Chapter 115: Ch108- Daisy

'Let's be clear, you are not special. You are not clever. You are not even dangerous. You are a relic of someone else's failed plan, and now you are stuck here, begging me to care.'The response came quicker this time, the words snapping across the page.

'I am not begging. You don't understand what I am.'

'No, I understand perfectly. You are a parasite. You latch on, suck people dry, then act like it is their fault for being soft enough to listen. But unlucky for you, I don't bleed that easy.'

The ink twisted violently before spilling into words.

'I am powerful. More than you can imagine. You mock me because you are afraid.'

Cassian snorted. 'Afraid? Of you? You are a notebook. You are about as scary as a damp teabag.'

Bathsheda folded her arms, her gaze fixed on the page. "It is rattled."

"Good. Let's see if it cracks." Cassian scratched out another line.

'If you were half as powerful as you think, Lucius would've kept you. Instead, he chucked you in a bag like week-old leftovers. You are nothing. A sad little voice in an empty room.'

The reply bloomed across the paper in jagged strokes.

'I could unmake you.'

Cassian let out a bark of laughter. "There it is. The toddler tantrum." 

'Do it then. Try. Reach out, grab my mind, curse my fingers. I will wait. No? Didn't think so. You can't touch me, can you? You are chained in your little paper box, howling at the walls.'

The diary trembled under his hand. 

'I am not chained. You will see. You will beg for me.'

'Beg? For you?' Cassian leaned closer, his grin vicious now. 'I've met curses with more charm than you. You are not a god, you are not even a decent hex. You are a sad echo, hoping someone is stupid enough to listen. You found the wrong man.'

The ink erupted across the page,

'I WILL BREAK YOU.'

Cassian shut the diary, wards flaring back around it.

"Temper, temper," he muttered.

Bathsheda raised a brow. "Think you pushed it too far. My turn."

Cassian barked a laugh as he pushed up from the chair. "All yours, love."

An hour later, Bathsheda was in his place. Cassian leaned lazily against the table, arms folded, a grin playing on his face.

"Write this, 'Someone threw you into the toilet, and I fished you out.'"

Bathsheda hesitated only a second, then the quill scratched across the diary's page.

"Hi."

The ink sank into the page. For a long moment, nothing happened. Then neat, careful letters bled out of the parchment,

'Hello. It is lovely to meet you.'

They both frowned, "Does it know I am a different person?"

"Maybe." He tilted his head.

"How is that even possible?"

She shook her head, "Handwriting?" Bathsheda narrowed her eyes. "It always continued like you were the same person. Never paused. Never shifted tone. No matter how many days later you came back. But the moment I wrote something, it acted like a stranger walked in. It started over. Reset its tone. Almost like it knew I wasn't you."

Cassian frowned. "So what changed?"

They sat in silence for a moment, chewing on the idea.

"Could it see us?" he asked finally. "Detect surroundings somehow? That'd be the obvious answer."

"No," Bathsheda said immediately. "Impossible. I was in the room every time you wrote. I watched you write in it. It didn't act like it noticed me."

Cassian clicked his tongue. "So visual cues are out. Could it be magical signature?"

"That was my second thought." She pushed from the table. "But again... I was always near it. If it responded to passive magical presence, it would've clocked me from day one. You also tested with 'we.'"

"Unless," he said, slowly now, "it only reads the one writing. Maybe that's how it connects. Not just ink. Contact. Intent."

"That would make sense," she murmured. "It doesn't just read the words, it nudges against the mind. Could it tell who you were based on your thoughts, then?" Bathsheda asked, her voice sharper now. "Not just magical signature. More like... the flavour of your intent."

Cassian's brow furrowed. "That's dangerously close to legilimency."

"Not full legilimency. It's too crude. But maybe a rudimentary form of mind-brushing. Passive empathy, or identification through intent anchoring. The way some cursed objects only trigger if you're actively angry, or curious."

"So when I wrote, it always felt that same... anchor."

She nodded. "It learned you. Or thought it had. But the moment I took over, different touch, different intent, different magic, it tripped something."

They stared down at the page again.

Cassian added softly, "Which means it can tell. Not just who is writing... but what kind of person they are."

Bathsheda's hand hovered over the diary. "That makes it more than sentient. That makes it adaptive."

"And worse," Cassian said, grim now, "it means it's been learning me this entire time." s to it because it got clever with a memory charm."

Not a Spoiler, Just an image! ↓

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Author Rant ↓ 

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Sometimes I imagine you nodding. It helps. Barely.

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