Author's Note: Hey guys! Long time no see. I know, I know, I should be working on my five million other stories, rather than starting another new one. But I promise I'll be getting back to the others soon. I haven't forgotten them, I just can't get this one out of my head and I really wanted to share it with you all! Chapter 2 is almost complete, and should be posted over the next day or two.

I can't even express how excited I am about this one. I hope you guys will like it, too! Happy Halloween!

Chapter One: The Skeleton in the Book

Tristan Kells was on the path to becoming the Stavos Magical Institute's top student. From an affluent magical family, he was naturally gifted in production magic. Handsome and wealthy, he was popular among his fellow students. Kind-hearted and charming, he was well liked by every professor. This rare combination of traits ensured his admittance into the advanced classes, despite his young age—such as Control and Wielding, which was currently meeting in Training Room C on the fourth floor of Echo Hall.

Tristan Kells was also dumber than a box of rocks.

Myrand stifled a sigh, kneeling on the ground with a towel and mopping up the puddle of blood on the floor of Training Room C. Tristan had been injured by his own backfiring spell, attempting to impress his fellow classmates with something far more advanced than anything he could yet handle. From the smell and the lingering static in the air, Myrand guessed he had been playing with lightning; and now she was stuck cleaning up his mistake before the blood stained the pearly white stone floor.

"Now, then," Professor Lehman droned from the opposite side of the room, where the class had relocated after Tristan's accident, "let us review. Who can explain to me the difference between manipulation and production magic?"

With a roll of her eyes, Myrand tossed the ruined towel aside and fished her brush out of the clean bucket. She could have answered that question as a child, before she ever came to attend the Institute. After a few fumbling attempts at answers, Baric Pith finally spoke up. "Manipulation magic uses natural forces to effect people and objects, and production magic creates objects."

"Very good, Baric," Lehman praised. "Production is creation ex nihilo. What does ex nihilo mean?"

"Out of nothing," Myrand breathed, too softly to be heard over the sound of her brush scrubbing away at the stone.

Several moments later, Kathryne Spint repeated, "Out of nothing?"

"Exactly right, Kathryne. Exactly right. And who can explain why manipulation is more difficult than production?"

Myrand glanced up at the group of students and their professor, seated in a circle atop a nest of pillows and cushions. She sighed at the blank looks on their faces. Box-of-rocks Tristan Kells was too busy cradling his healing arm to answer, though she had covered this exact question with him just days ago. She flicked a drop of water, watching it soar across the room and land right in his eye. His head shot up and he whipped around before finally spotting her. She wondered if he had even known she was in here.

She pulled a face, trying to get him to remember their lesson.

"Uh, professor? Like, production is easy 'cause it's reliant on yourself? But then manipulation is, like… Like, it's like trying to get someone to do you a favor, but they don't wanna do it."

"Excellent analogy, Tristan! Truly stellar. Now then, let's practice some more, erm, guided manipulation. Let's see…what can we use..?"

Tristan leaned back on his cushion and winked at Myrand with a roguish grin. She rolled her eyes and looked back down at the ground, scrubbing away the last of the blood.

"Oh, excellent! Maid! Oh, maid!"

She snapped her head up, surprised to be addressed by Professor Lehman. She scrambled to her feet, head bowed and hands clasped together. "How may I aid you, professor?"

"We have need of water. Are you finished with your bucket there, or must I ask you to fetch another?"

"I-I am done here, professor."

"Wonderful, child. Bring it here," he ordered, and she obeyed, heaving up the heavy oaken bucket and awkwardly carrying it to the group, setting it down beside the stout, old, bearded man. Then she scurried away, snatching up the brush and bloodied towels. She tried to make a clean getaway, but her boot slid on the wet stone and she fell. Slowly and carefully, she got back to her feet and left Training Room C, ignoring the laughs and snickers that followed her out.

Myrand made a hasty retreat to the nearest library, where she had been cleaning until she received Professor Lehman's summons. She felt the room, looking over the magical seals and enchantments that coated the walls and floor, making sure no one had entered since she'd left. When she knew she was alone, she lit the bloody towels on fire, burning them to ash.

"…Or must I ask you to fetch another?" she mocked, imitating Lehman. "Old coot could have magicked the bucket over himself, instead of making me carry it." With a wave of her hand, she set her cleaning supplies to work on their own, scrubbing floors and washing windows and dusting the endless shelves. "Then again, if that's the way he teaches wielding, he probably can't have lifted that bucket…"

She ran a hand through her short black hair with a sigh, heading up the main stairway to the second floor of the library and returning to her seat in the back, tucked behind the shelves. "He could at least have thanked me, though," she muttered, clutching her favorite book to her chest.

Echo Hall contained the smallest of the Institute's libraries; it was not staffed, it was rarely used, and people almost never entered while she was cleaning. The enchantments she used to clean the room would break the moment someone crossed the threshold, keeping any wandering initiates from catching a maid using such advanced spells.

High-class families were fond of having magically-gifted servants in their employ; it was a status symbol more than anything, and the servants were rarely educated to the extent of being able to wield their magic to aid in their tasks. There was always the risk of magical servants rebelling violently to any mistreatment; stories of such episodes were abundant in the city-state of Stavos. Thus, the best magical servants came from the Stavos Magical Institute, where along with learning the skills and tasks necessary to keep a household clean and healthy, they were also taught to control and suppress their magic, to keep it from overpowering them during fits of rage.

Servants were not permitted to attend regular classes, instead receiving specialized education once a month, or whenever a kindly professor chose to take time out of his or her schedule to teach them. There must be a shortage of kindly professors these days; in all her years at the Institute, Myrand had only seen this happen twice.

Very shortly after being thrust into servitude at the Institute, Myrand had taken her education into her own hands, sneaking into this very library late at night, reading about magical theory and practicing spells whenever she had the chance. In a matter of months, she had mastered cleaning spells, which she utilized whenever no one else was around. And her work was always excellent, with or without magic, so she required no supervision.

For the past three years, this library had always been assigned to her. No one else could clean the sprawling maze of bookshelves faster or more thoroughly on their own. And for three years, she had never been caught using magic to do so. She could sit back, further her education, and have some time to herself. It was her favorite part of the day.

She continued to read books on magic most days, even though she had long since learned all that this library had to teach her. But it had been a long week and an even longer day, and all she wanted was to curl up here in her favorite chair with her favorite book; so she did.

She flipped through the well-worn pages, knowing it had been her own fingers that created every crease and every smudge. The text had been in pristine condition when she first picked it up, an aged volume describing the mythos of the pantheon of the ancient inhabitants of the Denaire continent.

And his picture was in it.

Just as she flipped to his picture, she felt her magic give out and heard the library doors open. She jumped to her feet, calling a feather duster to her hand and pretending to be dusting the shelves.

"Randy! Hey, Randy! You in here?"

She sighed, dropping her arm to her side. Should have known it was him… She hurried to the stairs, leaning over the railing to make sure that Tristan was alone. "What do you want, Kells?"

He looked up with big, brown eyes, holding up his injured arm. "Can you heal this for me, Rand?"

She laughed, skipping down the steps to him. "Let me see it." She took his arm in her hands, examining the pink, puckered skin and the awkward angle at which he held it. "Damn, who treated this?"

"Lehman."

"Tsk. That old fool. You're lucky not to have lost the arm."

"Yeah, well, he had some choice words to say about you, too. You and your oh-so-graceful exit."

Myrand frowned. "I'm sorry, did you say you wanted me to heal this arm, or amputate it?"

"Hey, c'mon Rand, don't be like that! You wouldn't do that…would you?"

She shrugged, turning and heading back up the stairs.

"Hey, are you gonna heal me or not?"

"It's already healed!" she called over her shoulder, not needing to see his face to recognize his surprise.

"Whoa! Thanks, Randy! You're the best, you know that?" He jogged up the stairs after her. "Hey, could you actually amputate an arm if you wanted?"

She smirked, waving a hand to set everything back to cleaning. "If I did, you'd still be better off than with Lehman."

He laughed. "You're alright, Randy. It's too bad you're just a maid, really. You're better than most of our professors."

She forced a smile, knowing he meant it as a compliment. "Thanks. I'll see you around, Kells."

He grinned and turned to go. "Yeah, sure. Hey, speaking of which, are you going to the dance this weekend?"

"Ugh. I don't know…" she groaned.

"Oh, come on! You never go to any of the dances! And it's just the Hallow's Eve dance; you're so morbid and broody, you'd fit right in!"

She laughed at that. "Well, you have a point there! Okay, I'll think about it. Who knows? It might even be fun."

He pumped his fist, triumphant. "Great, Randy! I'll see you there!" He turned and headed down the stairs, but she called out and stopped him.

"I'll go on one condition, Kells: that you don't mess with any more lightning! I don't have many friends, and I'd prefer not to mop any more of their blood off the floor. Just because I can wield it, doesn't mean that you can."

"Alright, it's a deal!" he called back with a sheepish grin. "It's just… You just make it look so easy!"

She waved him off, relaxing once the library doors closed behind him. There was still nearly an hour left before she would be expected to have finished cleaning here, so she snatched up the book and flipped back to the page, his picture.

It wasn't exactly as she knew him. She ran her finger over the line she had scribbled in, years ago, to make his teeth jagged, sharp, and pointed; and she had inked in to show the bright blue light that shone from his eye sockets. Other than that, the grinning skeleton in a black robe, sword held tight by claw-like finger bones, with a pair of huge, black, feathered wings sprouting from his back… It was just as she remembered him.

The book named him Thanatos. She knew him simply as Death.

"Where are you?" she murmured to the image, as though he could hear her. "I miss you so."

The wind howled past the window behind her, and she jumped and whirled to look. The way the purple and gold curtains billowed toward her reminded her of his deep black cape, blowing in the wind. She smiled softly, running her fingers over the picture of the skeleton in her book.

When she had first come to the Institute, they had put her through intensive counseling, along with her new duties as a maid, to purge her of the silly notion that she could see and speak with Death. After four months, they had her convinced of her own insanity, though her sessions continued through the rest of the year. She had managed to forget him and suppress the memories, until she found this book two years ago, and everything came rushing back. It was nearly impossible now to tell what of her memories was real, and what had been imagined. As they had taught her, she usually told herself it was all imaginary.

But sometimes she would see things, like shapes in billowing curtains, or two shining blue lights from the darkest corner of the room; or she would hear her name whispered late at night, when everyone was sleeping. Then she would loosen her grip on the rigid structure of reality her counselors had constructed for her, and immerse herself in the possibility that maybe—just maybe—he was real. And maybe he missed her, too.

Dirges and laments reminded her of him, and she had learned as many of them that she could, to sing in the hope that he might hear her and finally reveal himself after all these years. She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes and sang her favorite, The Dirge of Saint Aron, as the wind howled along and the curtains moved and swayed.

She failed to notice that the window was closed, and there was no draft to sway them.