Now, was it a smart idea to strut over to the home of a very powerful witch who very much hated me?

  Absolutely fucking not, it was so stupid that a braindead vegetable could've come up with something better in the span of a few seconds. But I had a perfectly valid reason! I wasn't going there to antagonize him...more like trying to ingratiate myself to him. I wasn't worried about him killing me, that seemed like a big no-no among the coven.

  There were plenty of worse things you can do to a person than kill them though! I just had to manage these egg shells with care.

  Or I could've not done this, but where was the fun in that?

  Life needed some amount of excitement, and since I couldn't go on the winter hunts this would have to compensate. After all, what was more exciting than approaching the unknown! I might've been a witch and was being taught by a witch for the past however many months, but neither the game nor my mentor explained witches all that much.

  They were people who bonded with a demon that had weird as fuck magic, and apparently one would eat the other if they got strong enough.

  That was about it.

  Though, I was starting to form a theory that witch magic didn't translate well to combat, at least not directly. Umi, the strongest in this city, seemingly had magic that fucked with the mind? It felt more complex than that with the feeling I got when she invaded my soul, but that seemed to be the gist.

  Great for getting out of fights, and probably useful in slicing the throats of those weaker than her without them noticing, but I imagined she'd be extremely disadvantaged against a mage on her own level.

  The boy witch had...maybe void magic? Magical storage didn't match up with that, but the feeling I got from his mana leaned in that direction. Though, Alvir's sweetness hiding poison didn't match rodent magic or whatever he actually had, so maybe mana wasn't a great indicator of what kind of magic a person used.

  Still, just summoning shit took an extreme amount of mana from the boy. To the point where I wondered how long it had been since he contracted to the demon.

  Measuring someone else's mana use wasn't easy, but my estimations were generally in the right ballpark if Alvir was to be trusted. That one spell to summon a knife cost double what my body could handle before passing out, and he took it like a fucking champ.

  So while void magic sounded pretty cool (if that was what he had, I'd figure it out eventually), it was too expensive to be practical in a fight. Sure, with his storage bullshit meant he'd always be armed, but if he didn't know how to use those weapons then it was pretty useless.

  I could see him being a fantastic thief though.

  Alvir was a bit of an exception, considering the horde of however many giant rats he controlled. But even then it wasn't his personal strength that made him dangerous. Sure, I did witness him morph his arm into something of fur and claws that one time, but it wasn't impressive enough to make him a frontline combatant for people at his level. Like with Umi.

  Hell, I was pretty sure I actually had a shot at killing the witch while we trained in his store, far away from any rodent reinforcements. Doing that would put me on the coven's shitlist though, so probably best that I held off until I stood a chance against all of them.

  Now, what did Umoa have? That was one of the lovely reasons I was so gungho about this asinine plan, alongside boredom.

  Mostly boredom.

  And maybe giving him a reason not to murder my loved ones besides the scrutiny that would earn.

  I shrugged. It would've been a nice if witches were that predictable, but I had to expect him to be a threat no matter what I offered him. Especially when I wasn't even going to offer him all that much.

  But that didn't mean I shouldn't have tried.

  I started a jolly whistle as I pushed open the gates of the graveyard. A rare sight in Anik! Most people here preferred cremation, but a few were willing to eat the cost of having their loved ones properly buried. In an actual casket. The idea that Terra was probably just bones at this point from the maggots and worms wasn't a pleasant one, but Rea didn't seem to mind when I buried her.

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  I skipped over looking proper merry, passing by ivory gravestones that either belonged to the deceased or were waiting for a corpse to call their own. It wasn't ominous, wasn't even creepy. It was another part of the city that saw the sun's light just as well as any other, and it was very well maintained.

  Not just the graves, but also the flora.

  The graveyard was sectioned off into pieces by trimmed bushes that went as high as my stomach, which wasn't saying much considering my height. I was starting to notice a change though, the pink toga Aira got me when I first became her apprentice (which I wore for the occasion) didn't feel as overbearing as it used to.

  A bit of a better fit, but I wasn't fully grown into it.

  I would turn thirteen in late May, which was only four months away, and I was hoping my growth spurt would finally kick in so I could stop looking up at people so much.

  Intimidation was nigh-impossible as a pipsqueak!

  Unless I decided to make a few fools bleed, but then it kinda lost its purpose since violence would've already broken out.

  There were flowers tastefully arrayed along the pathway, purple things I didn't know the name of alongside plenty of other colours at different parts of the graveyard. I imagined it was supposed to signify something, but I didn't care enough to theorize.

  I stepped up to the gravekeeper's home, and Daz gave me a worried squeak atop my shoulder. The rat of two shades didn't normally show itself when I was out and about, but the graveyard was empty enough where he didn't have to worry about attracting any suspicion.

  He was surprisingly good at stealth too, I couldn't find him even if I knew he had to be watching me.

  I gave the rat a light scritch behind the ear. "Don't worry now, servant of scum, I know exactly what I'm doing!"

  The rat gave me a look that radiated doubt, metaphysical doubt. A rat's face could only convey so much on its own after all. I gave him a few more scritches and grinned at how he leaned into my hand.

  Cute.

  I'd likely kill him someday, but still cute.

  I chuckled at how the rat pouted when I pulled away and focused on the door in front of me. Gathering all the wits I could muster, I wrapped my knuckles against the wood.

  Almost at the same time a hand clamped down on my shoulder.

  I let out a yelp and jumped, spinning around to see who in the hell managed to sneak up on me.

  Umoa didn't seem amused by my reaction, just a bit confused. He shrugged and pushed me aside to enter his home. I was frozen for a bit at the shock. Did he...did he set up a prank?

  "Are you going to come in or not?"

  I blinked, then tried to muster whatever dignity I could and entered his home. It was...very normal for a witch, if a bit small. I didn't know what I expected, Alvir lived in his store, and that was perfectly ordinary as well.

  Umoa was standing by a firepit, crouched down and seemingly boiling tea.

  "Um...you knew I was coming?" I said.

  He glanced over his shoulder and shrugged before returning to the teapot. "The graveyard is mine, no matter what petty fool claims ownership. I know everything that happens here."

  I almost flinched at the word, but my own burgeoning understanding seemed to blunt some of its impact. "How does that work?" I mused as I walked over and pulled a seat from a finely made table.

  "You think I would divulge my magic to someone who destroyed one of my artifacts?" Umoa chuckled a bit. It sounded forced. "And I don't recall saying that you could sit."

  I stopped myself from sitting and let out a sigh, at least this was going better than I thought it would?

  "That was an artifact? Explains a few things, I've never heard of any modern enchantments that can damage a soul. You know that little scratch is still there? On my soul I mean."

  Umoa grunted and picked up the teapot as it started blowing steam. He walked over and set it down on the table. "Sit."

  So I did, a little annoyed considering he told me not to just a few seconds ago.

  He went over to a cupboard and grabbed a pair of teacups.

  "There are a few enchantments that can do something similar, though I've only heard of them. The ancients, however, knew much more about souls than any of the universities. Getting that dagger was difficult, and expensive. Very expensive."

  "It was a knife," I pointed out. "Only one edge, daggers have two."

  Umoa turned and raised a brow. "I do not imagine you planned this visit to correct me on terminology," he said as he walked over, picking up the teapot and filling each cup.

  "I didn't," I nodded.

  He grunted and passed me a cup, taking a seat across from me and sipping from his own. I hesitated a bit to drink, considering who it was offered by, and that assassin teapots were a thing that was probably invented by now. But if he wanted to kill me, he had much easier options, so sip I did.

  "I melted that knife because I couldn't trust anyone with a weapon like that," I started. "I didn't mean to insult you."

  The man rolled his eyes. "That changes nothing."

  "It doesn't," I nodded.

  "Then why are you here?"

  I took a deep breath. "You probably already know what my magic's all about, but in case you didn't, I can manipulate anything related to my body."

  He raised a brow at me.

  "Recently, I came upon a bit of an epiphany on what that means.

  "You like to collect bones, right?"

  He stayed silent, giving me a contemplative look, and I let out a breath. I brought up my hand and extended a finger, closing my eyes to prepare for the pain.

  Then I made it grow.

  I grit my teeth as bone came from bone, struggling against my skin until it managed to break through. A few more seconds and I had reached the border of what I could handle, panting at the extra bit of ivory that grew from my finger.

  It wasn't impressive, but it was bone.

  I glanced up at Umoa, who seemed a bit surprised. Something other than passive indifference at least, hopefully a good sign.

  "You don't happen to have a hammer, do you?"

  Daz punctuated the question with a squeak.