After a quick tidy-up of the storage room, Maurice scooped up his cat and returned to the dormitory.
Scott's bunk was empty. The boy was likely out wandering the streets or causing trouble somewhere.
This suited Maurice perfectly. With a casual flick of his wrist, he deposited the black cat directly onto his roommate's pillow.
Scott, in his infinite generosity, surely would not mind a few charcoal-black paw prints stamped across his linens.
Watching the black cat happily knead the borrowed sheets, Maurice closed his eyes and focused inward.
Grimoire of the Magi.
In the next second, the phantom image of a book drifted into his mind's eye.
The cover was a deep, swirling darkness that seemed crafted from some indescribable substance, embroidered with threads of weaving starlight. It was imposing, ancient, and unmistakably magical.
But aesthetics were the least of his concerns.
With a mental nudge, the book fell open to a specific page.
[Undead Creature Transformation Array]
This was the title of the page, the very same magic circle Maurice had successfully executed in the storage room moments earlier.
"So," Maurice thought, feeling a wave of relief wash through him. "It was not a hallucination after all."
He opened his eyes, finally accepting reality.
Thank god. He was not a paranoid schizophrenic.
For the past few days, Maurice had feared that his mind had finally snapped. The strange spectral book had appeared out of nowhere. It felt real. He could summon it, read it, and flip its pages at will, exactly as if it were a physical object.
Most of the contents, however, were locked behind some invisible barrier. At first he could only read the opening pages, but more had slowly revealed themselves with time.
The Undead Creature Transformation Array, for instance, had appeared only the night before.
There was, however, one troubling detail. Despite the grand title Grimoire of the Magi, every unlocked page so far dealt with necromancy, curses, and the dark arts.
A normal person suddenly gifted with such ominous powers might feel a sense of moral dread.
Maurice could not care less.
If fate wanted to hand him a special ability, he was not going to return it. Besides, given his current station in life, an orphan with no resources, trying to uncover the origins of this mysterious tome was pointless.
With his internal crisis resolved, Maurice climbed onto Scott's bed and sprawled out with his undead familiar. The sensation coming from the animal was a familiar cadaverous chill, oddly soothing in its own grotesque way.
July thirty first.
A week had passed since Maurice received his letter from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
It was a stifling afternoon. Maurice was in the orphanage courtyard engaged in the thrilling activity of weeding.
Due to years of neglect, the yard had become a jungle. Weeds had grown tall and arrogant, swallowing the stone paths until there was barely anywhere to step. Her Majesty's government, in its boundless wisdom, saw no reason to spend pounds sterling on landscaping for unwanted children.
Naturally, the orphans were drafted as free labour.
Maurice did not object. It was better than staring at the peeling wallpaper inside.
Unfortunately, the workforce was vanishing rapidly. Half the children had disappeared the moment the caretakers turned away. The remaining few were practicing the ancient art of looking busy while doing nothing, or simply fooling around.
It was a fairly accurate portrait of the orphanage's population.
A hopeless lot.
As Maurice had noted before, almost every child who ended up here had some sort of personality defect. This was not him judging them. It was simple cause and effect. The environment was a toxic dye vat and the children were the cloth being stained.
Fortunately, Maurice had the mental fortitude of an adult from his previous life, which helped him resist the warping effects of this dreary place.
The two caretakers on duty did not seem to care either. They patrolled with the enthusiasm of sloths, occasionally shouting half hearted instructions. At their current pace, the weeding might be finished by Christmas.
Seeing this, Maurice joined the slackers without hesitation.
Of course, while he appeared to be staring blankly at a patch of dandelions, his mind was hard at work. He was flipping through the Grimoire in his head, studying.
To anyone watching, he was daydreaming. In reality, he was multitasking. A necessary skill for any employee, or in this case, a wizard in training.
For the past week he had been attempting to learn a spell called the Weakening Curse.
Magic, as he was discovering, was far more demanding than he had anticipated.
The key to the spell lay in something the Grimoire called Construction.
While incantations and wand movements were necessary, the book implied they were more like training wheels. The real core of the spell lay in manipulating mental energy.
Simply put, one had to construct a complex and precise energy structure, a spell model, within the mind. Once the model existed, magic would flow through it and manifest outward.
Maurice rubbed his forehead. The theory was clear enough. The execution was misery. Even the slightest disturbance during construction caused the entire model to collapse.
He had attempted it hundreds of times.
Success rate? Once.
Yes, exactly once.
Maurice had always considered himself focused, so the results were destroying his confidence.
Just as he was brooding over his incompetence, a voice cut in.
"Oi, Maurice. Is that your cat?"
It was Scott. Maurice looked up and followed his pointing finger.
There, perched atop a crumbling bit of brick wall, was his undead cat. It was baring its teeth, locked in a tense standoff with a massive, battle scarred tabby that was infamous for its atrocious temperament.
A fight? Maurice felt a spark of interest.
The undead cat narrowed its eyes. Its pupils contracted into razor thin slits.
'Hah', Maurice thought. 'That creature is now a domestic familiar imbued with dark magic. Does a mere stray dare to challenge it? Its master has granted it supernatural power.'
As if hearing his thoughts, the undead cat arched its back. Its black fur bristled like a field of needles. With a sudden burst from its hind legs, it launched itself like a black arrow toward the tabby.
And then...
SMACK.
The tabby delivered a single, uninterested slap, knocking the undead cat clean off the wall.
"..."
"Your cat is pathetic," Scott observed, crossing his arms and shaking his head.
Maurice stared as his supernatural minion rolled in the dirt, mewling pitifully. An overpowering urge to deny ownership washed over him.
'You are an undead creature', Maurice screamed internally. 'You may not win against a seasoned stray, but at least show some dignity.'
"I suspect it is simply a stray that resembles mine," Maurice said, turning away with a blank face.
"?!?"
The undead cat, apparently understanding its master's betrayal, froze mid whine. Then it shot across the yard, scrambled up Maurice's trouser leg, and buried itself in his arms.
It rubbed its head against his chest, purring loudly.
Scott's mouth twitched. "Right. A stray. It seems to like you quite a lot. You called it Tin, didn't you?"
"Yes," Maurice sighed, abandoning the lie.
Tin. A name chosen to memorialise a tin of fruit preserves that the cat had knocked over and ruined two months earlier.
Incidentally, Maurice had performed preservation rituals from the Undead Creature Preservation Guide on the cat. So in a way, the name was literally accurate. It was preserved meat.
"Mr. Black, I will remind you again," a caretaker loomed over them, his voice dry and stern. "Pets are prohibited in this establishment."
"Understood, sir. But this is only a stray I was shooing away," Maurice replied with his most obedient expression. He tossed Tin aside.
The cat, suddenly agile enough to rival a gymnast, vanished behind the wall in a blur.
The caretaker nodded, seemingly satisfied, and walked off.
Maurice had mastered the art of dealing with orphanage staff. As long as one remained polite, silent, and submissive, they rarely bothered to cause trouble.