The office of the Whtiemire estate was still, bathed in sunlight coming through high windows. The walls were lined with bookshelves filled with ledgers, scrolls, and registers of coins that held decades of meticulously recorded entries. It reeked of parchment, ink, and old secrets—the kind that rich families entombed under layers of respectability.
Karma sat crouched over a fat, leather-bound tome, the light picking up the threads of his hair as he worked. With one hand, he absently flipped a silver coin—a habit of anxiety he'd formed over the years. The other supported a silver pen that remained untouched for an hour.
His keen eyes scanned pages filled with diligent code: names concealed within symbols, figures underlined in crimson ink, arrows between months like a spider web of financial transactions. Jotted notes occupied the margins like murmurs of sadder truths: "Project H," "Silent Return," "Shares purchased under fictitious name," "Payment to silence—successful."
He'd been handling Shizuku's estate finances for three years now, ever since she'd adopted him. What had begun as straightforward bookkeeping had slowly revealed itself to be something much more intricate. The Whitemire family entertainment firm was merely the surface layer—underneath it lay a web of investments, information brokering, and nicely manipulated influence that reached across several kingdoms.
He slouched back in the leather armchair, gazing at it all with equal fascination and exhaustion.
"This estate's lineage may be blue-blooded," he grumbled, flipping the coin into the air and catching it with smooth proficiency, "but its cash has been far from clean."
The coin fell into his hand with a gentle clink. He closed the book with a sharp thud, the noise resonating in the silent room. Some secrets were best left underground, or at least for today.
"Done for today."
His footsteps echoed through the marble halls as he approached his room slowly, step by measured step. The light of the afternoon cast long shadows across the gleaming floors, and pictures of Shizuku's ancestors gazed after him with oil-painted eyes that appeared to track his progress.
When he came to his door, his hand hesitated on the intricately decorated bronze handle. The metal was cold to the touch of his palm.
The wood groaned just a little as he put the barest pressure on it.
And then—
He froze.
"I don't want to find it them here." he breathed, low enough for only the silence to listen.
His hand released its hold on the handle. A sighing breath escaped him, the weight of the responsibility he wasn't sure he was prepared for, leaving him.
Then a whispery voice shattered the silence, as soft as silk.
"You forgot these again."
Lily, the perpetually patient maid, stood behind him like a guardian angel in plain gray material. She cradled his reading glasses in both hands, handling them the same as everything else in his life—as if they were precious, irreplaceable.
Karma spun, and his tension melted at once as her presence enveloped him. She'd been tending to him since his initial week in the estate, when he'd been so arrogant to request assistance and so shattered that he couldn't accept it willingly. Now, she was the only thing in his life that demanded nothing of him.
He accepted the glasses carefully, their hands touching for a second.
"What would I do without you?" The words meant more than the bantering tone implied.
He touched her, tracing the line of her cheek with the knuckles of his hand. Her skin was warm, soft, familiar. She went still, cheeks tingling pink, but did not retreat. In that moment, she was an anchor to his humanity, a reminder of who he was behind the mounting power and dark secrets.
He turned once more, pushing the glasses onto his face, the world coming into focus.
"Shizuku said we're doing something today. Guess I better be prepared for whatever she has in mind."
And he strode off down the passageway, leaving Lily alone with her unconsciously grazing the area he'd caressed—wondering what it was that he was afraid to discover beyond that door, and why the boy she liked appeared to be bearing the weight of the world upon his shoulders.
Outside, a metallic obsidian sedan that appeared to suck in the light and transform it into a faint, quiet radiance. The glossy body echoed the old mansion's stone arches as a living mirror, its silver trim picking up every glint of the golden hour. Shizuku occupied the driver's seat, her silver hair fastened in a simple ponytail, wearing civilian attire that couldn't quite conceal her warrior's posture.
Karma got into the passenger seat, observing the way she held the steering wheel—not with fear, but with the tense control of a person trying to make a hard choice.
"We can't hole up in the mansion forever," she said, voice diplomatically neutral as she drove away from the estate. "It's time you made a choice about your future. You're eighteen now, and you have choices."
"I have a future," he said, stretching out and observing the country side roll by. "Running your estate. Tranquil. Unhurried. No one taking potshots at me or waiting for me to save the world."
"That's not a future," she said, her knowing smile evident. "That's premature retirement. And you're much too young to retire from life."
There was something more to her worry—he could hear it in the way her voice gentled.
The military academy loomed before them like a red stone and metallic fortress. Cadets in crisp uniforms marched across the parade grounds in immaculate formation, their rifles glinting in the sunlight. Flags emblazoned with the kingdom's crest flapped in the breeze, and the cry of shouted commands resounded over the courtyard.
Shizuku offered him a shiny brochure full of pictures of orderly soldiers and glorious scenes of battle.
"Discipline of Strength. Leadership," she told him. "You could learn to use your talents in service."
Karma laughed, looking at a photograph of youth cadets training to shoot military-grade weapons, their faces serious and intent.
"Guns? Yeah. no thanks." He tossed the brochure back without lifting the cover. "You know I'm not into things that go boom in my face."
"So you're scared of guns?" She asked, with a teasing lilt in her voice, but also real interest.
"I'm scared of unnecessary holes in my body," he said wryly. "Big difference. In addition, I have other means of dealing with problems."
As they left, Shizuku looked back at him through the rearview mirror. "The military teaches control. You could do worse."
"I have control," he said softly, but they both knew that wasn't really so.
The government building of the national bank was all neat lines and organizational efficiency. Pristine desks lined up in immaculate rows, silent clerks hunched over account books, and the muted scratch of quills on parchment playing a symphony of governmental productivity.
"We'd love to have you as a junior estate accountant," the department manager told her, pushing his spectacles back up his nose as he scanned Karma's credentials. "Your experience with the Whtiemire estate has been. impressive."
Karma presented a courteous smile, not that he'd had to practice for long to achieve. "I'm already managing Shizuku's books very well. I'm quietly accumulating savings. Why mess with a system that works?"
"You're not even saving it; you're just stashing it away under your mattress," Shizuku grumbled as they departed from the building.
"It's referred to as a financial safety net," he corrected. "In case of emergencies. Or pizza. You'd be amazed how frequently the latter bleeds into the former."
The tour continued on to a business college. The glass and steel structure sparkled like a monument to capitalism. Within, young nobles aggressively networked over scorched coffee and stale pastries, their boasts a cacophony of ambition and barely veiled desperation.
Karma lasted precisely five minutes before returning to the car.
"It smells like ambition. and failure-flavored lattes," he commented, dropping into his seat with obvious relief.
"You didn't even hear the lecture," Shizuku noted, though she was plainly entertained by his hasty retreat.
"I heard enough," he commented, observing the building grow small in the side mirror. "Business school's where souls go to die. I can seem normal, but that world's a rabbit hole I'm not jumping into."
The reality was, he'd seen enough of the corporate world through the books of the estate. The corruption, the compromises, the manner in which decent people became something less for the sake of gain. He had darkness enough of his own to contend with—he didn't want corporate greed to be a part of it.
The halls of the Royal Law academies were stately and burdened with centuries of jurisprudence. The walls were lined with weighty volumes, and students debated the meaning of justice and interpretation with the fervor of evangelists, their voices carrying off the gleaming marble pillars that had watched empires rise and fall.
Karma entered, heard thirty seconds of jargon tossed about like verbal daggers, and promptly left.
"I'm not reserving a ticket to hell, thank you," he stated flatly.
"Law is a noble occupation," Shizuku said, though from her tone, she wasn't necessarily taken aback by his response.
"Law is noble," he conceded. "Lawyers are merely individuals who've mastered the art of lying successfully in its name. I've had my fill of that life through our. business arrangements."
In the car, he gazed out the window contemplatively as the city moved by outside. With each rejection, there was a sense of small triumph, each step further toward whatever it was that he was meant to be.
'There is nothing that can separate me from you,' he told her in his head as he regarded her driving form.
At last, they arrived before the Learner's Academy of Mages. The tower rose impossibly high, the stones upon which it was built engraved with runes that glowed with dim, magical light. Magic clung heavy in the air like honey, sweet and cloying to the point of making breathing hard but impossible to abandon.
Children in robes billowed through the courtyard, some floating books, others creating tiny illusions to amuse their companions. The very air vibrated with potential.
Karma's eyes widened for the very first time that day, and Shizuku was torn between relief and worry.
"Wait. magic?" He gazed at the tower with open awe.
Shizuku nodded slowly. "The LA University. One of the few remaining colleges still taking students with. special gifts. They're experts at teaching those with inherent magical talent to control it."
"Magic Academy?" he parroted, his tone laced with something she hadn't heard in months: real enthusiasm. "I'm in."
Shizuku smiled, but with concern. "Of course you are."
This was what she'd feared—and hoped for. Magic would provide him with the training to master his burgeoning power, but it could also increase it beyond any possibility of control.
Karma spotted a black pamphlet on the dashboard that he didn't remember seeing before. He removed it, examining the cover: a hooded man melting into darkness, and below him, beautiful script that read: "Master the Darkness, Control the Information, Shape the World."
"This wasn't on the official list," he whispered, his tone taking a new note of gravitas.
Shizuku's gaze followed the road in front of her, her knuckles pale and clenched on the steering wheel. "The Shadow Broker's Association. I left it till last because I didn't know I wanted you to take that path."
"Why?" But even as he questioned her, he could feel the nightstone throb in reaction to the pamphlet, as though sensing a fellow darkness.
"Because it's harmful in a different manner from the others," she whispered. "Not only to your body or mind. but to your soul. Information brokers, spies, assassins—they traffic in secrets and shadows. If you go in that world, it is very hard to come out with your humanity still intact."
She reached across and laid a light hand on his head, smoothing his silver bangs back with motherly care.
"But I believe in you," she whispered. "Whatever you decide—whether you go through fire, shadows, or storm—I'll wait for you on the other side. You're not that broken boy I met along the river anymore. You're strong enough to decide."
Karma gazed out the window at the University, then down at the Shadow Broker pamphlet, with the pressure of choice.
Lastly, he glanced up at Shizuku with a sarcastic grin that possessed both mischief and tenacity.
"Then drive faster, Shizuku. I want to know how deep this rabbit hole goes."