"Where the Ravens flocked, the Crowes stood beside."
That was how the saying had been for ages.
For centuries, the House of Crowe served the Raven with unwavering loyalty. The family began as Barebloods—ordinary, unremarkable—until one of their ancestors saved an injured Arch-Witch of the Raven lineage. From that single act, they were granted generational wealth, protection, and a place beside witches that most Barebloods could only dream of.
And yet, despite their origins, the Ravens never looked down on them.
The Crowes became something more than servants. They became bridges.
Many of the technologies now used within the witching world were first introduced, refined, or maintained by them.
With the support of the Raven, the Crowe had established a footing in the world of Bareblood as a result.
Elena Crowe, Persephone's most trusted aide, was the latest in that line.
A composed woman with sharp eyes hidden behind thin-rimmed glasses that seemed to catch everything others missed. Calm, precise, and quietly intimidating in her efficiency, she carried herself like someone who had long mastered the art of speaking only when necessary.
Her father once served directly under Persephone. Age eventually forced him to step down.
Now, the role has passed to her.
As she stood in the courtyard of the Raven estate, watching witches train under the morning sky, she sipped her coffee in silence.
It was always like this. Witches practicing. Mana flowing. Runes forming in the air like written language given life.
She wished, not for the first time, that she could join them.
But the Crowe bloodline had always been like this. Close to witches, intertwined with them…
Yet never able to become one.
Her thoughts were cut off when her phone rang.
"Elena!" Persephone's voice came sharp and urgent through the call. "Come to my office. Now."
Elena straightened immediately.
Without hesitation, she moved.
The office door closed behind her with a soft click.
Inside, Persephone Raven was already pacing.
Not frantic, but tense.
Controlled.
"Come with me," she said. "I need company."
"To where, Ma'am?" Elena asked, finishing the last of her coffee like it was any normal day.
"Towards the D'Arcels," Persephone replied. "They know the Heretic's location."
Elena nearly choked.
Even as a Bareblood, she knew that name.
The Heretical Witch.
No one in the modern world of witches didn't.
They left immediately.
Persephone cast Flight, pulling Elena with her hand as they ascended into the sky. Elena shut her eyes tightly the entire way, gripping back the instinctive fear of falling.
Even after all these years, flying still felt unnatural without using a plane.
The D'Arcel estate loomed ahead like a monument carved into silence.
The guards panicked the moment Persephone arrived.
Within moments, Lucien D'Arcel himself stood at the entrance, umbrella in hand, posture composed but slightly strained.
"How may I help my esteemed guest—"
"Spare me the pleasantries," Persephone interrupted. "Give me the Heretic's location."
Lucien tried to hold his expression steady.
"I already know," Persephone added calmly.
That broke him faster than intimidation ever could. His gaze flicked sharply to the guard.
"It was me," came a voice behind him.
Marielle.
Umbrella in hand. Calm. Almost pleased.
Lucien scoffed under his breath. Of course. One of his wives playing politics again.
But Persephone wasn't interested in internal D'Arcel affairs.
Only results.
And when Lucien hesitated, she simply leaned in and made a single statement.
If he refused, the vampires would be getting a new representative.
That was enough.
He called Charlotte.
The phone rang at the gate.
Once.
Twice.
Then—
She answered.
After a short exchange, Lucien lowered the phone with a tired sigh.
"What?" Persephone asked.
"She said…" he hesitated, "…we should come to her place."
That was all Persephone needed.
Something inside her tightened.
Not fear, but anticipation.
They were led to the courtyard.
And then—
The air split.
A purple rift opened mid-space.
Space Magic.
Even now, even among the Ravens and witches of the Witching Hour, it was barely understood. A discipline so complex it was mostly theoretical, reduced to fragments and abandoned notes.
Persephone herself only managed one technique:
Spatial Step,she called it.
A short fold of distance. A trick of positioning.
But what stood before her now was not a step.
It was a doorway.
Elowen stepped out first, introducing herself briefly, then inviting them in.
And so they followed.
The moment they crossed through, silence fell.
The world changed.
Gold and violet stretched across the halls like living architecture. The ceiling opened into impossible skies. Stars hung too close, too bright, as if the world itself had been placed beneath a different heaven.
No one spoke at first.
Because they all understood the same thing at once:
They were no longer on the same world they came from.
Then Charlotte appeared.
Smiling, as if nothing was strange at all.
"Cool, right?" she said casually. "Welcome to the Lunarium. It's built entirely inside a Dimension Bubble—a self-contained pocket of space created through Space Magic. Stable, isolated, and fully sustained."
Even the explanation sounded effortless in her mouth. As if she was selling something in a mall.
Persephone said nothing.
She couldn't.
She was visibly still.
Awe, carefully hidden beneath her usual restraint.
Then Aurora moved from outside the coven, seen from a door.
No runes formed.
No incantation.
No structure.
Ice simply appeared.
It bloomed from nothing, obeying her hand as if reality had chosen to comply out of instinct alone.
Persephone knew it was one of the proposed research she tried to share. She was there after all.
Locked away by the Welsch under the authority of the Pantheras and the Ravens after Charlotte Sweeiz had proposed it.
Runeless casting.
A silence followed that was heavier than any spell.
Elena froze.
The D'Arcels stiffened.
She spoke quietly.
"Is the calamity… using your runeless casting?"
Charlotte tilted her head.
"The 'Calamity' has a name," she corrected lightly. "And yes."
Silence lingered.
Then Charlotte tilted her head slightly.
"So," she added lightly, "what brings you here? Going as far as to blackmail my friend?" Charlotte points towards Lucien.
Persephone opened her mouth—
Then stopped.
The words didn't come.
Not because she didn't know what to say.
But because admitting it—
Even to herself—
Felt heavier than expected.
And so, Charlotte moved first. With a soft smile—
"Theo! Your family's here!"
Lucien and Marielle both froze.
Their attention snapped toward the approaching figure.
Theodore D'Arcel.
The boy they knew—
Quiet. Withdrawn. Fragile.
And yet, he was smiling.
Not the forced, polite expression expected of him. But something else.
Something real.
He ran forward without hesitation, wrapping his arms around Charlotte as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"I did what you said," he said softly, voice muffled against her. "I finished the game… and I didn't skip meals."
Charlotte laughed.
Soft and warm.
She gently patted his head. "See? That's good," she said. "You're doing great, Theo."
Charlotte's way of preparing him for the succession ceremony was… weird. Lucien thought that himself. Even Marielle was confused even with context of why he sent him to Charlotte.
Theodore was just,
Living.
Cartoons in the study hall. Movies late into the night. Games that didn't demand perfection. Even Aurora, at times, sat beside him, quietly watching.
For once, Theodore wasn't being shaped into something. He was just allowed to be. A child.
But then, he saw them.
Lucien. Marielle.
And just like that, It was gone. The smile. The warmth. The ease. His posture straightened. His expression flattened. And he stepped back.
Lucien felt it immediately. A sharp, quiet twist in his chest. But he said nothing. Because even he understood that this…
Was something he had never given his son.
Lucien quickly masked his reaction and redirected his gaze.
Floating beside Theodore, a crimson shape drifted into view
.
A bat.
No—
A construct.
Lucien wasn't strange with the construct that witches made. He too had a few in his estate that handled the meticulous parts of their daily lives.
Even Persephone, who did nothing but observed so far, knew that the thing that was hovering was no mere construct that are used in the Witching Hour.
It hovered as it belonged there, waiting patiently as if it had always been part of the room.
"This is Lilith," Theodore said quietly.
The moment the name was spoken, the construct tilted slightly and smiled gleefully, almost as if acknowledging itself.
A Persona Schema partner.
That's what Theodore and Charlotte had called it.
A living support system created through sustained blood feeding and mana imprinting.
A reservoir. A stabilizer.
A crutch for Theodore's unstable blood regeneration. Especially made for him.
And more importantly—
A blood inventory given form.
The explanation alone made everyone in the room tense.
A thing made of blood…
that thinks?
That speaks?
That exists independently?
Even Persephone's expression faltered for a fraction of a second—so small it would've been missed by anyone else. But within her Crystallization state, even the slightest deviation in thought registered like a crack in glass.
Meanwhile, outside the estate hall, Aurora stood beneath the open sky.
A second presence floated beside her. Unlike Lilith, it had no defined shape. Only a shifting outline of condensed mana, crystallized into an orb, unstable yet obedient.
Iskaryon, it muttered its name with pride.
It drifted near her shoulder like a thought that hadn't fully decided what it wanted to become.
"I told you, you can take a small dragon form. That's all I can do for now," Aurora muttered, slightly annoyed as she raised her hand.
The mana mass pulsed once.
"NAYYY!! I AM A PROUD DRAGON!! I WILL NOT BE CUTE!!" Iskaryon shouted; even the people inside the coven hall heard it.
Aurora clicked her tongue.
Back inside, the silence stretched.
Persephone finally spoke, her voice calm—but sharper than before.
"…So this is what you meant by runeless casting. Casting without runes."
"Not only that, that porcelain doll that escorted us, that bat, and that floating orb that calls itself a dragon, it's that Persona Schema the kid had mentioned, correct?" She followed up, asking.
"Yep!" Charlotte responds with a smile.
Persephone sighs deeply. Another new school of magic, and Charlotte called it Technomancy.
Charlotte just kept on surprising Persephone.
And with that, Persephone has finally decided.
She's going to betray the Witching Hour, to destroy its very traditions.
Even her friend, Edith, and the many old witches.
All for knowledge.