"Twitches? How is that?" I asked, concern slipping into my voice.
The witch moved one hand—still clutching her cloak with the other—and covered her face with it. A green flame emerged there. No heat came off it.
Slowly, the fire spread from her face over her whole body. Her eyes softened, her deer ears stilled, and her shoulders eased. The blush on her cheeks faded, and her expression grew calmer and calmer.
'She's burning with the Sigil'
After a couple more seconds, she curled her fingers as if to grab something from her face. If there was anything there, I couldn't tell; I only knew she was pulling.
[Your Adversity has been pushed back by the Witch of Chaos]
[Your Adversity couldn't merge with Chaos]
[Your Adversity twists in the absence of its twin]
For a moment, the brief silence felt heavy. I couldn't look away from the transparent notifications popping up, giving me more headaches than answers. The sudden tremors shivering through the tavern didn't help, either.
Only when the shaking stopped and Agatha's flame disappeared did she finally speak.
"Twitches—or twin witches. It's a term we use when two witches follow the same school of magic. But in our case…" She looked me over from head to toe. "We're Twitches because of our True Names." She stood up, reached into the ornate black box and picked up the book.
The instant the book left the Nexus, the tavern‑like space warped into a different room: a bedchamber, similar to Violet's, but at the same time different.
There were also bookshelves. Violet had three, but Agatha's library covered the whole wall. There was a fireplace too, except its flame was green instead of purple. Where Violet's massive bed should have been, there was only a simple double bed with sophisticated blankets patterned in living vines and leaves. A writing desk with a luxurious chair mirrored Violet's, and on it lay a green book, open.
Agatha went to the window and drew the black‑cyan curtains. She snapped her fingers; the chamber's lights died, only the light of the fireplace remained.
She shelved the red book, the one from the Nexus, then closed the green one at the desk and sank onto a couch facing the fire.
She motioned for me to sit.
I did.
"So… what does that mean?" I asked, not really sure what to say about what had just happened.
She pointed at the fireplace and snapped her fingers.
The green flame pulled together into the silhouette of a woman—hourglass figure, long hair, no face. It reminded me of Violet.
"I'm sure Vivi—Violet told you the coven is like a family," Agatha said. "That's correct, but when we say it, we mean it. It's not a metaphor. It's almost literal."
"Free individuals who bond for life. That's… what she said," I murmured.
"Correct. And as a family, there are roles. We protect and help each other; the elder witches pass down knowledge and guide the next generations; eventually the young become the elders. That's the coven's purpose: to build a family bound without blood, so we persevere."
"That's also why we call a witch without a coven an orphan," she added.
I nodded, a little numb. Something in that last line tugged on me. For an instant I thought I saw a face in the fire—a man's face—but the features were too warped to read. His mouth moved, but no sound came out. I couldn't catch the words.
If he was even saying anything at all.
Agatha must have noticed me drifting, since she patted my shoulder.
"Uh!" I flinched and glanced at her.
"Pay attention," she said, suddenly serious. I quickly turned back to the fire. The face was gone.
"What? I swear I saw something," I muttered.
Before I could process it, Agatha went on.
"As I was saying: the coven doesn't discriminate by origin or species. As you've probably noticed, I'm not exactly human. I'm not from Earth. Violet is, and we're still family. Our mothers were sisters, so we're cousins."
"Following the family hierarchy, Violet is your mother—she's the one who brought you into the coven," she added.
The word mother snapped my attention back. A tingle ran through me; warmth crept into my cheeks. Something about that sentence made me feel… weird.
A new notification blinked at the edge of my vision.
[You are being affected by your Flaw: Minor Kink — Mommy Kink]
'Figures.'
Agatha arched a brow and smiled.
"Well… in theory you'd be my niece. But…" She drew a long breath and covered her face with both hands, taking her time.
"In reality… we're twins. You're my sister and… to be precise, I think you're the older one," she said, voice muffled.
"What?" I blurted.
She quickly dropped her hands and looked at me. The green flame was again covering her body.
"Yeah, I know how it sounds! Just—bear with me, all right? Let me explain." She gestured, and the flame of the fireplace shifted into ten distinct shapes.
A shield; a door with a five-point star inset; a stylized eye, Egyptian‑looking; a heart; an eight‑pointed star; a veiled crescent; a skull; a circle filled with geometric lattices; a point with bigger points orbiting it; and an hourglass.
"There are ten schools of magic—fields of study, if that's easier for you—with which we describe reality. Not just witchcraft; even divinity fits this classification," she said, and as she named them the figures pulsed in turn: "Abjuration, Conjuration, Divination, Charms, Evocation, Illusion, Necromancy, Transmutation, Graviturgy, and Chronomancy."
My eyes fixed on the stylized eye. I glanced down at my palm—at the Legemens symbol there. They were identical.
As I brushed my thumb across the mark, Agatha continued:
"Usually, you specialize in one school at a time, based on personality and affinity. Or, if you have one, your True Name." She snapped again; the fire shaped two feminine silhouettes—one with deer antlers and deer ears, the other tall with long hair.
It was us.
"Why the antlers? Didn't you lose th—" She cleared her throat loudly.
"Normally, even if you followed my path, studied every school I did, even mastered them—you'd still be my niece, because of seniority."
"So, we're twins… because of our True Names?" I asked.
"Yes. Very few people have True Names. So we also have to take that into consideration at the moment to decide the hierarchy," she said. Her fingers steepled; her deer ears drooped a little.
"Ugh. I don't get it. Why does this matter?"
Agatha's mouth thinned a bit. The fire shifted itself into a house.
"Because that's the coven's point. Families work because roles are clear. Even I understand we need that order," said the Witch of Chaos.
"Look—this isn't just social dynamics. It also means you have the talent to specialize in the same schools I did. You can inherit all of me," she added.
"Because of the name thing?"
She sighed.
"Listen, Leo. True Names aren't light things. Having one binds us to the concept. It shapes your identity. We can't ignore it."
"Great. So my identity is 'suffer forever.' Amazing. Let me guess—I'm talented at something that makes my body explode," I scoffed.
Agatha shook her head and slid closer on the couch. She took my hand, looked into my eyes. A heatless green fire covered her.
"It's not that simple. Remember I told you I was training? I'm not just playing the villain by replaying old stories. Violet and I don't have more spells to learn. We chose our paths. We mastered them. What's left is to master our True Names.
"We're witches—we're free. Yes, our Names bind us to concepts; yes, our personalities are influenced by them. But we define what we are. There's a proverb in our coven—"
"'Through my magic, the impossible bends to possible,'" she said.
"'My magic makes the impossible possible.' Yeah, I know the saying," I said at the same time.
She stopped and gave me a tired smile. This time her green flame unspooled and wrapped around me. On my side, it became purple. And for the first time, the Sigil's flame gave off warmth.
"Did you know Vivi loves people? I mean it. She loves people. Ten minutes without talking to someone drives her up a wall. It's her nature; it's what she enjoys."
"And still, she chose isolation in her domain; to control Joy. The last time I saw her was a couple of centuries ago. She was crying. She was having second thoughts," Agatha said, smiling softly.
"She locked herself in her book?" I asked, voice softer, too.
The image of Violet throwing a tantrum made my heart skip. Picturing her doing something so out of character gave me a little thrill—but not a bad one.
"Yes. Like I did. I don't revisit old stories just because they're entertaining, though I won't deny I enjoy them. But I do it because that's the way I found to understand Chaos better. I play the Villain Witch; I've also been a killer, a monster, a star, a storm, a plague, a planet."
"But I don't let it control me. I experience Chaos in different shapes, in different scenarios, in all the possibilities. So at the moment of greatest entropy—when chaos reigns—I bring order to it," Agatha said.
"How?" I asked.
"I let them win. I let the heroes win," she said, pointing at my face, smiling.
"Listen, I know it's hard to grasp. That's why I didn't want to get too deep into it, but I couldn't ignore it now that our True Names are linked." She paused.
"Do you understand, Sis?" Her expression warmed; her deer ears twitched and her smile increased.
I shuddered a little at the mention of the word 'Sis'. I was always an only child—not counting I was a man a few days ago. So that word, directed at me, made my head ache for a moment, before the pain disappeared almost instantly.
I glanced sideways at the purple and green flame that had now formed between Agatha and me. Then I looked into the witch's eyes, and in their reflection I saw my face. There I noticed that my right eye turned purple, the left one kept my original color; green.
The only difference was that it was glowing a bit.
'Well, I guess it's not that bad'
[Your understanding of the coven has increased]
[Your understanding of true name has increased]
[Your class has evolved from Novice Witch to Apprentice Witch]
[Apprentice Witch]
With your coven position solidified, you have achieved a better understanding of your place in the world, and how the universe works. This expanded reality makes Witchcraft easier to learn.
The amount of Essentia you produce with the Sigil has increased.
The amount of Essentia you expend for your spells has decreased.
You can read and understand basic Aparani.
The spell Sigil has evolved
***