Chương 51: Faux Tyrant

It took nearly a full week for everything to finally arrive. For all Steward Dalwin's dramatic urgency regarding the importance of curtains, benches, and decorative tapestries, actual logistics moved at the same pace they always did: slowly, inefficiently, and full of bureaucracy. During that time, Lira intentionally kept a low profile. After the visit from Court Mage Edward Emberborn had concluded without disaster, she resisted the powerful temptation to immediately celebrate by casting every spell she knew.

She focused on maintaining the first floor of the library, dusting shelves, reorganizing minor sections, and ensuring the newly polished tables remained free of scratches and stains. The upper floors also received minimal attention. Though not enough to be called real progress, she still had appearances to maintain. She also took a day off to meet with Pallan and do some shopping. As the days passed and no royal guards arrived to arrest her for magical misconduct, Lira gradually allowed herself to relax.

Perhaps she had truly worried for nothing, or perhaps, more accurately, she had worried an appropriate amount, and her paranoia had saved her from catastrophe. Either way, the result was the same. Her confidence with magic began to slowly return. At first, she limited herself to harmless things. A simple cleaning spell on a particularly filthy book. The occasional absorption spell when encountering something genuinely useful. Small divinations when interesting questions arose.

Still, each successful casting made her a little bolder. By the end of the week, she was rearranging shelves wholesale to her exacting criteria, the same way she did the history section. Because why work hard when you can work magically? Hesta, meanwhile, continued contributing to the library project in her own uniquely malicious fashion. She sent Lira two maids "for punishment duty." Their names were Dira and Juliet. Lira had no idea what they had done to earn Hesta's displeasure, but she didn't care.

After greeting them both, she asked, "Are you aware why you are here?" Dira opened her mouth to say something, but was interrupted by Lira.

"That was a rhetorical question. You are here because Hesta wants you to suffer."

"I, on the other hand, don't care if you suffer or not. What I do care about is keeping Hesta off my back, so you have to look like you have suffered," she added. The upper floors contained an effectively infinite amount of dust. If one scraped enough filth from corners, shelves, windowsills, abandoned furniture, and forgotten corridors, it was entirely possible to fill multiple sacks. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

So that was exactly what she had them do.

"Each one of you fills a sack. Once you are done, come back to the main floor and do some normal work. Hesta will always show up an hour before the dinner bell to check on you."

"When that time comes, you will drop everything you are doing and carry those sacks out to the dumping ground." The girls frowned at the convoluted orders.

"When dealing with Hesta, you have to look miserable in front of her. You do not have to be miserable. Remember that." Their eyes widened in realization. Lira couldn't believe she was teaching maids how to sandbag their punishment duty… literally. It reminded her of her earlier days in the library, back when it had still been viewed as a punishment assignment, and she, too, had been dodging Hesta's notice.

By the time Hesta eventually appeared for inspection, the girls looked like they were dragging dirt bags down flights of stairs with expressions of deep discomfort.

"Lift with your legs," Lira shouted at them while watching their struggle to carry their sacks.

"You will ruin your backs carrying dirt like that." Hesta looked deeply satisfied and gave Lira a nod before leaving. Dira and Juliet burst into giggles once she was gone.

"Remember, if anyone asks, I was worse than Hesta."

"Of course, Lira." The curtains were installed first. Soft fabric in pale cream, almost white, framed the tall windows, immediately making the reading space feel warmer and more welcoming. The maids helped with the installation, which made Lira grateful for their presence and almost grateful to Hesta for sending them, even if their company made casting magic inconvenient. Then came the benches, cushioned, upholstered, and exactly as impractical as Dalwin had envisioned.

They were strategically placed by the footmen between shelves and along walls, creating small, semi-private seating areas. The replacement tapestries also arrived. These were significantly better than the originals, with blue colors depicting the ocean, the sky, and ships sailing across stylized waves. Lira instructed the staff to leave them folded.

"Not yet," she said.

"I might need to do a few rearrangements." No one questioned her, which was satisfying in its own right. She had actual authority when it came to the library. She could hardly believe it. That night, once the library was empty again, Lira locked the doors and got to work. Her alcove had remained sealed ever since she removed the original tapestries. That was no longer sustainable. Now that the library was becoming increasingly active, she needed her hidden workspace again.

Which meant she needed to rearrange the shelves again. It was not as difficult as last time since she only needed to move two shelves, but still, emptying them and then dragging them inch by inch across the stone was exhausting work. Eventually, she managed to reconstruct the concealment layout. This time, however, she improved upon the previous design. Rather than relying solely on a tapestry to hide the alcove entrance, she constructed an additional false panel behind it.

Using a narrow wooden plank from a broken table, she built a movable section designed to mimic the solidity of a wall. From the outside, if someone touched the tapestry, they would no longer immediately discover the hollow entrance. It was crude, but functional. To access the alcove, Lira merely needed to slide the panel aside from behind the tapestry. She tested it several times, making sure it worked from both the inside and outside.

By the time she was done, her alcove was operational again and significantly less vulnerable to unexpected intrusion. Lira stood in the center of her reclaimed little sanctuary and allowed herself a small smile. Now she could finally return to what actually mattered: magic. More specifically, runic magic. Her encounter with Edward had only intensified her curiosity. The heating plates he made had left her wanting to experiment with the discipline even more.

Armed with the primer that contained the runic ignition spell and her father's lexicon, Lira's next goal was clear. She needed to understand how words became magic.