searching for an… attachment? Is that what the word is in this language?"
That had the result of me almost choking on my food. Not a wholly novel experience at that point, given that it happened with some regularity as a byproduct of the whole necromancy nonsense. Though it was refreshing to not have to feel the cow's last moments in life like they were my own before the meat went down.
I coughed loudly, and I pounded my chest a few times. Iroha seemed to have almost expected a reaction like that and helpfully handed me my cup of water, which I gratefully slugged down.
I took a few deep breaths before responding. "An attachment?" I asked weakly.
"Yes, well. You see, I was betrothed most of my life and it was only… well, that is no longer the case," Iroha said. "So while I appreciate you, Theodore, and your company, I'm not looking for anything beyond that at this time."
She seemed to search for what to say next, and honestly, I was right behind her.
"Perhaps in a year or so I might be in a different frame of mind?" Iroha offered in a way that made me think she was trying to make me feel better about being rejected.
"Oh, um," I said intelligently.
"Though I imagine you will have found someone else by then," Iroha said in a vaguely reassuring tone. "Because you… you are great."
Should—should I be offended by how she said that? "I…um…you see, this thing is Rosamund—" I honestly wasn't sure what to say next.
Iroha's face somehow became even more pitiful. "Oh Theo," Iroha said. "I am fairly confident Rosamund is interested in courting Mason." She reached over and gave my hand a reassuring pat. "I am certain you will find someone. Have you thought about that girl in demonology? Carmen Gazzera, I believe her name was?"
"The girl who spends all class loudly chewing on her pen?"
"Aside from that, I'm sure she is a perfectly nice young woman," Iroha said. "I think the key for you may be to expand beyond your established group of friends if you want to start a courtship. It'll be messy enough when Rosamund goes after Mason."
I wondered if I should tell Iroha that Rosamund's pursuit of Mason was why the two of us were eating together. Not because I held some fantasy of the two of us courting or anything like that. But I wasn't sure how to say any of that in a way that wouldn't appear offensive or awkward.
Strangely, none of Lord Woodman's extensive lessons in proper manners and etiquette ever really tackled how to handle a situation like that.
"I'll certainly consider it," I said.
Iroha gave me a nod. "Excellent, I'm glad we could have this talk, Theodore," Iroha said. "I truly value our friendship."
Friendship. What an odd word. Were we actually friends? Was I friends with Iroha or Mason or Rosamund? I couldn't be. They were part of my cover at Angitia. Other sheep I could hide among so the farmer wouldn't look too closely at me. Wouldn't see I was a wolf just playing at being another sheep.
"I do too, Iroha," I said, and it must have sounded sincere because Iroha smiled at me in thanks.
But as we ate, I couldn't help but feel guilt curling around in my stomach like a serpent.