Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

“This is a list of potential candidates,” Richenda said. She drew close, her body a pale lithe nightmare in the stark light, beautiful and terrible. “Powerful mages, sorcerers, and wizards all. They have all suffered tragedies, and only they have the necessary power to create what I desire.”

The Weaper took the list, scrawled in a delicate and flowing hand. “Why not do it yourself? I don’t need to tell you how powerful you are. A soul transfer should be simple as winking.”

Richenda tossed her head, with a fan of stringy midnight hair splaying across the light. “If it were a mind transfer, or awakening a dead body, or even summoning an Abyssal, it would be,” she said. “But to transfer a soul? That requires not only power, but a deep and abiding love.“

“Hmph,” said the Weaper. “Surely there is someone you feel that for.”

Richenda whirled, a dangerous look in her eye. “Perhaps there was,” she said, sadly. “Perhaps there is,” she added, with a playful note. “Perhaps there will be,” she finished, playing her hand across the Weaper’s chest. “But…”

“But?”

Richenda took hold of the assassin’s belt, hanging crosswise and filled with throwing knives, and lifted. Blood ran from her hand, but she only laughed her stale cannibal breath as the Weaper pitched and moaned, strangled by the belt that held them aloft.

“But I do not care to sacrifice such a person, whether they be past, present or future!” She bellowed. “I have sacrificed enough, wouldn’t you say?”

“Y-yes,” choked the Weaper. “N-no…”

Richenda flung her assassin across the room with a strength that belied her thinness, her paleness. “It doesn’t matter what you say or what you think,” she continued. “I will enter the mistress’s sanctum, and I will have what is inside, if I must devour the Quitch herself to do it! And you will carry out my instructions without another question, or I will do it myself after I have had my fill of you, is that clear?”

The Weaper sat up, choking. “Crystal.”

“Good,” said Richenda. “It needn’t be anything fancy. A human body with a human mind and a nonhuman soul. The crystal I’ve given you will tell you for sure. And when you find them, make sure that they are the sole survivor.”

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But yeah, I spent most of my classes with Jyrus until last year. He wasn’t a Grand Scholar, but he knew his stuff in arcane studies. And arcane studies just happened to be my major! Funny how that works out. Jyrus was this tall, attractive young cleric, crazy hot, but with a gentle heart and healing hands that I totes saw firsthand. A life spent by the sickbeds had marked him with perpetually shadowed, smouldering eyes. Jyrus was such a socially awkward cutie with us, and when he tried to be frienly with me, it always came off as unintentional flirting. Much to his chagrin, poor guy got red as a tomato. But a lot of fun.

Before the…incident…anyway.

Oh, you wanna know about the incident? You sure your tummy is fortified enough? It’s totally not for the squeamish.

So to, like, tell you about the incident, you need to know first about the Ordeal. All students and teachers must eventually undergo the Ordeal order to become Grand Scholars. Queen Nevra doesn’t want a bunch of Grand Scholars resting on their laurels either, so she had a room of nightmares created to test her finest and brightest. We call it the Dark Room, and it deffo earns the name. It’s a mystery that no one’s been able to unravel in, like centuries. And that’s not for lack of trying either, kiddos.

So! Let’s say you wish to become a Grand Scholar, a prized jewel in the crown of the queen. Easy peasy lemon breezy! All you gotta do is survive an hour within the Dark Room. Nobody knows what is in this room, but like hundreds have been killed inside of it. How do I know? Well, for one thing, we students get to see their mangled, fear-petrified corpses get fetched and delivered to Richenda as fodder for her necromancy afterwards. It’s a swell time.

So one time, we tricked Jyrus into going in there. We were bored, so one night me and the girls decided to throw this socially hopeless but smokin’ hot fellow a bone, and invited him to drink with us. He was a bashful and oddly charming diversion from our usual shenanigans. The night took a nasty turn, though, when the Ordeal was brought up.

By Missy of course, before she was a marmoset. And dead. “Why don’t you try it Professor?” she said. “How can we respect you if you always act like a coward?”

Jyrus laughed it off at first. “I just wish to continue teaching at the academy. I have no desire of proving myself by going through the Ordeal. I have nothing to prove.” Pretty sure he didn’t drink too often, and everything we said kinda struck him as charming and funny when he was buzzed. Plus, we were always fixated on the Dark Room. Cuz when a teacher, beloved or not, got their butt taken by the Ordeal, it would mean canceled classes for weeks until Nevra could find a sub.

But then the girls came up with an idea while I was out on the balcony. Had to make room, you know? So when I came back, the girls were kindly offering to escort Jyrus back to his room, since the castle was rather dark at night and he was clearly soused off his butt. He walked arm in arm with the girls on either side. I followed along, feeling kinda silly, plus I was totally just-this-side of drunk myself. Two sheets to the wind, I guess.

Anyway, it was far too late for me to be able to do anything by the time I started realizing the direction we were being led. All I remember is Jyrus suddenly going totally pale and his eyes becoming just these big round discs as the door to the Dark Room was shut on him. I made the mistake of looking. The other girls knew to look away but she I tardy to the proverbial party. I hadn’t been in on the “joke.” So I saw what was inside the Dark Room. I totally had the chilling privilege of watching the room devour my professor.

What did I see? Hell if I know. I could’ve sworn she saw a disembodied head floating in the doorway behind him. Was it my own head that was smiling at me? What was it? Why did-

No, I’m not thinking about that anymore. Nope.

The whole castle was woken by the manic screams and pounding at the door. Jyrus was rescued from the room by Harper the Annihilator, who just came sweeping down the hallway as fast as a storm wind. He burst open the door and retrieved Jyrus’s convulsing body. He survived, somehow, but his life is a haunting imitation of what it once was. Ever since, Jyrus is too frightened to look me, or any of the students, in the eye. He’s haunted by ghosts that we students could never comprehend.

Yeah, so I know all about the Dark Room and, for now, I totally avoid it. It feels like a far-off monster that lurks beyond the horizon, but in the furthest corners of my heart I know that my academic career at the Mercura Academy will eventually lead me to the Dark Room. The room awaits everyone that sets foot in the Academy. But the thing that keeps me up at night isn’t the fate of poor hot Jyrus. No, it’s the things that I think I saw inside the Dark Room. I have no interest in trifling with it again. The Dark Room isn’t for me. Nevra’s love and favor aren’t the things I’m after.

No, beauty eternal and everlasting, the kind that leaves men and women breathless, flushed and longing, is my dearest dream. I totally bide my time quietly within the castle walls, surrounded by backstabbers and walking ghosts. It will all be mine one day; the wealth, the youth, the power of the Witch Queen.

I can wait out all of them.

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Um, who am I? You’ve never heard of Lissa Bidethory, the total star pupil of Mercura Academy? Well, then, I’m glad you asked! I’m totes down to give you the deets.

I’ve been here about five years! Five of my best years, the flower of my youth. When the other girls were out there working it to get on the husband gravy train, I was nose-deep in books and classes. But that’s okay! It’s all part of my plan. Like, in a thousand years, they’ll be tomb dust and I’ll be slamming back ouzo with my peeps like not a day’s gone by. That’s the total power of arcane mastery. It’s why I do what I do.

Mercura Academy’s got all sorts of cool profs. There’s Harper the Annihilator, who’s deffo teaching me how to soothsay. But the only thing I can really see coming in his lectures is that he looooves the sound of his own voice, kay? Richenda the Undying has a lot to teach me, but she’s also got a lot to learn. Like, the entire class knows she has a cadaver under the lectern for a snack. She’s not fooling anybody. But that stuff about life force and eternal enduring? Now that’s what I’m down for. I even get to be in the practicum that Nevra the Witch Queen holds. This one time, I saw Missy McBride call her ‘Quitch’ to her face. Yeah, they carried her out as a dead marmoset after that one.

But yeah, I know all of the Grand Scholars of Mercura Academy on, like a personal level. My teachers and peeps are always giving me shoutouts in the halls. Once I was in the library, and Queen Nevra totally came up behind me. “The sight of young Lissa pouring over my clerical books while tugging thoughtfully on her hair never ceases to bring an affectionate smile to my face,” she said. I was high on that vibe for like a week. But it’s not just fun and games, you know? I know some of the most powerful people in Mercura. Like, I have totally made it my business to stay informed. You may think I’m just a bubblehead with nothing behind this big old smile, but this mind is like a steel trap, my friend. I can tell you all about the side-eye the Quitch has been getting from her Grand Scholars lately, what brand of polish Lectra uses on her armor, and where all the bodies are buried.

Just kidding about that last one. We don’t bury bodies, they usually get cremated. Or devoured, because Richenda will totes snarf them up if she gets there first.

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