After leaving the cafeteria, Lilith went straight to the Library.
She had made a mental note that morning, before everything else happened, before all of it, to do her research.
And she was not going to let anyone or anything or any amount of chaos distract her from that. At the very least, if she buried herself in a book for a while, it would take her mind off the circumstances slowly closing in around her.
"Good morning, Miss Nan," Lilith greeted the librarian.
Miss Nan was one of the oldest teachers in the school and its most dedicated librarian. She had been here longer than most of the buildings, or so it felt.
"Good morning, Lilith. What topic would you like to research today?"
"I'd like to research Vampires and Witches specifically."
"Oh. What an interesting research topic."
Miss Nan looked at her with an expression that was just slightly too long to be polite.
"Only the Heavens know what is going through that girl's head, With everything going on with her, she wants to research Vampires and Witches. Such a strange child."
Lilith noticed the stare and laughed awkwardly.
"I want to write a Novel about Fantasy creatures. For my Literature project."
"Hm. I see," Miss Nan said, adjusting her glasses.
She retrieved a library access tag from her desk, handed it to Lilith, and gave her directions to the relevant shelf.
"You're quite lucky, actually. We have a specific book dedicated entirely to Vampires and Witches. It should have everything you need for that novel of yours. Large book, Black Cover."
"Thank you, Miss Nan."
"Just doing my job."
Lilith turned and began walking toward the Main Library.
"JUST DOING MY JOB."
"Would it kill her to say 'You're Welcome?' Mean people everywhere."
She found the fantasy section without much trouble and began scanning the shelves. She searched once, then again more carefully. The Book wasn't where Miss Nan had described.
"Is she sure it's here?"
She was about to give up and go back when she finally spotted it, pushed far to the back, nearly hidden behind two thinner volumes. It was enormous.
The cover was plain black and thick with dust, like it hadn't been touched in years. Maybe longer. She pulled a tissue from her bag, wiped it down, and used both arms to carry it to the nearest table.
"Finally."
She opened it.
The first thing she saw, printed on the inside cover in neat, deliberate script, was:
"Curious, aren't you, little one, or is it finally time for you to arrive? I suppose it is."
Lilith stared at it.
"What does this even mean?"
It made no sense. She had no idea how it correlated to Vampires and Witches. She ignored it and turned the page.
She read for a long time.
The book told her that Vampires were not simply undead creatures, they were beings of immense supernatural power, capable of compulsion, transformation, and far more depending on bloodline and age.
In rare cases, they were capable of bonding with a chosen individual entirely against that individual's will.
She stared at that last part a little longer than necessary, then turned the page.
She read about Vampire eyes, how they functioned as a marker of nature and emotional state. Red for bloodlust, aggression, ancient power. Green or emerald for noble and royal bloodline, the deeper the green the older the lineage. Blue linked to something the text called holy power. She kept going.
White: the rarest of all. Seen only in vampires of an age so ancient they had transcended normal vampire nature entirely.
Violet or Purple: associated with vampires who carried witch blood. Considered a mark of contamination by Pure-blooded vampires, a source of deep shame in certain societies and immense power in others.
Silver: extremely rare. Said to appear only in vampires with a supernatural bond or connection to another being. A soulmate. A fated partner. A blood oath. Some texts called it the bonded eye. A vampire with silver eyes was either blessed or cursed, depending on who you asked.
Black: total emotional shutdown. A vampire whose eyes had gone fully black felt nothing, or had chosen to feel nothing. There was no negotiating with a vampire in black. No reasoning. No appealing to anything human left in them.
Gold or amber: a vampire in full control of their power. Associated with restraint, discipline, heightened senses. Elders. Those who had mastered their nature.
She kept flipping until she found what she'd been looking for without quite admitting she was looking for it.
Red: the most common and most feared. Bloodlust. Aggression. A vampire in the grip of its darkest instincts. In ancient vampires, Red was the default when emotions ran high: rage, hunger, grief. A vampire whose eyes were permanently red had either lost control completely or had stopped trying to hold it together. It was also noted that vampires with red as their dominant colour carried a secondary risk: in moments of extreme anger, the eyes could bleed entirely to black.
Emerald or green: noble or royal bloodline. The older and more powerful the lineage, the deeper the green. The rarest natural eye colour among vampires, commanding immediate respect, and sometimes fear, from those of lower rank.
One red. One green.
She thought about the man in the chains.
She read on.
A vampire's physical abilities far exceeded anything human. Their grip strength alone was capable of crushing bone. They moved faster than the eye could track. Their reflexes operated on an entirely different plane.
Lilith touched her neck without thinking about it.
That grip had felt very real for a dream.
She found one more passage before she made herself stop.
In advanced mythological texts, the only true weakness of an ancient vampire is not physical at all , it is emotional. An ancient vampire who forms a bond cannot sever it. It becomes their greatest vulnerability.
She reached for her notepad and pencil. Wrote the first three words. Stopped. Put the pencil down.
She felt slightly ridiculous.
"Alright. I think I've had enough of Vampires for now."
She flipped toward the back half of the book where the section on Witches began.
"What am I even doing," she muttered to herself. "So ridiculous. It's not like any of this is real."
She was very pointedly not thinking about the word he had said.
"WITCH."
She kept reading.
The word itself, she learned, predated most recorded history. In its earliest form it carried no negative meaning. It simply meant one who knows. A keeper of knowledge. A seer. It was only when that knowledge became threatening to those in power that the word was weaponised.
One who knows.
She kind of liked that.
Witch blood was hereditary, passed through generations, though it did not always manifest. A witch could go an entire lifetime without accessing their power, particularly if their lineage had been suppressed or hidden from them.
A witch alone was powerful. A witch within a coven was something else entirely. Covens amplified individual ability , what one witch could do in isolation, three could do tenfold. In rare cases, a Single Witch could exceed even that, powerful enough to need no coven at all. This was why the systematic destruction of covens had been a recurring strategy throughout supernatural history. Isolate the witch. Weaken the witch. Eliminate the witch.
"I wonder what the relationship between Vampires and Witches actually is," Lilith said to herself.
She turned to that section.
The page was torn.
Not accidentally, or at least, it didn't look accidental. It had been removed cleanly, almost deliberately, leaving only a jagged edge and three words at the very top of what remained.
"A Great War…"
And that was all.
Lilith stared at the torn edge for a moment, then kept flipping.
In the rarest of documented cases, a Witch and Vampire have been known to form what ancient texts call a SOUL TETHER , an involuntary supernatural bond that connects two beings across any distance. The soul tether cannot be manufactured or forced. It occurs without warning and without consent. Once formed, both parties are aware of the other's emotional state. Physical pain experienced by one is felt, in diminished form, by the other. The bond grows stronger over time and is considered by most supernatural scholars to be completely irreversible.
Lilith's fingers went still on the page.
Irreversible.
She thought about the way his face had changed the moment their eyes met. Not just rage, something underneath the rage. Something that had looked almost like panic.
She turned the page…looking for the section which talks about;
"What happens if one rejects a SOUL TETHER"
There was a single line at the top.
She read it.
Then she closed the book entirely.
"This is just a waste of time," she said out loud, to nobody.
"Vampires aren't real. I'm definitely not a Witch. My head is just messing with me."
She pressed a hand to her cheek and gave herself a light slap.
"Get up. Go to class."
She stood, carried the book back to its shelf, and slotted it into place. She paused, looking at it for a moment.
At least she'd learned enough that if she ever did write a vampire-witch novel, she'd do it well.
She got back to the Main Library and returned the tag to Miss Nan.
"I hope you enjoyed your Vampire and Witch book," Miss Nan said.
"Bet I did," Lilith replied, and walked out.