Chapter 64: The witch of the Library

Eva intercepted her, throwing her a deeply worried look.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"To the library."

"The library?!" She blinked. "Are you sure it's even still open? I mean... ever since the internet was invented, nobody reads actual books anymore, you know..."

"That," Blanche replied dryly, "is precisely what I was about to verify."

Eva stared at her for a moment, realized she was completely serious, and groaned before following after her.

"A Monday. She decides to skip class on a Monday when we still have four whole days left! And you don't even know where the library is... and neither do I..."

That wasn't entirely untrue.

"First floor," Arthur called from behind them.

Unsurprisingly, Roberto was with him, while Rémi and Olivia had apparently chosen to remain sealed inside their own little universe.

"How do you know that?" the young djinn asked.

"I go there sometimes," Arthur answered.

The three others stopped dead in their tracks and stared at him as if he had just confessed to murder.

"What?" he mumbled, suddenly embarrassed. "It's really quiet there. You'd do the same if you shared a room with Rémi and his girlfriend... Once those two get started, they forget I exist."

Eva's eyes widened as Arthur walked past them, Roberto close behind. The two girls hurried after them.

"If you want, I can always ask administration to switch our rooms. Personally, I don't mind watching..." Roberto said, slinging an arm around the redhead's shoulders.

Blanche rolled her eyes.

They finally reached the library.

Contrary to Eva's expectations, the place was warm, peaceful, and far from empty.

The shelves and parquet floor, made of dark wood streaked with reddish undertones, formed a breathtakingly harmonious whole. Every plank seemed to have settled naturally beside the next, as though the wood itself had grown that way over decades of patient silence.

The panels fit together with remarkable precision, carved and polished with almost devotional care. Time had not diminished the craftsmanship; it had deepened it. The years had enriched the wood's tones, softened its gleam, and granted the room that quiet nobility only old things still possess.

Tall bookshelves absorbed the light into their dark grain while stained-glass windows, bathed in daylight, scattered shifting colors across the floor.

Shades of blue, amber, and crimson drifted slowly across the parquet like fragments of dissolved rainbows. The entire room seemed to breathe with solemn tranquility, suspended outside of time itself, carrying that rare kind of beauty capable of imposing silence without ever demanding it.

Blanche had never ventured inside before. Kiyan's personal collection had always been more than enough. As for Roberto, it was hardly surprising he had never needed the place considering his mother's fortune and his obsession with anything digital.

But the fact that she — a student here for years — knew so little about her own school unsettled her.

The truth was, she had never really paid attention to the world around her. With abilities like hers, that was almost tragic waste.

Maybe... maybe her accident had been some sort of cosmic slap across the face.

It was time to wake up.

She left her friends in the fiction section and wandered alone between the shelves for several minutes, searching for books about Norse gods and Viking customs. She picked two. Then, after a brief detour through demonology, she added another book about different classes of demons, along with a second one mentioning Lilith.

The library was immaculate: clean, orderly, abundant. Then again, the academy was renowned for the excellence of its teachings.

The librarian gave her a strange look. Blanche assumed — incorrectly — that it had something to do with her reading choices. Still, the woman handed her the books without a word.

Until she asked:

"What name should I register the loan under?"

"Blanche Callahan."

The librarian frowned.

Her aura flickered, darkening for an instant before returning to its warm orange hue.

Intrigued, Blanche truly looked at her for the first time.

She appeared young — barely in her thirties — with the cold, motionless beauty of statues forgotten in abandoned gardens. Her features possessed an almost unreal precision, too sharp, too perfectly sculpted to seem entirely alive. Behind the thickness of her glasses, her eyes caught the light for a fleeting instant; a pale, cutting gleam that flashed through her gaze like steel beneath water.

And then Blanche understood.

It wasn't merely a vague impression, nor that instinctive discomfort people sometimes felt around someone strange. No. Something about the way she inhabited silence, about the controlled stillness of her face, about that presence both distant and near, escaped humanity entirely.

A subtle perfection lingered around her. Ancient, almost. As though she had learned how to imitate being human rather than truly lived it.

Blanche was certain of it.

She was not human.

"Strange... I could have sworn you used to go by another name."

With those cryptic words, the librarian walked away.

Arthur immediately hurried over and pulled Blanche farther down the aisle.

"What did she want from you?"

Blanche shrugged. The librarian was already shelving books again as though nothing had happened.

"Do you even know who she is?" Arthur pressed.

"No. Why?"

"That's Miss Morigena. People say she had some tragic love story when she was a student here. Apparently she dated one of the teachers. He ended up in prison for... well, you get it. Since then, she's worked here waiting for him to come back. She barely talks to anyone. Poor thing."

Blanche arched a brow.

Arthur cast a sympathetic glance toward the young woman hidden behind the shelves. Inevitably, Blanche thought of her own situation with her History teacher...

She shook the thought away as the rest of the group rejoined them, ready to leave.

Eventually, she abandoned them all — even Eva — to drop her books off in their room.

But when she stepped inside, she found Phénix in his cat form, sprawled comfortably across her sheets.

"Oh, sure. Comfortable? Am I interrupting something?" she grumbled.

I'm bored, he declared with a yawn, exposing sharp fangs and a long pink tongue.

He stretched lazily.

I just finished a five-hour photoshoot...

"And I just survived a meeting with Kiyan at the North Tower, a self-defense lesson with a psychopath, and three hours of mind-numbing classes. Want to trade?"