Chapter Text
By now, Coco has wasted nearly every page of her little notebook. She writes a few lines, then scratches them out moments later. Nothing ever feels worthy of becoming even a simple note. Every time she manages to write two neat lines, she ends up turning it into something longer and messier latters.
She slumps over the low desk, mumbling incoherent words under her breath. Familiar footsteps creak across the floorboards, and she lets out an exaggerated, unnecessary whine in response.
“You’re doing this again,” a male voice says as the door closes behind him with a low groan of wood.
“I am trying my best,” Coco murmurs without lifting herself from her lazy posture, her cheek still half-squished against the desk. “But instead of a little note, it keeps turning into letters.”
The bed behind her shifts, followed by a long, tired groan. “You do realize this is risky,” he says, unfolding a crumpled page from the bed.
“Accept my endless gratitude for your kindness. The tea you made–” He does not even get to finish reading it properly before Coco shoots upright and snatches the page straight out of his hands.
“That is an invasion of privacy, Custas,” she mutters, ears slightly red, embarrassment written far clearly across her face.
She leans back against the bed again, now holding the crumpled paper and looks at him with narrowed eyes. Then she quitely asks, “What should I write that does not sound desperate?”
“But you are desperate,” Custas replies, giving her a knowing look. “Which, again, is not something you should be.”
Coco does not protest against his words. He is right. She should not be doing this. Her only task had been to retrieve the Stillhour Codex and alter the spell with the help of their master.
Things should have ended there. There was no need to return the spell to the library. No one would have discovered who took it. Coco is skilled at that, especially when it comes to altering spells of her own. So why is she going this far?
It is not for the librarian who always seems moments away from a breakdown. It is for her own selfish need. She wants to help. That is what a witch does. Regardless of the hat, she is still a witch.
The first time Coco saw the librarian, she thought her eyes looked unbearably dry. The kind of dull eyes that no longer know how to hold tears.
That image lingers in her mind like a stain that does not fade. She was not there for any other work, only something deeply personal, and in that work she somehow got tangled with the librarian. Or maybe she stepped into it on purpose without admitting it to herself.
Either way, she does not regret it.
“Say, Custas,” Coco asks, absentmindedly letting her hand hover over a now dry poppy on the desk, “if you happened to meet someone in need who wouldn’t ask for help, would you help them?”
“I wouldn’t,” Custas replies in a bitter tone. He shifts on the bed, lying back with a heavy exhale. “I wouldn’t know what kind of trouble I’d be getting myself into.”
He falls silent for a moment, likely waiting for Coco to respond. When she doesn’t, he sighs and adds, “Or more importantly, what kind of person I’d be saving. Do they even want to be saved?”
“But that’s the point,” Coco starts, a faint crease forming between her brows. “They’re not in a position to ask for—”
A sharp laugh cuts her off. It isn’t kind. “There shouldn’t be any ‘but’ when you ask me,” Custas says, picking up another crumbling page. This time, he doesn’t read it. He tears it instead. “Coco, the person you’re trying to save… do they actually want to be saved?”
Coco doesn’t want to think about that.
In her mind, if someone saw a bleeding soldier on the roadside, would they wait until the soldier was coherent enough to ask for help? No. They wouldn’t. It’s a basic human instinct.
And so, to her, the burden of a witch is slightly heavier than basic. That’s what Coco likes to believe. Help the one in need. They don’t have to ask for it.
“I just know, she needs help,” Coco says quietly, almost hoping Custas will pretend not to hear her.
“I don’t think, master will be happy to hear that,” Custas mutters into silence.
Coco knows that well. Master won’t want any of the group members to do what she is doing. Because like Custas said, it is risky, especially in the tower filled with higher-level pointed hats.
“I forgot to ask,” Coco says, turning her whole body towards the bed. “What are you doing here?”
Custas scoot over the corner, making space for Coco as he closes his eyes. Coco gets up, sitting on the bed instead of the floorboard. “You come here to sleep?”
“Can I not?” he asks back, his steady voice slightly muffled as his right cheek sinks into the pillow.
“You know better,” Coco replies with a soft laugh. She shifts her feet onto the bed, reaching over to grab the extra pillow from Custas’s side. Fluffing it up quickly, she places it neatly beside his. “You’re taking all the space, big guy.”
Coco doesn’t really want to sleep, and even if she tried, sleep probably wouldn’t come anyway. She still had that unfinished note sitting in her mind, the one meant for the librarian’s office. But she could not even manage two proper lines yet.
“Coco,” Custas mutters, sounding mildly annoyed. “I can practically hear your voice when you think like that.”
He lightly smacks her forehead, then taps two fingers there as if trying to reset her thoughts.“Stop thinking about some princess tucked in tower and sleep.”
Custas sleeps like a baby. He does not take much space at all, bundled up neatly in the corner, back pressed against the stone wall. If it were not for his towering build, Coco is certain he could pass for a child curled up like that.
Coco lies beside him a little longer. When she sees his breathing steady, she gets up and gathers the crumbling pages scattered across the floorboards.
She looks out through the open window. The large clearing under the moonlight feels alive, almost humming with quiet energy. There’s no wind, but if she looks closely enough, she can still sense the faint tremble in the leaves.
Coco thinks for a fleeting moment before slipping on her soarboots. She doesn’t bother changing out of her nightgown, not wanting to disturb Custas in his sleep.
Halfway across the clearing, she drifts low over the trees and instinctively reaches for her hair. There's no brim hat. That is new. She never leaves it behind.
Coco glances back at the small house, its lights soft and fading into night. A smile quietly forms on her lips before she even realizes it. Then she rises into the sky, arms flung wide, as if the night itself is pulling her upward.
The light on the right wing of the twenty-first floor remains on, as it always does whenever Coco arrives at night. It tells her the librarian is still awake, her body worn from exhaustion, yet still forcing herself through the work.
In truth, Coco’s presence does not help Agott at all. She comes uninvited, slipping into a space that is not hers. And yet Coco likes to think she leaves something behind, if not comfort, then familiarity.
The window is not locked. As it was the first time. Coco never understands why Agott leaves it so, but she does not question it either. There are things about her that make less sense than an unlocked window.
Coco knocks lightly against the glass. A faint rustle of papers follows, then silence. Moments later, the window opens from inside.
“This is not an inn, if that is what you are expecting,” Agott says, a slight edge in her voice as she steps aside for Coco to enter.
Usually, Coco would slip inside without hesitation. Tonight, she doesn’t. Instead, she sits on the window rail, letting her feet dangle out into the night air. From here, all she can see is endless water stretching into the dark. Coco doesn’t find it comforting.
“I am just visiting my friend,” she says with a chuckle, swinging her feet.
Around the tower, the wind is constant, slipping through every gap, even though the place holds very little greenery to begin with. Unlike where Coco lives.
“How unfortunate,” Agott mutters, gathering the scattered scrolls from her desk. “Mistaking an acquaintance for a friend.”
“That wounds me, dear acquaintance.” She shakes her head as the cold wind bites at her skin. Her loose hair sways with it, strands slipping across her face before she brushes them aside, fingers grazing the scar on her cheek.
“Get inside,” Agott says. There is a quiet authority in her voice, subtle yet impossible to ignore. “Someone might…” The sentence dies halfway. She exhales instead, leaving the thought unfinished.
Coco understands anyway.
With a small hum, she hops down from the window and pulls it shut behind her. Agott watches her with sharp, unwavering eyes. There is not a single emotion on her beautiful face that Coco could call welcoming.
“Won’t you ask why I am here?” Coco asks, mostly to escape Agott’s stare.
It is genuinely unnerving. The kind of look that makes her feel as though she is committing some terrible crime, which is honestly laughable. Coco is fairly certain she has done far worse things in her life. Sneaking into a library window hardly qualifies as criminal behavior.
“It is either your made up another apology, or a thought you have decided I must hear,” Agott replies as she steps away from the window. She pulls off her magenta cloak and drops it carelessly over the back of a chair. “Such is typically the reason for your unannounced appearances.”
She tilts her head slightly then, one eyebrow lifting with quiet judgment.
“I do not have any other intention when I come for forgiveness.” Coco says with a playful tone. Sitting on the chair, she put her elbow on the table, resting her face to her palm. “You do know that.”
Coco mentally scolds herself. If Agott asked for a genuine reason why she is here, she would not have anything in her defense. Even an unnamed flower would be a better excuse for her presence.
Agott walks toward the back door of her room, into the small kitchen. Utensils clink softly, followed by faint sounds of movement. She might be making herbal tea, like Coco saw her doing the day before.
The room carries a quiet sense of royalty, from the ornate bed to the mat laid over the stone floor. There is no sign of neglect anywhere. It does not match Agott, especially knowing how she constantly pushes herself to the limit.
The wand with the flat body is still on the table. Whenever Coco comes here, she sees it. She wonders if Agott has simply forgotten about it amid her other work.
Agott returns with two ceramic cups on a trencher. Coco quickly stands and takes it from her hands with a sheepish smile. This time, Agott lets her.
From what Coco understands, Agott is someone who will not let her authority slip, someone who dislikes receiving help when she is the one trying to provide it. She does not open up, but she does not push back either.
To Coco, Agott could have reported her to Knight Moralis, or at least to the guards. She is, after all, disrupting her daily routine. But Agott does not.
She openly expresses her annoyance at Coco’s presence and tells her not to come. Yet when Coco does come anyway, ignoring her words, Agott always open the unlocked window for her.
She excuses it away by saying someone might see Coco. Which feels strange. Why would only this floor require such concern, when the main archive is not even on the twenty-first?
There is no real need for guards here beyond the lower four levels. And even those are heavily secured, with two physically capable guards stationed on either side of each door.
“You should not be bothered by this, merely acquaintance,” Coco muses with a breathy laugh. The scent of herbal medicine drifts through the warm white steam.
Agott sits on the divan placed against the wall beside the left side of her bed, holding her teacup with patient stillness. Unlike Coco, who keeps blowing gently over her tea.
“Why are you in that clothing?” Agott asks, turning fully toward Coco, who has taken the chair by the window.
“I was thinking about you in my–” Coco abruptly cuts herself off. She realizes it will come out wrong; no matter what word follows, the sentence is already doomed. She had tried to merge two thoughts into one, and it has instead turned scandalous.
“I was working on something and could not focus,” Coco decides instead. “So this commoner tried to sleep. And failed again.”
“And so, she ended up in self proclaimed inn?” Agott says dryly as she takes her first sip.
Coco laughs at her remark. She takes a sip after gently blowing on the tea. It tastes more like medicine than tea, to be fair. She has never been good with herbs.
“Oh, can you tell Luma I will not be able to come tomorrow?” Coco asks, suddenly remembering. She will be busy, and just yesterday, while helping the child, she promised to show her something remarkable.
Luma is a closed-off child who seems to struggle greatly with drawing. Coco happens to see her working once, shaky hands tracing the page. Her soft fingers are marked with raw blisters.When Coco first began learning magic, she had the same. Her straight line was her best weapon back then.
So seeing the child struggle with something she once endured stirs something deeply nostalgic in her. Surprisingly, Coco’s usual way of approaching children worked on the girl. And now, Luma waits for Coco’s visits to the library.
“Leave the child alone,” Agott says with a glare. She does not seem pleased with Coco interacting with Luma. The reason is already clear enough.
“I am just helping her,” Coco says awkwardly, setting the cup down on the table. She cannot bring herself to drink it.
“At the same time, ruining her future as well.”
For a moment, Coco cannot find words. Agott is not wrong. Right now, perhaps no one knows who Coco is. But if they are ever connected, Luma could end up in trouble. Coco would not allow that to happen. She is, after all, quite skilled at hiding her identity.
Agott seems to register the weight of her own words. She sighs and sets her cup down on the bedside table, covering it with a porcelain lid.
“You brimhatters always target children, do you not?” she asks. Her tone carries a quiet skepticism, as if she already assumes the answer based on reputation alone.
Sometimes, a lie repeated often enough begins to sound like truth, while the truth itself becomes difficult to believe. Perhaps Agott is hoping for a denial. Coco cannot tell. So she chooses a safer answer. “We help those in need. Those whom your pointed hats cannot.”
For the week that Coco visits here, she figures out that Agott has certain emotional patterns. Sometimes she asks a question while hoping for the opposite answer from what she already believes. It shows the way she clings to things. Like right now, she is holding onto her outer robe.
“Those are not help that always involve forbidden magic,” Agott remarks, as if Coco has offended her by giving the exact answer she wanted to hear.
Coco laughs, reaching for the wand that always catches her attention. Agott follows her movement, her hand still gripping her robe.
“You have a long way to go, Lady Agott,” Coco says with a genuine smile, quieter than her usual brightness.
Agott’s eyes twitch at the reply, but she does not question it. Instead, she calmly asks Coco to put the wand down.
“What is it doing here? I thought you were about to–”
“I do have a lot of work to do other than thinking about a single wand,” Agott cuts in. She sounds slightly embarrassed, though her steady tone quickly buries it again.
“Do you mind if I take it with me? To make one?” Coco asks, and she means it. The wand makes her feel like a younger version of herself, like the tailor’s daughter she is.
Her current wands are good too, but over the years she has simply grown accustomed to them.
“It is not mine,” Agott replies in a standoffish voice. She rises from the divan and walks to the table, taking her unfinished cup of herbal tea.
“It is considered discourteous to waste what has been served.” She says it with a straight face. It is hard for Coco to tell whether Agott is joking or simply stating a fact in her usual tone.Still, Coco laughs anyway, earning a quiet look that tells her to lower her voice.
Agott walks away with the cups. Coco wants to help her, but it feels so personal. She does not want to intrude or risk hurting her with her actions. She already walked in on her during a vulnerable moment once. Coco does not want to repeat that.
Coco leans back into the chair. The cloak carries a faint, mist-like scent. With a trace of something slightly sweet underneath. It is warm. With Coco’s sleeveless nightgown and the tower sitting in the middle of endless water, it makes her want to sink into it and stay still for a while.
"..."
She jerks upright, embarrassed by the direction of her thoughts. She should take her leave. There is faint sound coming from the small kitchen. It would be rude to leave like this after coming uninvited, especially when her host still allows her in, only for her to slip away unnoticed.
Coco gets up and opens the window. She will apologize again. No, she will have to. And it can double as a reason to visit Agott again. Not every time would Agott let her in without cause. Maybe she was just lucky this time. That has to be it.
“That is a rather thief-like way of taking your leave,” Agott calls from the kitchen doorway, one hand resting against the frame to steady her posture.
“Uh…” Coco lets out an embarrassed sound before giggling at herself. She must look ridiculous.
Agott moves to the window where Coco is already in position, adjusting her soarboots. “Your face is red,” she points out plainly.
Coco responds with a smile. That is all she gives for now. Even if Agott is not someone who softens easily at smiles.
She attaches her boots and jumps, launching upward with a powerful burst. The pattern etched into the soles extends in certain places, amplifying their force beyond standard sylph shoes.
She looks back to see Agott still standing in front of the open window, the curtains swaying in the wake of the wind her ascent leaves behind.
“Do not come in nightwear,” Agott says as she draws the curtains shut and closes the window.
“Coco?”
The sound of Custas's voice takes Coco back from her inner thoughts. He is standing by the door frame, his dark eyes have a soft reassuring gaze. At times, it helps Coco to ground herself.
“You are spacing out.” Custas calls her out. He moves from the door frame, getting near Coco. He takes the brimmed cap from Coco's hand and places it on her head. Softly tapping her forehead. "You will be late.”
Coco nods her head at his words. Lightly slapping on his shoulder she says, “Clean the room for me.”
Custas gives her a nasty look with his nose scrunching up just so slightly. He looks cute. Which makes her laugh. She sways her head as she walks out of the room.
Master Iguin sits on the roof of her house, not doing anything in particular. One hand holds an ink bottle, the other a small dagger.
Coco flies up and lands beside them. Master Iguin does not look up, already sensing her presence. Instead, they speak. “You know the result.”
That eerie voice they always use to warn her sends a shiver through Coco. Their tone always carries a hidden meaning, something heavier than the words themselves. Coco is certainly not a fan of it. It discourages her before she even tries.
But at the same time, it deepens Coco’s respect for her master. They let her try, even while knowing the outcome all too well. Just like today. They already know the answer, yet they still accompany Coco through it.
“I will keep trying,” Coco replies with determination. She always gives the same answer, and every time she means it completely. She will not stop as long as she is alive. She will do anything except give up.
“You will,” they respond, sounding pleased. They finally look up at her, the tassels on their mask shifting with the movement. A faint smile forms as they rise from their previous position.
A faint flicker forms on Master Iguin’s ink-stained hand, opening into a windy dark void. The trees over the clearing tremble slightly under its pull as if drawn toward an unseen force. It feels unnatural, like a magnet slowly tearing at the world itself. Coco would struggle to hold her stance if she were not so used to it by now.
Master Iguin’s magic fascinates her as much as it unsettles her. From the beginning until now, they have been the one to teach her everything she knows. They taught her that magic has no morals, that it simply exists, and she does not need to fear it for what it is.
And she believes them. She believes in the principle they taught her: magic does not have morals. It is humans who project them onto it through history and fear.
“Master,” Coco calls softly.
The wind blows her hair wildly, making it hard for her to keep it intact. She ends up scratching just behind her ear, near the hair roots. Her finely dark nails brush over the sigil, drawing a thin trace of blood as it awakens the little hungry sigil. It responds, feeding on the blood as her hair grows out and knots itself into fine shape.
“There is nothing wrong with denying the future,” Master Iguin replies, as if answering her unspoken call. The great eye on their mask shifts slightly, alive in its stillness. They step closer to the dark opening and add, “if it helps you harden your resolve.”
Coco follows behind them, moving into the swallowing darkness of the vortex, listening as their voice trails on.
“Hope is your greatest strength,” they continue softly, “even when it carries weakness within it.”
Unlike the whole week where Agott had somehow managed to forget her wand every single time she left, today she actually remembered to bring it with her, tucked in neatly alongside the scrolls.
Somehow, that makes her feel more embarrassed than relief. What if the little girl is looking for her wand?
By evening, Luma always appears in the lower archive. It is her time for self-study. Agott is not close to her at all. In truth, Agott is not close to anyone. She barely speaks unless necessary, and that silence extends to Luma as well.
The knowledge of the child comes from everyday patterns. Every night, when Agott comes to the lower archive before heading out to her chamber for the registered check-up, she sees her. Today should not be any different.
Since evening has not yet arrived, she tries to push through her workload instead. Seemingly, she doesn’t have piles of work left. It’s around the end of the month. ( As around this time, her mother personally lessens her workload, giving it all at the start of the month.)
The book copies she wanted to check but couldn’t because of the workload now finally give her some time. Since she had already ordered all the copies to the workers in her office chamber, they brought them in.
There are likely seven copies. Agott checks them one by one. All of them are heavily used. Especially the one from the main archive. There is even a torn page, but no page containing a forbidden glyph or any spells.
She checks the copy from her own section again. It still contains it. A possibility comes to mind: that the copy in the lower archive, under Agott’s responsibility, might be the original. The rest could be duplicates.
But the thought doesn’t hold much weight. The lower archive does not store originals. Those are always kept in the main archive, under her mother’s supervision. Not every book even has copies. Only the frequently used ones are duplicated.
Agott rubs her face a little too aggressively, sighing as she pushes the books aside. It was not supposed to be big work. Just check whether the books had the same forbidden spell drawn in them. And they don’t.
Agott decides she will stop here. If the copy under her section is the original, then so be it. It is better to leave it as it is, since it is not being used much in her archive anyway.
No one needs to know about a small out-of-place misfit like that.
Agott leaves her office directly for the lower archive, wand in hand. That is where she knows she will find Luma. And she does.
Luma is alone at the long table around the corner, writing something from a scroll. She does not notice others’ presence, as she is always in her own world when she studies.
“Luma.”Agott calls her name. The girl startles, almost springing out of her seat, then quickly bows to her with flushed red cheeks.
“Lady Agott,” she greets with another bow. Her ginger hair, neatly tied with ribbons, slips to the side as she bends. Agott gestures with her eyes for her to sit back down, then places the wand in her hand on the table.
The moment Luma sees it, confusion flickers across her face. Then she jolts again, still half-standing, half-bowing. “I thought I lost it… I am sorry.” Luma apologizes. She does not need to.
Logically, it is Agott’s fault too for taking it with her. She had not wanted to leave it behind in case someone used it the next day and misplaced it.
“Take your wand with you,” Agott says simply, not bothering with the insufferably unclear way Luma rushes through her words.
Luma nods, then says in a small voice, almost a whisper, “It’s not mine.” She fiddles with the edge of her book as she adds, “It’s from the unclaimed items shortage.”
“Who gave you this?” Agott asks, trying to (albeit unsuccessfully) sound gentle. It comes out a little too uncharacteristic for herself.
“Madam Adina.”