Corabelle’s life had turned out even remotely as she’d planned. However, as difficult as her life had been over the past few decades, she was at least grateful for one thing; This gods awful curse of roses had unwittingly given her the chance to learn magic

All those years ago everyone had insisted she was incapable of that, that she had no spark. But her greatest wish was coming true in the most peculiar of ways.

A faedemon was most mages worst nightmare, but yet, she found herself face to face with one that had not only not killed her on the spot, but was actually teaching her what her own kind insisted was impossible for her to learn.

If she had never found this maze, she didn’t know if she’d ever have learned magic. By this point she might not even still be alive. She could have died of old age by now. It was a very uncanny thought.

She worked tirelessly throughout the day, fueled by the anticipation of learning more magic.

It was as she was climbing out of the bathtub that she heard a small hiss, followed by a startling pop, that came from the main bedroom. Investigating, she found a new note on her bedside, along with an hourglass like the one Zaramir had created before. The note read, “Miss Cora, I won’t have much time tomorrow. I have to go out. But I did say I would have time. The hourglass will alert you awake in the early morning before I must leave. If you meet me in the atrium when it goes off, I’ll have a bit of time to teach you.”

This hourglass had less sand than the previous one that had been set for six hours. She didn’t have long to sleep, but she didn’t care. She quickly changed into her nightgown and settled in for bed, finding it difficult to fall asleep with her anticipation, but eventually sleep found her.

The hourglasses alert was a series of hisses and pops like the sound she had heard when the note appeared the night before. She hopped out of bed, getting dressed, as she tried to figure out how to turn off the noise. She eventually figured it out, turning the hourglass on its side to shut it up. Not like it mattered, as she was heading out the door as quickly as she could.

She hurried down the hall, stretching. Her arms were sore from the work she’d completed the day before. She found Zaramir waiting in the atrium. A table set up with a number of miscellaneous items.

“Good morning,” She called. Dawn hadn’t yet broken over the maze, leaving the room lit only by the roses burning below, shrouding the room in an eerie darkness.

“Good morning Miss Cora,” He snatched something off the table. “I apologize for having to keep the lesson short today. As I said, I have to go out today and I’m hoping that if I leave early enough I might be back before dawn tomorrow.”

“Can I ask where you’re going?” She inquired.

“I have to leave the maze,” He answered. “I have to see if I can find a replacement for that fire elemental who might actually obey a Faedemon, as unrealistic as that hope might be. If that fails, I may have to seek out an unbound one which will unfortunately lengthen my trip significantly, which I'm truly hoping it doesn’t come to.”

She wanted to ask if she could join him but she knew better after how he’d reacted last time. So instead she asked, “How much longer?”

“I would find a place rich enough in residual fire magic for one to form, then I’d have to complete a ritual to bind it. That’s assuming any of that goes correctly, which it likely won’t. As I’m sure you’ve noticed unbound elementals, especially fire elementals, are very volatile. Which means I likely wouldn’t succeed the first time and then I would have to continue this until I managed to successfully blind one. In the best case, a week, in the worst case, months.”

“Well, you won't have to worry about this place, at least. I can take care of things around here.”

“I appreciate that.” He smiled, pacing over to her. “Anyhow, I was thinking about our lesson today. You can help me set up the ritual I need to leave the maze. Though I must warn you, you won’t be able to recreate it with any degree of success on your own. You need a specific Runebind to be able to activate this ritual in its final stage. However this will teach you the basic ritual shapes.” He extended an open hand to her revealing a piece of red waxchalk he’d grabbed from the table.

“I wasn’t able to study rituals without a House. Is there anything I need to worry about doing wrong? Can I do anything that will endanger us?” She took the chalk cautiously.

“Not for this ritual. The only dangerous stage of this was the administration of the necessary Runebind, so there’s nothing you need to worry about. The worst thing that can happen from this is staining the floor red with that waxchalk.” He laughed.

She smiled, “So what’s first?

He returned to the table, grabbing a sheet of parchment, handing it to her, “You’ll try to copy this design as best you can, but it’s very important that you not intersect any of the straight lines with this pattern in the floor, we’ll have to start over. Intersecting the curved lines won’t affect anything. I know it seems arbitrary, but… Hmm how do I explain this in human…” He muttered. “The Fae has a phrase for it but it doesn’t translate. I suppose the closest approximation is to say that straight lined ritual shapes are very strong willed. The curved ritual shapes are without conviction.” He shook his head with a chuckle. “It’s a lot less absurd sounding in Fae. The point being; the ritual shapes consisting of straight lines will recognize any other intersection of lines or shapes outside of the designated ones as part of the shape and therefore the ritual will consider them incorrect. They are the core shapes. The secondary shapes consisting of curved lines aren't detrimental so having an intersection of their lines will only weaken them but not nullify them in the same way as their primary counterparts. Are you following this?”

“So, you’re saying the curved lines here,” She traced an ellipsis with the tip of her finger, “Are a redundancy? Are the redundancies assigned to specific primaries or are they general backups?”

He beamed proudly, “Both. You see these,” He gestured to varying ellipsis that were overlapping each geometric shape, “That intersect the primaries, they’re the specific redundancies, but these here,” He gestured to a handful of curved shapes that were haloing the main shapes, surrounding the main body of the ritual. “These will act as backups to the secondaries. If a secondary were to fail, then these would self modify and take its place. The theory behind rituals is so much more complex than spell, I must say I’m impressed that you are understanding it so fast. Though, understanding and practice are quite a bit removed from one another and this is one of the more complex sigils, so don’t feel bad if it doesn’t work correctly. Just try your best. Over here is the easiest place to start.”

He led her to a spot near the large windows, early morning light was just beginning to creep over the hedges below, doing little to illuminate, the roses still brighter.

He knelt down, another piece of chalk appearing in his hand, “To do this in the proper way, you want to try to do the straight lines in one stroke of the Waxchalk but it’ll be too hard to do that without having any practice, so instead you can use short strokes, but you have to be sure they’re all thoroughly connected.”

He demonstrated both ways, making two of the straight line walls of the first shape.

She knelt down too, swiftly attempting to mimic the easier way, but her line turned out jagged with splintery red lines coming off of it. It looked sloppy in comparison.

He stood up, heading to the table and returning with a damp piece of cloth. He carefully wiped away her line, “I didn’t expect you to do it perfectly on your first try. Try again, this time, take your time. Like this,” He guided her hand through the next line of the shape, the movement slow and smooth, like brushing hair. After which, he released her hand, letting her try the next line herself. This time it came out better. Not as nice as his guided one, but nicer. He didn’t need to fully erase the line, only clean up the edges.

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While her next few attempts were better, they still needed correcting. The whole time he was patient. Oddly patient compared to his previous attempts at teaching her. Too patient compared to his overall perpetuity for perfection. For a while, this patience kept her on edge. But as the sun rose, and the ritual took its form, the silence allowed her mind to wander.

Her mind found strange little moments she’d had since coming to the castle, eventually landing on the meal he’d tried to make for her as a thank you.

She glanced up to him. There were little more than white dots where those gouges had been. As she refocused on the line she was working on, her mind drifted back to the horrible meal. It was about the worst cooking she’d ever had, including her own and she was no expert herself.

He clearly never cooked, but he had indicated as much when they’d first met. Faedemons didn’t eat cooked meat and she doubted his work afforded him time for much more brief snacks throughout the day.

She stopped the line she was working on as bewilderment consumed her mind.

If he didn’t cook, how was the kitchen such a mess? More so, why was there even a kitchen and dining room for that matter? This was his home. He'd made everything. Why would he even have these things? He had a bedroom he never used either. He never left his lab.

She had a room given to her as soon as she arrived. Why would someone so generally reclusive even have guest rooms? He made it perfectly clear he didn’t enjoy much else outside his work.

“Do you need help with that shape?” His voice startled her out of her thoughts.

He looked up to see he had already finished the one he was working on and was now looking at her, “Oh no. I was just lost in thought for a moment. I’m sorry.” She resumed her line.

“Do you have questions?”

It was clear he was asking about the diagram, but the thoughts were nagging away at the back of her mind.

“I do actually, but not about this.” She kept working.

“Well then, ask.” he urged.

“It’s nothing. Besides, if you really wanted to know, you could read my mind.” If the answer was personal, she was sure he’d evade it. If it were about the Fae she knew he likely couldn’t answer so there wasn’t much point.

He sat back on his heels, “You mind is your own. I don’t particularly enjoy reading minds. Your fear was the only reason I did upon our meeting, but I don't intend on ever doing it again. If you wish to ask me something, you are free to. If not then your questions will go unanswered.” He stared at her for a moment, expecting a response.

“Alright, fine.” She sat upright as well. “You don’t leave your lab. Outside of your interactions with me, you don’t seem to do much besides work. So why do you have a dining room, a kitchen?”

The questions began to pile up, spilling out of her as every thought that had been nagging at the back of her mind sprung forth, “You don’t cook, at least you don’t prepare food without magic. It’s just us here. So why does your dining room have so many chairs? Your bedroom clearly hadn't been occupied in a long time. Do you even sleep? So really what I'm wondering is; why bother with this giant house if you really only use the rooms that pertain to your work?” Her nerves tightened as he straightened, breaking her gaze.

“You are right about much of what you said. I don’t sleep. I have no need nor desire to. You know that I can’t cook nor do I leave my lab, outside of fetching alchemical ingredients or animals for experimentation.” His voice was tense. “I don’t suppose I expected you not to wonder about this eventually…”

The room was silent for a moment, before he took a breath and continued, “Eight hundred and fifty seven years ago, I had another human living with me here. His name was Kyrian. He was a powerful mage and he was helping me with my work.”

She wanted to ask why a human would have agreed to help him do the Fae’s bidding, but she held her tongue, wanting him to finish his story.

He continued, “He belonged to House Emberkeep. Do you know this one?”

She shook her head. She didn’t recall an Emberkeep in the registry.

“Well, I don’t suppose you would. It died long before your time.” He reminisced.

His fingers wandered up, fiddling with the gold medallion that hung at his sternum, “But back to the main topic at hand; Kyrian wished to learn about the Fae. He fully submitted to their will, even allowing them to Bind him to them in a similar way to which I'm bound. I don’t think they cared much about him even after he was theirs. He was probably more of any amusement to them than anything. I did say he was powerful, but the strongest mage to humans would be little more than a trained rodent to the Fae. He lived here with me and we became quite close.” A reverent smile crossed his face as he stared off over the maze.

His smile quickly faded as he continued, “He enjoyed cooking and hosting elaborate parties that sometimes spanned days. The Fae didn’t mind, because these parties brought in test subjects. No one would suspect much if a drunken old man didn’t make it home or a woman of the night suddenly vanished. I kept my workspace but added rooms I had no use for to ensure the ruse was easily maintained.”

He waved his hand and the view of the maze turned to a lovely cliffside vista, “I put enchantments on all the windows and as people were teleported here by Kyrian, they found himself in the home of a reclusive mage or a wealthy aristocrat with nothing but time and money to host parties. At least, that’s what they thought. I’m not particularly proud of the events that transpired at those parties or what followed them, but they did further serve my research. I’m sure you always suspected this house wasn’t a good place, but now you know the truth behind it.”

“But why didn’t you ever change the house back? Especially if you never use most of it.” She inquired.

He let out a sigh, waving his hand, turning the window’s view back to the maze, “To keep me from forgetting, Miss Cora. Now, can we please finish this ritual?” He asked softly, leaning over to continue drawing.

She nodded, resuming her work.

Not a word was spoken until the sigil was complete. Upon finishing the last shape, Zaramir stood, taking in their work, “You did a good job for your first ritual.” He complimented. “Now, help me place these candles on the intersecting lines, where the curved lines meet the straight. This will link them, but it’s very important you let them burn down a bit to make sure they melt to the floor.” He instructed, as he grabbed a handful of thin white candles from the table, handing them to her.

“Do you have anything to light them?” She asked, taking them.

A jesting smile spread over his face, “What do you think?” He asked as both his arms became suddenly engulfed in white flame which didn’t so much as move his coat, even as it licked up his neck. They vanished nearly as quickly as they came

She laughed excitedly, “Were those from a Runebind?”

He shrugged the coat off his left shoulder, exposing a Runebind near his collar, “I believe this one’s called The Blaze of Stars among modern mages.” He took a few steps back, flicking the coat back into place, “Here. Observe,” The flames consumed his entire form, he almost looked like the elemental, the edges of his form taking on a certain translucent quality. Heat radiated off him as though she were standing in front of a bonfire. The brightest point of him was the Runebind, despite being covered by his coat. The fire was so bright it hurt to look at.

After a moment he extinguished it, “It’s a bit showy for a fire spell but it does at the very least offer protection as well. Any arrows shot are incinerated on the approach, most close range weaponry melts passing through the flame. That and non-magical fire is rendered harmless. I don’t suppose you’ve changed your mind on acquiring any Runebinds for yourself, have you?” he inquired.

“I’m not ready for any just yet, but thank you. Besides I don’t see myself needing something that… intense.” She chuckled.

“Understandable.” He replied. “Anyway, I allowed myself to get distracted, we should return to this ritual. I really do need to get going if I have any hopes of getting back at a reasonable hour.”

“Right,” She agreed, getting to work on the placement of the candles. He too gathered some and began assisting.

Once those were placed, he swiftly lit them and it didn’t take long of the wax to drip over the lines. As they did, the different shapes began to glow.

“Excellent, it looks like your work was satisfactory enough to allow this to work.” He smiled. “It looks like just about everything is in order.”

“That was the last step?” She asked. “That was pretty simple.”

“Indeed. The sigil was by far the hardest part. With the Runebinds, it eliminates the need to recite an incantation nor use any sacrificial components, so it’s a nice clean ritual.” he turned to face her. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Until then, I have no specific tasks outside of the list I gave you I’d like you to complete. If you run out of work, feel free to relax. Most of the animals should be self-sufficient in their environment, but please keep watch over the garden for new infestations. Outside of that, I trust you can handle yourself.”

She nodded, “I’ve got it all under control.”

“Good.” he smiled, as he took a step back into the sigil. “Now stand back.”

As she stepped back from the ritual, he crossed his arms over his chest, the candles immediately melted downward, trailing the lines of the sigil, before immediately igniting in a purple flame that radiated cool air. Zaramir’s coat and hair blew upward as though there was a heavy updraft of wind. The room smelled of firewood. As quickly as it began it was over, everything was gone. With that, there was not a trace of the ritual or the Faedemon.