“You forgot to close the door, Remi,” said Patchouli.

“Pardon me,” replied the vampire. “They normally close themselves.”

Patchouli gestured and the door slammed shut.

“See.”

Remilia walked forward and looked up and down the line of servants. The examination was quick; scarcely a glance. She then turned to look at me.

During the festival Remilia Scarlet had been sitting on a chair, behind a booth. Now she walked toward me with the confidence of a mob boss. She was taller than the fairies, but that wasn’t saying much; she was perhaps five feet tall.

Her attention still put me on edge. It was like a panther or a bear padding toward me, or some other predator with fangs, low to the ground and stealthy. My eyes could not look away from danger. If I did, the monster might disappear, to continue stalking me from anywhere.

The vampire stopped when she was a single step away. She had to tilt her head back to meet my eyes. She smiled, and her visible teeth were like a silent snarl. I felt the urge to call for help.

“Let’s get this over with. There is a ritual to bind our fates together. We will complete this ritual, here and now. Then you will be a servant of mine, and I will be a protector of yours, at least until either of us breaks that binding. First, what is your name?”

“Jake Thorne,” I said. Patchouli put down her book and pulled a quill from her purple sleeve, in a way that might have been impossible. I wasn’t watching closely. She began to write on a piece of paper.

“Mister Thorne,” responded Remilia with a nod. “I am Remilia Scarlet. You will address me as Mistress, or Lady Remilia. You are here to provide a service, one that Miss Knowledge has outlined in this contract.” I wondered if Sakuya had bothered to tell her boss what she wanted me for in the first place.

Patchouli handed the contract to me. I read it.

Gensokyo had no need for contract analysis tools, that was for sure. By the standards of the Outside World it was positively banal. It was a single-page agreement of employment. There were some lines for things like room and board, salary, and benefits; all of them had ‘none’ written beside them.

My title was ‘Tutor’ and my payment was ‘The Ability to Fly.’ It looked like I was an at-will employee. Only one or two parts gave me any pause, but the pause they gave was like stopping time.

“What do you say, Mister Thorne?” asked the vampire.

“This is mostly agreeable to me, except that the provision about never talking about my employment. That’s a little problematic.” I saw a look of consternation cross her face and I hastened to explain myself. “I don’t know what it covers and what sort of mess I’m getting into if I slip up, so I’d like to clarify.”

“You’re entering into employment under a vampire,” she said. “There is risk and reward, and an expectation of discretion.”

“And I will be discreet. However, as a wise woman told me recently, for promises to have meaning you have to only make them when you can keep them. I don’t think I’m going to be able to avoid saying anything to the other humans. My roommates are going to ask what it’s like working for you, for example.”

In fact, Wiki had asked me to go to the Scarlet Devil Mansion for the express purpose of searching for secrets. I wasn’t going to say as much to Remilia–but I wasn’t a liar, either.

She sucked in her breath through her teeth, which is a lot scarier when a vampire does it. “None of the fairies balked at the very first step!”

“They can’t read,” I reminded her. “Not yet, anyway.”

“Fine,” said the youkai. “Patche, strike that part of the contract.”

“That’s–” started the librarian.

“We’re not going to have him for long, and it’s not like we’re going to tell him any real secrets, especially not now!” She gave me an evil grin. “While you’re at it, strike the part about two weeks' notice. Make it a single day.”

“Now wait a second–” I started to say. The contract said I’d get two weeks notice if Remilia ever decided to murder me. It also made me promise to give her the same notice, but I expected to be terminated on the spot if I did that.

“Guess what happens if you refuse to sign?” she said, pointing a red-nailed finger at me. “Use your imagination, now!”

“Yukari doesn’t want you to murder humans–so if I don’t sign you’ll let me go home, because that’s what Miss Yakumo would want?” I said her name both ways, just in case, and I crossed my fingers, and I tried not to tremble.

“She will,” said a voice from under Patchouli’s desk. Oh thank God, I thought. The Head Librarian scooted back a bit; the gap was presumably somewhere near her pajamaed knees.

“You won’t get another interview if you reject our offer,” said Remilia, a little huffily. “What’ll it be, Mister Thorne?”

I swallowed, and tried to remind myself that getting any concession at all out of Remilia was probably a victory. Patchouli passed the amended contract back to me. I signed.

“Are we done now… Lady Remilia?” I asked.

“Not quite. I miss the days when one’s words and actions spoke on their own… to honor those days, there is but one action left.” She stuck out her icy-white hand, reaching up a bit. Her smile disappeared as she looked in my eyes, and her face became calm. Her teeth were hidden for a moment.

I shook her hand. It was cold and hard. It felt like the hand of a corpse, the corpse of a little girl, except if someone had put piano wires in it to keep it moving. She made my bones creak; she was monstrously strong and eager to remind me of it.

“Good!” Remilia said, her smile returning. “And now, I’m going to help you with your work for the first and hopefully last time. Gathered in this room are the fairy maids that Miss Knowledge has identified as the smartest and most capable.” That didn’t bode well. “You will choose one to be your pupil.”

“I have some ideas.” I had been thinking of how I would find the brightest fairy. I might converse with them to gauge their motivation and values, or I might make them take written tests (with pictures of course), or I might try to teach each of them for a day and see how it went. I had some biases about the fairies already, but I would do my best to give each of them a fair shot.

“Great. Don’t neglect to address me properly.”

“Apologies. I have some ideas, Lady Remilia.”

“Make your choice.”

“But–”

“Now. Choose randomly, if you have to.”

“I–I can’t do that! We haven’t tested any of them, or interviewed them yet! Lady Remilia.” I couldn’t believe she’d sabotage her own operation, except part of me could believe it.

She sighed.

“Mister Thorne, pretend like we did all that. Pretend like we chose the most capable, then I manipulated fate so that from the very beginning you’d know which was the most capable.”

“I don’t–”

“Then further pretend that we did all your tests unnecessarily, again, so that we eventually said ‘Wow, the obvious answer was correct!’ Imagine that I was compelled to manipulate fate once more and skip all those pointless tests, until the fairy that would make the best student was standing apart from the others from the moment you entered this room, until the other fairies confused and frightened your sensibilities, until the only name you knew was that of the fairy you were going to teach.”

“I know several of their names…” I said.

Needles. Sunbeam. Cerulean. Maroon. But I didn’t know which name went with which, except that the blue-haired one was probably Cerulean, and that Maroon was trembling at the end of the line.

“Which?” asked Remilia. “And don’t forget to address me properly.” I saw a muscle twitch in her jaw and I damn near pissed myself.

“Lady Remilia, I must admit that the only one I could pick out from this lineup is Miss Maroon.”

The vampire waved a hand. “Then you know more about her than I do, and you have your answer. You’re welcome.” Remilia Scarlet turned away.

“If that’s really how it works, that power is like time travel,” I said to Patchouli, because Remilia wasn’t listening to me any more. The vampire left.

“A reasonable assumption,” said Patchouli. The Head Librarian gestured and the door closed. “I assure you it’s very different from time travel, but for a first approximation you could do worse than that.”

“And she somehow failed to teach the fairies how to read?”

“She hasn’t failed yet. Everyone but Jake, Maroon, Cerulean, and Sunbeam is dismissed.” The fairies scattered like cockroaches, mostly into the library itself. “We still have some matters to discuss. Cerulean, bring down the screen, would you? Sunbeam–the projector. Maroon, Jake, you can both take a seat.”

Maroon sat on the floor instead of in the plush chair that was set out. I did the same, because when in Rome, do as the fey. Patchouli snorted.

“I meant it for you!” said the fairy. “Also, thank you!”

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

“We are both students for now, Miss Maroon. And you’re welcome.”

The other fairies had already burst into action. Cerulean (who did have blue hair) pulled down a rolled screen by the wall. The projector that Sunbeam brought was an antique; an old device for slideshows, made of yellowed plastic. It had a reel in it.

There were no windows; only lanterns that hung from the ceiling. Patchouli snapped her fingers and the library went dark. For a moment, there was no light at all except a faint purple glow whose source I could only guess.

Then Sunbeam began to glow. The fairy maid stood in a column of yellow light, like the sun was shining on her in defiance of the intervening roof. The projector was lit up as well, and I saw the fairy lay her hand on it. She bit her lower lip and the light grew brighter. Then a beam of light went through the projector.

All at once the screen lit up with a diagram of the human village. A magical circle overlaid it, with two squares inside so that there were eight triangles around an octagon. The octagon was filled with the village, and I was pretty sure that the dorms occupied one of the triangles. Another triangle was filled with dotted outlines. I stared closer; the eight-pointed star was awash with runes and symbols I didn’t recognize, but most of the map was blank.

“Wrong reel,” said Patchouli. She gestured and a stream of water flew from her hand to splash on Sunbeam. The image disappeared from the screen as the fairy pouted and covered her face. “Did you do that on purpose?”

“Maybe!” said the drenched fairy, before sticking out her tongue. She was still glowing, but the room was mostly dark.

“Demon!”

“Yes?” said a woman who stepped in from the shadows. Her hair was long and red. She was hard to see in the dim light.

“Bring us the correct reel, place it in the projector, and punish Sunbeam appropriately after that.”

“Very well.” Her voice was pleasant. The red-haired woman bowed and vanished into the shadows, a long black tail flicking behind her. It had a spike on the end.

“Can I go?” asked Sunbeam, her high voice wavering.

“No,” said Patchouli. She went on, presumably for my benefit. “I find that anticipation makes it more effective.”

“I think the water was punishment enough,” I said. The poor fairy had pulled off her maid’s cap and was wringing it out. “Is that safe in the library?”

“It was danmaku,” responded Patchouli. I realized there was no puddle underneath the fairy, like you might expect. “I’m not going to use real water or fire in the library.”

“That’s weird. Marisa’s Master Spark sets real fires.”

“Unfortunately,” sighed the librarian. “I’ve got a better command of the elements than the Wicked Witch of the East.”

The demon reappeared with a different slide reel. She walked over and flicked Sunbeam across the nose, making the fairy yelp. Then she changed out the slides. In the dim light I saw that bat wings were protruding from the woman’s head, just before she vanished into the shadows.

“That was Koakuma!” I said. She was an assistant of Patchouli’s in the games, a mid-stage boss.

“I suppose, although most of them aren’t particularly large.” If there had been an error in the translation magic, it was the first that I had noticed.

“Her name is Koakuma, right?”

“Most of them aren’t particularly named, either,” said Patchouli. “We never call demons by name, if we happen to know it. That’s on slide eight.”

“Is it unsafe?”

“It’s unkind. And for you, yes, it might be unsafe. I suggest you save your questions until after slide eight. Sunbeam?”

“A little help?” she said, because she was still drenched. Patchouli gestured, and red fire washed over the fairy, singing her clothes only a little as she dried off. It was clear that she didn’t view the maid’s outfit as her own self. “Thank you!”

I wondered why obedience was so hard to obtain from the fairies, given the availability of danmaku, until I recalled that (unlike humans) they could take a lot of hits. Using danmaku to force someone to do your chores would be harder than just doing them yourself, if that someone was a fairy.

The screen lit once more. We started a slideshow that summarized operations in the Scarlet Devil Mansion. I took notes after making sure that it was okay (the first slide had been about not copying from the books or anything else you found in the Mansion).

The first few slides were mundane; a map of the mansion with a lot of blank spots, rules for the Great Unmoving Library and checking out books, and some advice on etiquette. ‘Checking out’ meant ‘reading it in the library,’ because none of the books were actually allowed to leave.

There was also a hilarious org chart with only three layers, which allowed me to learn that Patchouli’s minions were demons and Remilia’s minions were fairies. Thanks to “cross-training,” which was actually training to resist the effect of the crucifix, Remilia commanded most of the demons during “away missions” and Patchouli nominally commanded the fairies. I inferred that Sakuya, the Head Maid, was the de-facto leader of the fairy maids. I also learned that fairies had biological processes when Sunbeam interrupted Patchouli’s explanation of the org chart with flatulence, whenever the librarian spoke of her own role, until Patchouli set her on fire.

Technically Meiling was one of Patchouli’s servants, the counterpart to Remilia’s Sakuya, but for the most part all the workers obeyed both the witch and the vampire. They were like the two CEOs of a fucked-up company.

Flandre Scarlet (Remilia’s younger sister) wasn’t on the org chart. In canon she had been locked in the basement for five hundred years due to her violent tendencies and overwhelming power; in the company metaphor, she was probably the safety inspector.

After that there was some information about the youkai. At the end of it I knew a bit more about fairies and demons. I didn’t know anything more about vampires, witches, dragons or… whatever the hell Sakuya was. Wiki had told me she was ‘described as human, but ambiguously so’.

The lights came back up almost as soon as the presentation was over. Patchouli asked for my feedback so she could improve the slideshow. She’d have to give it to the other new employees, who would be along as soon as Meiling was done with her lesson, and also the second group who would start the next day.

“I found the section on library security gratuitous,” I said. “It’s sufficient to say that the books are booby-trapped. No need to mention tentacles or the oubliette.” She’d actually listed ten different ways a book could hurt you, but those two had stood out to me.

“I reveal exactly half of my security measures, to stimulate the imaginations of would-be thieves.” Patchouli turned a page. I was pretty sure she’d been reading in the dark the entire time. “The floor of N minus one over two, to be more specific. I keep the most potent measure a secret, even if it’s the only one.”

“Oh, nevermind then, in fact you should definitely say that on the slide.” My imagination had been stimulated more than I’d liked. I was wondering what book defense was more potent than ‘immolation’.

“Good,” she said, taking a note. “I think that about wraps things up. Thank you for your help.”

“You’re welcome,” I said, a bit relieved that the head librarian could feel emotions like ‘gratitude.’ I prepared myself to test her generosity. “I was wondering if I could get a library card and read some books about flight, fairies, and teaching? If you have them.”

“We only give library cards to fully-fledged danmaku users,” she said. “Try again when you pass Miss Kamishirasawa’s test.”

“Oh. You should put that in there as well.”

“I thought it was obvious… but very well. Not everyone has a strong grasp of logic.” I grit my teeth. She took another note. “Now let us proceed with my least favorite part of onboarding.”

“What’s that?”

“Do you have any questions?”

“Yes, actually! I have a list.”

“Admirable,” she said as her brow wrinkled.

—

“Did you ask her about the diagram?” asked Wiki.

“I did, and she told me not to worry about it.” I’d drawn him the best picture I could. It was perhaps the most ominous thing I’d seen or heard at the Scarlet Devil Mansion, and that was saying a lot. “She refused to answer almost any of my questions. Patchouli literally laughed when I asked about Yukari’s goals.”

“Ha ha, it was pretty funny,” said the dark spot in our stove.

“Shoo!” said Wiki.

“But she did explain some things about youkai,” I added. I handed him my list.

“I’m so sore,” complained Arnold. He was laying on the floor. “But in a good way.”

“This is incomprehensible,” Wiki said. Sasha looked at the notes over his shoulder.

“Your handwriting is dogshit,” she said. I took the notes back.

“I had to write fast, okay?” He was lucky I even could write; many people never bothered learning, or forgot in adolescence, given the availability of keyboards. “Patchouli gave me a twenty minute lecture on youkai classification systems. Did you know that the seven deadly sins correspond to things youkai might feed on?”

“Oh really?” asked Sasha. “That’s oddly… western.”

“The Scarlet Devil Mansion is full of monsters from the west,” said Wiki. “Which is probably why it was the breakout game for the series.”

“What about Meiling?” she countered.

“China is west of Japan.” He started explaining fan theories about the route the Scarlet Devil Mansion had taken to get to Gensokyo, until we reminded him that we were supposed to be debriefing him. “So, a youkai might feed on pride, or wrath? That doesn't make any sense.”

“Well, no, it’s more like the youkai feeds on the consequence of sin.” I showed him my notes, where I’d made two columns, and he squinted until I took them back. “The youkai behaves in a sinful way, and the emotions they feed on are the ones elicited in their victim. Wrath’s inverse is fear, that’s an easy one. But pride’s inverse is shame, and gluttony’s inverse is hunger or mindlessness.”

“What about lust?” asked Arnold from the floor.

“We didn’t get that far, but shame might fit that one, too.”

“I’d guess frustration,” he said, sounding frustrated. “Meiling is super hot, isn’t she?”

“It’s not a one-to-one correspondence, then,” said Wiki.

“Not at all. Patchouli was quick to say that this classification system was too flexible. She seems to be of the opinion that youkai defy classification.”

“I agree,” said Wiki. “The bit about Koakuma being several demons is useful, though. The lore wasn’t clear on that.”

“Patchouli warned me to never ask them questions, and to never assist them with anything.”

“Can’t even hold a door for them,” said Arnold.

“Why not?” asked Sasha

“She’s locked down the contract with her demons extremely well, including a clause where they won’t be treated too nicely. They’re being punished by more powerful demons, you see.”

“Slaves,” said Sasha. “Abused slaves. That’s horrible.”

“I said something similar, and Patchouli said that carrying books for magicians is the demonic equivalent of house-arrest. These are favored demons going through the motions.” I made a face. “She also described some of the ‘real’ punishments a demon might face, until I asked her to stop.”

“Hell’s real, then.”

“Apparently.”

“Did you ask her about God too?”

“No, but that’s a good idea.” I made a note. “I bet Jesus is a youkai.”

“Her name is Byakuren,” said Wiki. “So you got nothing about Flandre or why the vampires still need human blood?”

Wiki had said that the first thing he’d do if he were a vampire was explore alternatives, so we needed to find out if the Scarlet Devil Mansion had done the same, and why it hadn’t worked or whether we could make it work. He wasn’t above helping vampires, if it helped humans too.

“Unfortunately not,” I said. “It was my first day, man. The lecture on sinning wasn’t over before Arnold and the others showed up.”

“And you’re a cook, now?” he asked Arnold.

“Yep!”

“I wish we had the internet so I could show you what human bones look like, and so that I could check myself. If you can figure out anything about what they do with blood… or possibly bodies, please let me know.”

“Will do,” he said. “A fairy named Needles told me that we serve pork, but I’m not sure I believe her, because she told me if I stole a ham I’d have to give one back no matter where it came from.”

“The fairies are pranksters,” I said. “She might have been pulling your leg.”

“She was pulling my leg! Literally!”

“Good work at the Mansion today,” said Wiki. “We’ve learned more than I expected, already.” He turned to Sasha. “Any luck tracking down Marisa?”

“A little,” she said. “I know where she lives now, at least. I’ll have to pass the escort test before I can go pay her a visit.”

“About that,” I said with some hesitation. I knew Wiki wouldn’t like what I was about to say.

“Yeah?”

“I think you should take it too.”