“I told you—don’t come near me at school!” Her voice cut like broken glass in sunlight.

During lunch, sunlight poured through the classroom window like warm honey. The blonde girl wore a crown of scorn and slapped away Adelaide’s inviting hand, crisp as a sparrow flicking dust.

As if she’d touched something filthy, she wrinkled her nose. She walked out of the pin-drop-silent room like a cat slipping past a pond’s edge.

As her heel crossed the threshold, whispers rose like gnats over still water.

—Too cruel…

—How could she say that to Lady Adelaide.

—Did you hear? She and Lady Adelaide were both down below.

—She was the only one there. The only one with a motive.

—Maybe it was her… maybe she shoved Lady Adelaide down!

Ding-dong, ding-dong.

Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong.

Ding-dong ding-dong ding-dong ding-dong ding-dong ding-dong ding-dong ding-dong.

After about thirty seconds of doorbell bombardment, Hazel finally couldn’t sit still. Her patience frayed like thread under a blade. She scratched her messy hair, grimaced, and opened the door.

“Ta-da, guess who I am?”

“You’re covering your own eyes. Who exactly are you asking?”

“So dull. Play along with your best friend sometimes.” Adelaide huffed, then smiled. “Still, magnanimous Lady Adelaide will forgive you.”

She pushed her wheelchair inside without waiting for permission.

“...What are you here for?”

“To deliver warmth to my bestie.” She pulled a bag of cookies from her coat. “Ta-da, black cookies baked by Lady Adelaide. Moved yet?”

“Ha… such a hassle…”

Hazel scowled, vanished into the lab, then tossed a big bag onto the couch. Inside, bottles clinked like ice in a storm.

“Oh ho, my best friend knows the value of my black cookies.”

“As a supplier coming to ‘stock up,’ you’re real righteous.”

“But of course. This batch is my pride.” Adelaide’s eyes curved like crescent moons.

Unlike the times she’d asked for an eyeball and a few nails, Adelaide sometimes collected materials in bulk. From Hazel. For Blood Magic.

Hazel didn’t know about Blood Magic. Since Adelaide only wanted miscellaneous scraps—the offcuts—Hazel didn’t pry.

She dropped into her chair, grabbed a cookie, and bit down. Surprise flickered across her face like a spark.

“...Osmanthus?”

“Yep. Gentle as water, just like me~”

“Mm.”

“...What’s with that face?”

“You set it up that far. If I don’t roast you, I feel cornered.”

“You told me to ‘play along’ sometimes.”

Hazel saw Adelaide’s face go taut, then snorted.

“Anyway, calling you gentle as water isn’t wrong.”

She tossed the rest of the cookie into her mouth and sipped the lemon tea on the desk, sharp as sunlight through glass.

“With someone like Princess Belial as contrast, even a wolf looks kindly.”

Adelaide’s gaze unfocused for a blink, like a candle wavering. Hazel caught it and raised a brow.

“What is it? ‘All part of the plan’—you told me that yourself.”

Adelaide closed her eyes and breathed deep. When she opened them, calm settled like frost on glass.

“Mm. Right—though even without her, I’m gentle as water~”

“Ugh. You’re even making a finger heart. Go get your head checked…”

After returning from Hazel’s, night had fallen. As usual, Anisa pushed Adelaide through the garden. The white-haired girl on the chair seemed absent, like moonlight drifting on a pond.

“...Miss, my lady? Can you hear me?”

Lost in thought, Adelaide blinked at the hand waving before her eyes.

“Hm? What is it, Anisa?”

Worry creased Anisa’s face like gathering clouds. “It’s late. I asked if you wanted to rest…”

Adelaide glanced at the flowerbed before her, petals like tiny lanterns. She shook her head gently.

“It’s fine. Like always, I want to sit here a bit. Okay?”

The maid nodded and stepped back, leaving space quiet as dew.

When Anisa had gone far enough, a thin red thread of blood slipped from Adelaide’s fingertip to the ground. Its tail dragged a rolled parchment. It moved like a little snake over soil and slid into the flowerbed’s earth.

Seconds later, the thread poked back up. A scroll still hung from its tail, but the parchment wasn’t the same anymore.

The blood thread climbed Adelaide’s wheelchair. She tucked the scroll against her chest without a ripple, calm as a lake.

Later that night, Adelaide sat by her bedroom window. The moon hung high like a silver coin. She smiled and wished Anisa good night, yet her eye angled toward the garden below.

A black shadow flashed in the moonlight and vanished. The flowerbed’s blooms and leaves shivered under the wind.

Adelaide drew back her gaze. She knew the scroll she’d planted had been retrieved.

She let out a slow breath and stretched her back, like a cat before sleep. Then she turned the lock on her door with a click.

A brief red glow licked the room. She tossed aside the emptied vial in her hand. She rose from the wheelchair and walked to the bookshelf.

Rustle, rustle.

Leather covers rubbed like dry leaves. Adelaide pulled several specific volumes. Gears clicked. The shelf split from the middle and opened a hidden passage.

As she stepped in, the torches along the walls flared to life, fire blooming on stone. She followed the stair down into a room crowded with bottles and jars, glass glinting like a reef.

If Hazel saw this, she’d roll her eyes. In yellow solvent, organs floated like pale jellyfish—the very “scraps” she had given Adelaide.

Most of this batch would vanish tonight.

Adelaide stopped before a time-smoothed wooden table. She drew the scroll she’d pocketed and spread it open.

A field of black ink and carved grooves filled her sight. Chaotic, like a child splashing a whole bucket of ink to hide scratches on furniture.

Adelaide inhaled. She picked up a bronze knife and, like at the magical appraisal event, cut her finger.

Blood dripped onto the parchment. It seeped into the grooves and spread to the corners, branching like neurons under frost.

The ink and etchings seemed to wake. They unraveled, shifted, and recomposed until the shapes resembled letters.

Watching the blood-red lines morph, Adelaide whispered a chant.

“laima, losta-imi Dúnadan (the blood cherry blooming in the southern land)…”

Her strange, sultry voice sank into soundproof walls. A blood-red sigil formed in the air, petal by petal.

A deep crimson flash pulsed. An organ inside a nearby vessel vanished like a fish under ice. Alien power rushed into her body. A soft moan slipped free.

She closed her eyes and breathed until her heart calmed. Then she took up a pen and wrote a string of runes on another parchment.

She recorded the Blood Magic spell she’d just sung.

Blood Magic is taboo’s taboo. You won’t find it in any dusty library corner.

Since Mira came to the Douglas Family, Adelaide saw herself as discarded. She let go of the childish idea of refusing Blood Magic.

The problem was, she couldn’t find any books on it.

That was when a mysterious Blood Mage group found her.

She didn’t know how they learned of her talent. They wore black cloaks and hid their faces. Adelaide never saw a single true face among them.

It didn’t stop the trade.

If you want forbidden knowledge, you need the courage to stare into the abyss.

Most Blood Magic scrolls that survive carry layers of seals. Many can only be undone by someone with high enough attunement. Otherwise they look like meaningless scribbles.

So Adelaide struck a deal: she would use her apex aptitude to break the seals, and in return she’d receive forbidden lore.

For her, the deal was all gain. Yet cracking those seals demanded utter focus. It drained the mind like winter wind.

After she decoded more than ten spells in a row, half the jars in the basement were empty. The shapes writhing on the parchment began to double.

Irritating—

She grabbed a bottle of spinal fluid from the table. She meant to cast the same spell as always, to force her brain awake. Since long ago, Adelaide had relied on this method to burn through nights. That was how she juggled school by day and Blood Magic by moonlight.

Where no one could see, she always worked like this—fierce as a lantern in rain.

If she wanted that seat where no one could bully her, where no one could toy with her fate, she had to use everything she could. Even her favorite doll from childhood. Even her life.

She wasn’t heaven’s darling. She had no right to be sentimental.

The bottle of spinal fluid shattered in her hand like thin ice, and with it broke the whisper Mira had left her before she returned to the surface.

Yes. All of this… is only part of the plan.