The moment I step inside, the cold bites. Not the natural chill of shade or wind,this is deeper, denser, like magic has leeched the warmth from the very walls.
The mage doesn't rise. He doesn't greet me. He doesn't even blink. He just stares.
That stare is... wrong. Not dismissive, not curious, just empty. As if he's trying to remember what a human expression is supposed to look like. And then I feel it.
A crawling.
It slithers beneath my skin like a thousand invisible ants, like tendrils of thought peeling me apart layer by layer. My breath hitches. I grit my teeth as an unseen pressure pushes against me,into me,like I'm an onion being stripped to its core.
His expression flickers. Surprise. Actual, unfiltered surprise, blooming across his otherwise blank face.
"What did you do to me?" I demand, voice rising with sharp anger.
His eyes widen as if I've broken a rule. Like he didn't expect me to notice. Like I wasn't supposed to feel it.
Then, just as quickly, the sensation vanishes. The skin-crawling violation fades. But the phantom of it lingers in my bones.
I study him, he looks no older than nineteen. Snow-white hair hangs lazily over a narrow face. But his eyes... they're wrong. The color keeps shifting, white at first, now green, now tinged with something else. It's like his emotions paint themselves through his gaze.
My anger still simmers, but the fear of being seen through, truly seen, coils tighter around my heart.
"What. Did. You. Do?" I ask again, slower, firmer.
He finally moves.
Standing without a sound, he walks around me, circling, calculating, like a wolf trying to decide where to sink its teeth first. I track him with my eyes but hold still. Ramain, the head butler, stands aside, unmoved. Watching. Silent. Like this is all routine.
Twice the mage circles. Then he stops in front of me, and for the first time, I realize, he's taller than me. Average height, maybe, but next to my fourteen-year-old frame, he towers. His eyes flicker again, from green to yellow now, glowing faintly in the dim room.
"What... are you?" he breathes out, stretching the question like it's unfamiliar on his tongue.
Not who. What.
My spine straightens instinctively. "What do you mean?"
He laughs.
It starts as a quiet chuckle, then grows. Unhinged. Wild. Mocking.
"Ha... Ha! HAHAHA!" The sound is cracked porcelain, smooth and sharp at once. His body barely moves, but the madness in the laughter cuts deep.
What does he see? What does he know?
I glance at Ramain for backup, but the butler has stepped back. His face is taut with unease, and his hand is on the dagger at his belt.
A warning.
"You haven't even looked at your own status properly," the mage spits, now grinning with cruel amusement. "Or are you just disguising yourself as a good-for-nothing brat?"
My pulse quickens.
Without a sound, Ramain steps between us. His movement is calm, too calm. But I don't miss the way his hand still rests firmly on the hilt of his dagger.
"What are you trying to do, Mage?" Ramain asks, voice flat, posture unshaken. But I can see the tension now, tight in his shoulders, tight in his jaw. He's wary, even if he doesn't show it.
The mage blinks slowly. Like flipping a switch, his eyes fade back to their original ghost-white.
"Apologies," he says. Neutral. Deadpan. The emotion from earlier? Gone, buried like it never existed. "I just got too excited."
Too excited? He stared into my soul like it was an equation to be solved, like I was a riddle he was dying to break open, and now it's just excitement?
"Let's sit and talk," he adds, motioning casually toward the table like we're old friends meeting over tea.
No tremor in his voice. No guilt. Just that unnatural composure.
He moves first, walking back to the chair with unnerving grace and lowering himself into it like he weighs nothing at all.
I don't move yet.
My eyes flick toward Ramain.
He meets my gaze and nods. Once. Small. Controlled. No words pass between us, but the meaning is clear as thunder.
He's dangerous. Still, I step forward.
I sit across from him, the chair creaking slightly beneath me, and meet his gaze head-on.
The madness from earlier? Gone. Not erased, no, just tucked away, buried under a mask of control. What sits in front of me isn't a man, not entirely. He's a beast with perfect composure. A predator who knows the kill will come eventually, so there's no need to rush.
His eyes never leave me. Pale, emotionless, and then I feel it again.
That crawling sensation.
Like ants under my skin, scuttling, biting, peeling apart what makes me… me.
I glare at him.
He hums. A low, amused sound. Like my defiance is something quaint. "Just to be sure," he murmurs, voice laced with mischief.
Then he leans back and stretches like a man settling into a pleasant conversation.
"When I was contacted to teach the good-for-nothing son of Marquis Demure, I didn't expect excitement," he says. "Honestly, I thought you'd be a bore. But no. You've already got three titles. I can only see two, but still."
My stomach tightens.
Three? How does he know that I have more than two?
He shouldn't even see that many. They were supposed to be hidden.
And what about the fourth?
"Relentless and Righteous Anger," he chuckles. "You really are going for all the 'R' titles, huh?"
He laughs like he's just delivered the greatest joke in the world.
I don't laugh.
I don't speak.
I just watch, because something isn't adding up.
He plays the fool, the madman, the eccentric genius, but his eyes are sharp. Too sharp. I can see it now: every word he's said has been deliberate, every outburst a fishing line cast into still waters. He's not here to teach. He's here to know.
A fox, dressed in mage's robes, dancing around the lion while pretending to yawn.