Sir Richardson stood beside Lucien’s bed, peering down at the young master’s outstretched hand as if it were a crime scene.
The spoon, still welded as though by divine spite to Lucien’s palm, glinted innocently under the candlelight.
Lucien sat rigidly, trying to remain dignified despite the situation.
“Should I… do anything?”
“Remain still,” Richardson murmured, kneeling with a butler’s grace beside the bed.
“Let me focus.”
Lucien shut his mouth with a nod. For a moment, silence reigned.
Richardson hovered his hand just above Lucien’s, not touching, as though trying to feel the echo of something left behind.
His brows knit together.
He lowered his fingers, brushing along Lucien’s skin, then gently pressed into his palm near the spoon’s edge.
Lucien flinched slightly.
The spoon stayed put.
Richardson’s eyes narrowed.
He twisted Lucien’s hand ever so slightly, following some invisible thread, before suddenly jerking it to a different angle.
“OW—!” Lucien yelped.
“I mean—ow, with all due respect.”
“My sincerest apologies,” Richardson said with a wince, pulling back.
“I didn’t expect resistance at that point of contact.”
Lucien sucked in a breath through gritted teeth.
“Neither did I.”
The butler exhaled, rubbing his chin and beard, gaze never leaving the spoon.
“There’s no active mana flowing between your palm and the spoon now. At least, not in the typical sense.”
Lucien blinked.
“So… it’s not stuck anymore?”
“Oh, it’s still very much stuck,” Richardson replied dryly.
“But the mana tether that created the bond has faded. What’s perplexing is that the effect remains.”
He stood and crossed his arms.
“This shouldn’t be possible under standard theory.”
Lucien stared at his hand.
“You mean… the magic is still active even though I’m not actively casting it?”
“In a sense,” Richardson said.
“What I can say—though I’m no mage—is that your mana seems to have a lingering effect. It obeyed your original intent… and has not yet received the signal to stop.”
Lucien looked up at him, wide-eyed.
“Is that even possible?”
Richardson met his gaze, serious now.
“Not for most people.”
He paused.
Then added with deliberate weight:
“But it would appear, Young Master… that your mana lingers.”
***
Early Morning on the next day.
The sky was just beginning to shift from dark velvet to sleepy blue when Lucien, bundled in a thick cloak with the hood almost comically oversized, tiptoed across the gravel path beside Sir Richardson.
The older man, ever the image of poise, held a walking stick in one hand and Lucien’s breakfast in the other, wrapped like a secret package.
Lucien hissed, whispering, “We’re going to get caught.”
“Nonsense,” Richardson replied, not whispering at all.
“Everyone’s asleep at this hour. This is the ideal time for clandestine errands.”
“Clandestine errands? I thought we were going to see a mage.”
“Same thing.”
They reached the side gate, where a waiting carriage rocked gently on its wheels.
Lucien felt a surge of hope. Maybe—just maybe—they would get away with this.
“Going somewhere?”
The voice stopped both of them dead in their tracks.
From behind the rose trellis, Vaelira emerged, arms folded, cloak draped like a midnight shadow.
Her eyes were sharp.
Too sharp.
She must have been waiting.
Lucien froze mid-step.
Richardson did not turn around.
Vaelira raised an eyebrow.
“Let me rephrase that. Where exactly do you think you’re going—with him—dressed like that?”
Lucien straightened and cleared his throat.
“Good morning, Vaelira. We were just… going for a walk. You know. Fresh air.”
Vaelira looked pointedly at his bandaged side, then at the spoon still faintly glinting under the folds of his sleeve.
“With injuries. And a breakfast parcel. And a carriage.”
Richardson coughed, stepping in with the calm professionalism of a seasoned diplomat.
“The young master requires a change of environment. A shift in scenery can greatly expedite the healing process.”
“In town?”
Vaelira said flatly.
“With foot traffic. And disease. And pickpockets?”
Lucien nodded as if she’d just supported his case.
“Exactly, yes! Exposure to… adversity builds immunity. It’s practically medicinal.”
Vaelira blinked slowly.
“You’re allergic to dust.”
“Which is why I brought my cloak.”
Richardson added, “We also intend to donate to the orphanage. Charitable acts are well-documented to improve recovery rates.”
Vaelira did not look convinced.
“I brought coins,” Lucien muttered, holding up a pouch.
She didn’t budge.
Richardson tried again, more delicately.
“Truth be told, Miss Vaelira, we’re seeking out a discreet consultation regarding a… minor magical mishap.”
Vaelira tilted her head.
“So you are sneaking out to fix the spoon.”
Lucien’s hood nearly fell off as he jerked back.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. What spoon?”
She pulled the edge of his cloak up, revealing the cursed utensil still stuck firmly to his palm like a loyal pet.
“That spoon.”
“Traitor!”
Lucien whispered to it, horrified.
“Let me come with you,” Vaelira said, dead serious.
Lucien and Richardson exchanged a glance, then both shook their heads with synchronized precision.
“No,” said Lucien.
“Absolutely not,” said Richardson.
“Why not?”
She demanded.
“You’re too… protective,” Lucien said.
“You interrogated a suspicious vegetable vendor last week because you thought his carrots looked ‘a little too orange,’” Richardson added.
“Please, Vaelira,” Lucien said with exaggerated dignity. “If I am to be a proper noble—or whatever I am now—I must endure the trials of everyday civilian life. Let me… find myself.”
“Find yourself?”
She echoed.
“Via spoon-related consulting,” Richardson said solemnly.
Vaelira stared at them both for a long moment, clearly running calculations in her head.
Then, she sighed.
“Fine. But if you’re not back by sundown, I’m coming after you…”
“Understood,” they said in unison.
As the carriage pulled away, Lucien peeked out of the curtain, watching Vaelira shrink into the distance, arms still crossed, scowl intact.
“Think she bought it?”
He asked.
“Not even slightly,” Richardson replied.
“So… who are we actually going to see again?”
“The town librarian,” Richardson said.
Lucien blinked.
“What exactly is a librarian going to do about my magically fused hand-spoon situation?”
“She’s not just any librarian,” Richardson said with a small, knowing smile.
“She’s… eccentric. But very well-read. And sometimes, when one needs magic—what they truly need first… is footnotes.”
Lucien groaned softly and leaned back in his seat.
***
The sun had barely crested the rooftops of the town as the carriage pulled into the alley behind a looming, vine-wrapped stone building.
Unlike the other establishments with their warm shopfronts and tidy windows, the town library stood in quiet, ancient authority—weathered but unshaken, like a scholar who had seen centuries unfold and had the footnotes to prove it.
Richardson stepped down first, straightening his coat and then helping Lucien, who awkwardly tried to keep his spoon-clad hand hidden beneath his cloak.
“This is the library?”
Lucien whispered, eyeing the building’s dark silhouette and iron-barred windows.
“One of the oldest structures in the town,” Richardson nodded.
“Predates even the central plaza. Some say it was once a monastery, others claim it was a war archive. Regardless, it was repurposed into a library over a century ago and now falls under the protection of the Alliance of Nations.”
Lucien raised a brow.
“The actual Alliance funds this place?”
“Indeed. A neutral haven for knowledge, unbound by borders or crowns. Scholars, mages, and historians from all nations come here—some to read, some to… attempt less noble pursuits.”
“Such as?”
“Breaking in,” Richardson said flatly, pulling a ring of keys from inside his coat.
“Four recorded attempts. None successful. One poor soul tried scaling the outer walls. They say he spent a week dangling upside-down from the roof, reciting overdue book titles as penance.”
Lucien blinked.
“That’s oddly specific.”
“And very much deserved.”
Richardson added.
With a soft click, the back door creaked open.
A wave of old paper, wood polish, and something faintly minty greeted them.
The inside of the library was cathedral-like—tall archways, towering shelves, and ladders that stretched dizzyingly high.
The silence felt sacred, as if even the dust motes hovered respectfully.
“Stay close,” Richardson said, voice lowered.
“She doesn’t like early visitors. Or late ones. Or visitors. Or anyone who comes here for anything other than reading.”
“She sounds friendly.”
Just as they stepped fully into the hall, a shadow above shifted.
Lucien barely had time to gasp before a figure dropped from the top of a nearby bookshelf, landing with an impressive flourish and a dramatic whoosh of a cloak.
She straightened with the grace of a stage performer, hands splayed out in an exaggerated bow.
“Welcome, brave trespassers,” she declared, her voice crisp and mischievous.
“To the last archive of the forbidden, the forgotten, and the completely misfiled. I am Celeste Hargrave, Keeper of the Books, Slayer of Dust, Warden of the Indexes!”
Lucien took a reflexive step back.
“…Do all librarians talk like this?”
“No,” Richardson replied dryly.
“Just her.”
Celeste looked up, eyes twinkling behind a pair of silver-rimmed glasses.
Her dark hair was tied back in a messy bun with several quills sticking out of it like a crown, and her robes were mismatched layers of scholarly wear and what looked suspiciously like a gardening apron.
“Ah, Sir Richardson,” she said with mock formality, “you brought me a new book to catalog?”
“This,” Richardson said with a sigh, motioning to Lucien, “is Lucien Crowley. He has a problem.”
Celeste clapped her hands.
“Excellent! I love problems. Especially if they involve cursed objects, ancient runes, or improperly shelved encyclopedias.”
Lucien slowly raised his spoon-stuck hand with the sheepish expression of a child caught drawing on the walls.
Celeste leaned forward, eyes narrowing with glee.
“Oh, this is going to be fun.”
***
Lucien sat stiffly in an overstuffed, patchwork armchair that looked like it had been rescued from several different centuries and stitched together by someone with a grudge against symmetry.
His spoon-hand rested awkwardly on a velvet cushion—fancy, but clearly singed at one corner.
Celeste Hargrave paced around him like a hawk in a graduation gown.
“Hmm… a cursed spoon,” she muttered dramatically, squinting at it through a monocle she pulled from seemingly nowhere.
“Fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. The residual aura is—wait, no, that’s just breakfast jam.”
Richardson cleared his throat.
“It’s not cursed, Celeste.”
Celeste didn’t look up.
“They always say that at first. That’s how the grape jelly of illusion fooled an entire academy for two weeks.”
Lucien blinked.
“That… sounds like a story I’m afraid to hear.”
She finally stopped pacing and turned to him, arms crossed, tilting her head.
“You were part of the estate attack, weren’t you? The one where the guards say a young man fought off several armed assailants with a—what was it—‘rabid, yet gentlemanly fury’?”
“That’s… oddly specific,” Lucien said, glancing sideways at Richardson, who simply nodded.
Celeste leaned in closer.
“Judging by the bandages and the spiritual cling of trauma around your aura, I’m guessing it was worse than the version floating around town, hmm?”
Lucien shifted uncomfortably.
“There were… complications. But no staff were harmed. The only people who died were the intruders.”
She arched an eyebrow.
“None of the staff? Huh. That’s rare. Usually someone named Hubert or a nervous footman doesn’t make it.”
“No Huberts,” Lucien replied dryly.
“Just a lot of yelling and blood and apparently, now… spoons.”
Celeste gave a low whistle.
“And here I thought libraries had drama.”
She knelt beside his chair, gently taking his hand.
Her fingers were warm and strangely calloused, like someone who both shelved books and wrestled them into submission.
“So, young man,” she said in a soothing tone.
“How exactly did you manage to get a cursed—”
“Not cursed,” Richardson interjected again with all the weariness of a man who’s had this argument many times.
“—a mysteriously clingy spoon fused to your hand?”
Lucien sighed.
“I was reading a book on mana manipulation, and there was an exercise… it said to visualize stitching your mana into the object… I did. I succeeded. And then I couldn’t… unstitch.”
Celeste gave him a slow blink, followed by a quiet moment of suspenseful silence.
Then she snorted.
And then, she burst out laughing.
“A first-timer mana-stitcher! Oh, I love it. You’re like a baby duckling imprinting on the first shiny thing it sees!”
Lucien frowned.
“I’m not a duck.”
“No, you’re a duck with a spoon for a wing,” she said cheerfully, examining the mana traces again with a weird little clicking noise in her throat.
She studied it for a long moment, squinting.
“Hmm… mana is dormant now. Lingering, yes. But not active. Interesting… very interesting…”
Then, she abruptly stepped back, clapped her hands together, and twirled on her heel like a ballroom dancer who’d just remembered they left the stove on.
“I’ll need books! Definitely ‘Mana Weaving and Accidental Bindings’… and maybe ‘Arcane Adhesion: Fact or Folklore’… oh! And the ‘Field Guide to Troublesome Trinkets!’”
And with that, she dashed off between the towering shelves, mumbling excitedly to herself.
Lucien looked down at his hand, then up at Richardson, eyes wide and accusatory.
‘What have you gotten me into?’
Richardson merely smiled, leaning against a bookshelf.
‘Welcome to the Hargrave Method.’
***
Author’s Note:
Hello Hello ( ^_^)／
Thank you all for reading and sticking with Lucien through magically sticky situations—literally.
These chapters were a joy to write. ( •̀ᴗ•́ )و ̑̑
Between Richardson’s deadpan diplomacy, Vaelira’s unshakable instincts, and Lucien’s unfortunate spoon incident, things are starting to spiral in the best way. ヽ(O_O )ﾉ
Introducing Celeste Hargrave was a particular delight. Expect more chaos from her corner of the world—she’s not done with Lucien yet. ╭( ๐_๐)╮
The story’s magic is beginning to deepen, and the spoon? Just the start.
Thanks again, and see you in the next chapter! (ﾟoﾟ〃)