The Grand Scriptoria of the Athenaeum was a labyrinth of shadows, its high, vaulted ceiling lost to the gaslight's weak embrace. Around thirty acolytes, scholars, and initiates filled its aged wooden desks, a quiet expanse where ambition and apprehension intertwined. Each soul here had pursued arcane knowledge for what felt like an eternity, their fragile futures stretched taut as a hangman’s noose. Tension hummed, a low, constant vibration beneath the murmur of turning pages, where survival was a delicate, intellectual dance.
This unending pressure had begun for Elias Thorne at a tender age, the moment he first pieced together the fragments of a lost Sumerian incantation. Since then, the daily balancing act of understanding, of *knowing* more than his peers, had become his routine. And, he suspected, everyone else’s too.
This hallowed hall, this cubic maze of knowledge, concealed a pyramid of power.
“Ah…”
A pins-and-needles sensation prickled Elias’s arm, a dull ache from prolonged stillness. He shook it out, a quiet tremor, then tapped a tightly wound stomach with the side of his fist. A faint sigh escaped him, lost in the dusty air, as he gazed at the slumped forms before him. Dark mahogany desks, pale, tired necks. At the front, Professor Abernathy, our esteemed instructor in Arcane Linguistics, sat behind his lectern, engrossed in a yellowed broadsheet, its edges creased from many readings. Students, meanwhile, either grappled with the day’s translation problems or, having surrendered to mental exhaustion, leaned heavily on their forearms, lost to sleep.
“Rouse yourselves, you slumbering idlers,” Professor Abernathy called, his voice surprisingly robust as he turned another page, barely glancing up.
It was already the fifth hour of the session. Elias had been wrestling with the fifteenth glyph sequence when he paused, scratching his temple with an index finger before laying his silver-tipped pen beside his notes. His eyes drifted to the empty seats. Two, in particular, caught his attention, stark absences against the worn leather.
Just as he had anticipated, neither Alaric Blackwood nor Thomas Ashworth were present. They would likely remain absent tomorrow, unless Alaric's mercurial temperament shifted unexpectedly, or some new, obscure drama had unfolded between them, a drama Elias was not yet privy to. Whatever that unfolding might entail, he had no inkling.
He lowered his gaze back to the intricate problems. His eyes filled with the delicate strokes of forgotten Atlantean characters, each one a universe of meaning.
There was a time, not long ago, when Elias believed he understood everything about Alaric Blackwood. He had convinced himself that he, more than anyone else in this Scriptoria, truly knew Alaric. He had taken a perverse pride in that, even when comparing himself to Septimus Vane, who was undoubtedly closer to Alaric than anyone else.
In truth, that quiet pride had helped Elias endure watching Vane and Blackwood’s easy, conspiratorial familiarity. Deep down, he savoured the secret knowledge that he possessed a deeper, more subtle understanding of Blackwood's true motivations.
He propped his chin on a hand, the rough texture of his sleeve a minor distraction. The sheer capacity for such devious thought disgusted him. A cold, self-loathing washed over him.
What would these scholars, these initiates, think if they knew such intricate, calculating thoughts spiralled within his mind? The answer was chillingly clear. He would be cast down, pushed to the very bottom of their arcane pyramid, occupying its widest, most despised plane.
That prospect was terrifying. A chilling thought. This kind of insidious desire, unique to a clever, desperate scholar, had to remain hidden at all costs. He had to bury it deep, so deep that not even the object of his observation would ever sense its presence. Ultimately, he needed to conceal it so thoroughly that even he might forget it existed.
But Alaric Blackwood had not done that. Every acolyte in the Scriptoria was acutely aware of Blackwood’s rampant desires, his open pursuit of forbidden knowledge and power.
Elias glanced around, lifting his head fractionally. Everyone remained hunched over their desks, intent on their studies or their slumber. Pressing his lips tightly together, he looked forward again.
Lying forlornly between two rows of desks, a dusty, leather-bound tome lay abandoned, its cover marked with a single, clear boot print.
Suddenly, as if sensing a gaze upon him, Elias buried his head in his notes, mimicking the others, his posture feigning intense study.
Then, he slowly turned his neck, altering his angle of vision. His gaze fell upon the back row. There, partially obscured by an arm, a face lay hidden, as if its owner had collapsed into sleep mid-thought. The face, visible only in profile, looked delicate and sorrowful, almost as if it belonged to the recently departed.
“…”
He found himself staring at Septimus Vane’s face before his gaze drifted to Vane’s arm. Had the already towering Vane grown even more? The formal scholar’s robes that had fit him perfectly at the start of the term now left his wrists fully exposed. Around one of those wrists was a dark, carved obsidian scarab, its facets catching the gaslight—an amulet that stood out vividly. It was a heavy, unmistakable symbol, an integral part of Vane’s enigmatic identity.
Before hearing the whispers of his true origins, Elias had assumed Vane resided in some secluded manor on the outskirts, perhaps near the ancient estates where the Blackwood family held sway.
Despite his intimidating aura, Vane didn’t exude the outward trappings of conventional wealth. His deep-set eyes were always shadowed by his heavy lids, and his faded irises gave him a perpetually haunted, almost ancient look. The way his thin sclera showed beneath his pupils only added to his sharp, gaunt appearance.
Septimus Vane’s overall atmosphere was one of grim, controlled intimidation, though it lacked the superficial refinement associated with monetary opulence. Instead, his face seemed marked by a profound sense of deprivation, exuding a kind of melancholic heaviness that spoke of long fasts and deep contemplations. Combined with his imposing build—he was undoubtedly the tallest acolyte in the Athenaeum—it made him doubly formidable.
Fortunately, unlike Alaric Blackwood, Vane’s sharp features included a classically handsome symmetry, a severe beauty. Without that, people might have actively shunned him. Even so, Vane’s face was unsettling, intimidating, and charged with a nervous, barely contained esoteric energy.
But Vane’s true nature couldn’t have been more different from his appearance.
It wasn’t merely that he seemed indifferent to mundane affairs; it was as if he actively erased events from his memory, whether by intentional ritual or some peculiar psychological conditioning. He possessed an air of “detached ownership of nothing,” a trait that ironically added to his mystique. He had no need for earthly possessions, only for forbidden lore.
Most notably, Vane did not care for gold or coin. He never paid attention to how much others spent or how much they sought. If the mood struck him, he’d casually dismiss a substantial sum from a debt owed to him, as if the concept of currency held no meaning. Sometimes he’d even offer financial aid for scholarly pursuits and then forget about it entirely. There were even stories of initiates attempting to repay borrowed funds only for Vane to ask, puzzled, why they were offering him silver.
Still, he did not offer such boons to just anyone. He’d indulge random requests when in a good mood but coldly refuse those truly desperate for assistance, as if testing their spiritual mettle.
Even with his closest associates, Vane could be ruthless. Elias once overheard a story about how young Master Kilian, upon seeing Vane’s prized automaton—a complex, steam-powered construct Vane rarely displayed—excitedly tried to activate it without permission. Vane, without a word, disabled the machine, its mechanisms grinding to a halt, then delivered a single, sharp kick to Kilian’s shin, sending the boy sprawling across the polished stone floor like a startled frog.
At the pinnacle of the occult hierarchy, individuals like Vane and Alaric Blackwood shared one crucial trait: a complete lack of concern for others’ opinions. This profound indifference, in its own way, was what allowed them to occupy the pyramid’s apex.
Why do we, with our own hands, hand over the keys to our world to these uncontrollable predators, these masters of the dark arts? No matter how much Elias pondered it, he still could not fully comprehend.
And yet, Septimus Vane proclaimed himself a devout adherent of the Hermetic Order of the Serpent, a monastic sect within the arcane arts. He lived by a strict, ancient code.
He was the type of initiate who slept with a hidden grimoire beneath his pillow, yet still claimed to follow its most rigid tenets. He abstained from fermented spirits, from the noxious fumes of tobacco, from carnal indulgence, and from outright theft or extortion of knowledge from junior scholars. Yet the doctrine he followed seemed flawed, inconsistent even to Elias’s discerning eye. Certain Hermetic texts, Elias knew, permitted moderate use of stimulants for heightened consciousness.
They say the Hermetic Order views deviation from their prescribed path as a grave spiritual sin. Was that why Alaric Blackwood’s bold, transgressive actions disgusted Septimus Vane so profoundly? Elias licked his dry lips, a strange, nervous habit.
He felt a strange, cold relief that he hadn’t been caught—caught in his observations, in his hidden calculations. If he had, he would have ended up like that abandoned tome, lying trampled on the Scriptoria floor. And yet, even in that moment, Elias wondered—if Blackwood and he had remained close, as they were just a few months ago, would Blackwood have protected him?
The thought surfaced against his will, dragging with it memories Elias desperately wanted to suppress. He took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to quell the wave of nausea that rose in his chest, as though the bitter coffee he’d consumed earlier were threatening to return.
No, of course not. What utter folly.
How laughable, that he had once been so arrogant as to believe he held any such sway. To Blackwood, Elias was nothing. Just a convenient, if bright, scholar to pass the time with. Elias knew this now because of the chilling way Alaric’s eyes had met his when he had been—well, when Alaric had last dismissed him. His eyes had said everything. Elias hadn’t wanted to know the truth, but it had been staring him in the face, a page he could not unread.
Alaric sins openly. Elias, too, harboured his own dark ambitions—but he hid them. And so, Alaric was openly punished by the arcane laws, while Elias was, for now, spared.
A faint, humourless chuckle escaped Elias’s lips, so soft it was only audible to himself, a dry rasp against the silence.
“...So, as long as I don’t get caught, that’s all that matters.”
Perhaps the Great Architect, the hidden force that governed their occult world, possessed a personality much like Septimus Vane’s.
His gaze shifted to the desk near the professor’s podium. This was unusual, but today, Elias felt a pang of pity for Thomas Ashworth. Poor soul, caught in the clutches of Alaric, a devil cloaked in charisma. You lacked the strength to resist that monstrous, seductive power. Fragile, helpless Ashworth, a stark contrast to the towering Blackwood. You should have fled the moment Elias had warned you, you fool.
Elias knew he was not a good person. He was selfish and self-serving, and perhaps that was why he had been punished, cast to the fringes. Sometimes, he even entertained this dark thought: If one is to succumb to forbidden passions, why not choose someone sly and deceitful like me? At least then, life, or what passed for it, might be simpler. Why fall for someone so innocent and earnest, only to end up suffering so profoundly for it?
These days, his thoughts were different. Grimmer.
Yes. Of course no one could ever truly love someone like him. He knew himself too well to believe otherwise. No warmth could penetrate such a carefully constructed shell.
There was a time when he thought he could have it all. Arrogant, conceited Elias Thorne. Elias Thorne, who at the tender age of eighteen, believed he understood the world's most ancient secrets. Wicked, vile Elias Thorne. Pitiful Elias Thorne, who had no one to comfort him, so he endured everything alone, behind a carefully constructed facade.
That day, he couldn’t get past the fifteenth glyph sequence. He used his supposed scholarly fatigue as an excuse to lie slumped over his desk, thinking to himself: Well, at least I’m not as utterly ruined as Alaric or Thomas.
Whispers about Alaric and Thomas spread like wildfire through the Athenaeum’s corridors and clandestine meeting rooms. Whether they were exaggerated or grounded in grim truth, no one could say for certain. There was no way to find out either. Alaric’s circle, his immediate acolytes, had vanished from the Athenaeum, as if ripped out by the very roots of their existence. The few who remained were too preoccupied with forming new alliances, with finding a new place in the shifting hierarchy, to worry about anything else, inadvertently fueling the rumours even further.
“Master Thorne, forgive my intrusion, but who was closest to Blackwood?”
“Alaric… No, Septimus Vane.”
Elias overheard this exchange as he passed by on his way back to the Scriptoria before dismissal. One of the junior wardens had asked, and a nervous acolyte had answered. Pretending he hadn’t heard, Elias walked into the hall. Professor Abernathy glanced nervously between Elias and the empty seats, drumming his fingers against the lectern. Then, as if giving up on some unspoken thought, he announced:
“Let us conclude for the day.”
The moment dismissal ended, Elias gathered his notes into his satchel. As he slung it over his shoulder, Septimus Vane tapped him lightly on the back. The touch was precise, almost calculated.
“Thorne. Join me after these studies.”
Elias looked at Vane’s stark, handsome face. He knew. He had always watched Alaric and Vane’s every move, so he knew that the person Vane most frequently invited to accompany him was always Alaric. After a brief, almost imperceptible pause, Elias waved him off.
“I cannot. I have a pressing engagement with the Lesser Keys of Solomon.”
“And after that?” Vane’s voice was devoid of inflection.
“Further immersion in ancient lexicons. Seek companionship among your own fellows.”
“Unnecessary.”
“Why not?” Elias asked, a flicker of curiosity momentarily overriding his caution.
“Proximity to lesser minds only dilutes one’s own esoteric resonance. It detracts from the Great Work.”
“Ha.”
Elias let out a short, dry laugh at the stark, brutal absurdity of it.
Right. This was precisely why he’d been able to engage with Vane better than he initially expected. Their twisted values, their cold calculus of arcane advantage, seemed to align in strangely resonant ways.
“So, Kilian, Master Davies—they are merely ‘lesser minds’? Even Lord Ashworth, who, I believe, was rather close to Blackwood?”
“If you insist upon such precise categorisation, then yes, largely so. You, however, are different.”
The backhanded compliment, or perhaps observation, left Elias with an uncomfortable chill. It was a calculated statement, not a genuine one.
“What is that meant to signify? You are rather cruel, Vane.”
“No, I am not. I merely speak the truth of spiritual hierarchy.”
“You are exceedingly cruel.”
“Hmm. It is written in the Tenets of Hermetic Purity: ‘Thou shalt not deceive.’ I merely uphold honesty, Thorne.”
Honestly, Vane was worse than Elias. At least Elias didn't blatantly treat his own associates like expendable ciphers.
“That is why I embody the path of righteousness.”
“…Indeed.” Elias murmured, unconvinced.
“Since I am such an exemplar, may I accompany you to your lodgings?” Vane blinked twice, his pale eyes unreadable. Elias looked at his face for a moment, weighing the implications, before giving a slight, reluctant nod.
“Very well. If it pleases you.”
As long as Vane did not interfere with Elias’s own meticulously hidden pursuits, there was no logical reason to refuse such a proposition. To secure one’s place in the shifting, volatile hierarchy of arcane power, one sometimes had to embrace the most dangerous alliances, the most unsettling truths.
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