Chapter Text
Profound
adjective.
- Having or possessing great knowledge or insight.
- A depth not only measurable by intellect, but by burden.
Necromancy, contrary to public horror and whispered myth, was no different from any other magic—no more strange than divination or conjuring, no darker than weatherwork or charm-making. It was, like anything of value, a learned trade. It had regulations, rules, and rites. It had laws.
The laws were simple:
Do not turn the unwilling.
Explain the process in full.
Take responsibility for the dead.
It was clinical. Detached. No fangs. No forbidden thrill. Just scalpel and stitch, ether and silence.
For Phanora Kristoffel, it was as natural as breathing. She didn’t think when she brought the needle through skin, when she stitched the body back together. It was rhythm, not rapture.
Fix what was broken.
Mend what was torn.
Perform the rites.
Maintain the soul.
Her foremothers had done the same. Witches before her—Profound Witches—descended from the coven that etched life and death into law. They didn’t haunt crypts or dance beneath moons. They wrote policy. They kept records.
Phanora had spent her childhood with embroidery hoops and anatomy books. Her stitches, whether through velvet or flesh, were immaculate. If necromancy ever lost its shine, she could’ve made a small fortune in lace.
Before she touched a corpse, she’d spent years practicing on linens, clothes, dolls with ruined seams. When she was twelve, her mentor let her touch her first creature.
It had been a cat. Tied in a bag, tossed into a pond.
Children, probably. Or men who drank too much and still had too little.
It was raining that day. Steady. Invasive. Everything was soaked.
The cat had been laid out on the slab, bloated and still. Phanora, small in her gloves and white smock, stood before the tools. She listed them aloud as she always did:
“Mayo scissors. Suture edge. Metzenbaum one and two. Forceps—one, two, three, four.”
They were arranged in use order, lightest to heaviest. Beside her, the tanks hummed—clean blood and sterile fluid waiting for transfusion.
Less blood in necromancy than surgery, depending on the time of death. Still, trocars and cannulas were always prepped. Fluids could surprise you. Death had no manners.
She drained the lungs. Flushed the abdomen. Hooked the cat to the system and began transfusion.
And then—came the hard part. The soul.
Some souls ran. Some screamed. Others came quietly.
It was always the worst part. The calling.
To resurrect a person fully—with free will, cognition, and memory—was the height of the craft. A full-body, soul-bound return.
One in a thousand mages could do it.
It took energy. Time. Magic so thick it left scars. And most didn’t bother. Because why create a real person when you could have a worker?
Semi-autos were easier. You planted a command and the body executed it, single-minded. Shoemakers. Sailors. Guards. They walked, they worked, and when they broke, you tossed them.
Then there were manuals. Controlled directly, the soul puppeted like string. Lifeless, except for what you fed them.
Phanora despised both.
She could raise thousands if she wanted. But she didn’t.
Only the willing.
Only those who understood.
Only what she needed.
Resurrection wasn’t escape from death. It was a theft. A rupture in the cycle. When a soul was torn from its rest, it didn’t go back to life—it went somewhere else. And when the magic failed?
It didn’t go forward. It didn’t go back.
It went nowhere.
Not even hell.
Just void.
A cavernous, unending silence.
That was the price. That was what people never understood.
And worse—there were those who didn’t care.
They trafficked the dead.
Used debt to buy bodies.
Raised strays—unwilling, screaming corpses.
These strays rotted alive, minds caged in meat, magic binding them tight while they howled silently.
Most of those who raised them were eventually killed by their own creations.
Phanora had no pity for such casters.
But the strays—
Yes. Her heart, if witches had such things, ached for them.
That was why she joined the Order of Magical Resonance.
Magia, pro magica, et magicis.
By magic, for magic, and of magic.
The Order worked in shadows. Outside local law. Inside necessity. They cleaned what others feared. Restored balance where power tilted too far.
And when undead were involved, they sent her.
Her—and Johan.
She sat by the fire, cardigan draped over her shoulders, a book on burn wound treatment in her lap. The hearth crackled softly, her tea steaming beside her.
“Come in, Johan,” she said before he could knock.
He entered with messy curls and sleep in his one visible eye. Suspenders hung from his hips, shirt wrinkled. In his hand—a letter sealed in wax.
All correspondences from the Order of Magical Resonance came in sealed envelopes delivered by familiars—small creatures bound by spells potent enough to self-destruct, should the wrong hands dare to interfere.
It was a rare occurrence. But when it did happen, the Order wasted no time uncovering the who, what, when, and why.
Despite the public-facing mission of preserving magical stability and working in tandem with local enforcement, the Order’s first loyalty was always to itself. Its secrets were sacred. Its inner workings, sealed tighter than any warded envelope.
Contact spells. Blood-bound pacts. Names buried behind layers of sigils and ciphered communication. Even most members weren’t sure who else was on the payroll. What they knew was limited—need-to-know referrals, whispers passed from one mission to the next. Only the upper echelon of mages saw more.
Phanora and Johan had encountered some of them. Occasionally, there was a summons from the infamous crow mage, Ashaf—and wherever Ashaf was, his... companion wasn’t far behind.
It had been a distastefully chilly day, the kind where Phanora’s breath lingered in puffs and the cold bit into bone. She didn’t complain, but Johan, as always, had something to say.
“Look at how clear the sky is!” he chirped, shielding his eye with one hand and pointing toward the clouds. “That one looks like a horse, don’t it?”
Phanora, pulling her coat tighter, didn’t slow her pace. “Johan, please do keep up.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He hoisted their luggage trolley with practiced ease and returned to his place behind her, holding her parasol aloft to shield her from the burning sun piercing the clouds.
It had been late summer—years ago now—when Ashaf first requested a face-to-face with the Profound Witch. He’d warned her then: the partner was new. Bad manners. Worse temperament. But the matter at hand was serious, and they could talk over tea after, on his coin.
The meeting was arranged for a secluded field on the outskirts of the city. Open skies. Empty paths. No witnesses.
They had barely arrived when it happened.
“You witch!”
A blur shot toward them, barreling on all fours. Phanora, calm as ever, grabbed her parasol from him before Johan threw off his coat and lunged. Grabbing the charging form out of the air and tossing them aside like an unruly animal.
The person landed in a crouch, feral and snarling. “Look at me!” they growled, hands digging into the dirt. “Do you know this face?”
Johan lunged again, managing to grapple them briefly before the two were on the ground in a scuffle. They fought like something possessed, and he struggled to pin them, reaching for the blade at his back.
Then, with a snap, they flipped their positions and slammed his head into the ground before he could curse.
“Now, now, children,” came Ashaf’s smooth voice as he strolled into view, cigarette already lit, eyes unimpressed.
Phanora didn’t move. “Johan, please stop playing around. You’ll ruin your suit.”
A flick of Ashaf’s fingers summoned a runic leash, binding the feral one mid-swing and yanking them off the battered man below them.
Johan sat up, rubbing his skull with a groan. “Miss Phanora, they started it.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know that face,” she said, her voice devoid of emotion. She reached into her coat and pulled out a folded handkerchief. “Please clean yourself up.”
Johan blinked at the offering, dazed. For a moment, he looked like a knight accepting a token of favor. Then he took the cloth and began dabbing at the blood and dirt on his cheek with solemn precision.
After that, when Johan and Guideau crossed paths, it was like two guard dogs being walked by separate masters—neither one keen to share the sidewalk, but neither foolish enough to ignore a command.
They didn’t get along.
But they understood one another.
A white envelope from the Order often meant a simple case or notice.
Johan broke the wax seal with the edge of his signet ring and unfolded the letter one-handed, already halfway through a yawn.
“There’s word of illegal necromancy at a shipping port—state over,” he muttered, eyes scanning. “Undead labor. Semi-autos, probably. The Order wants us to verify and clean it up.”
Phanora didn’t look up from her tea. “Please start packing my things.”
He blinked. “You’re not gonna help?”
“Johan,” she said, voice calm, “aren’t you my servant?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Then serve me.”
That was that.
He retreated with the casual obedience of a man who’d packed this particular set of luggage a dozen times before. Her wardrobe went first—dresses, traveling coats, gloves for polite society. Then came his own: a single small bag crammed full of pressed shirts, sturdy slacks, maintenance supplies, and half a dozen spare gloves. Lastly, he lifted the lacquered case from beneath her desk—a reinforced medical-grade trunk lined with velvet compartments.
Inside: her tools.
Scalpels, cannulas, sutures, fine scissors so sharp they could shave the edge off breath itself. All custom-made. All polished to gleam. A lantern wrapped in blackout fabric nestled carefully in the center, cradled like something holy. She’d insisted it ride with them in the passenger car. Johan didn’t argue.
He packed snacks for the train, mostly for himself, though she always took the shortbread if it was lemon.
By the time she rose from her chair, everything was ready.
Because of course it was.
_______________________________________________________________________
Johan rarely liked it when they chose to travel traditionally rather than magically. Portals were faster, less cramped, and didn’t involve vendors trying to overcharge him for lukewarm coffee and tasteless bread rolls. But Phanora insisted. She preferred the quiet stretch of countryside, the lull of motion, and the slow, uninterrupted time to think.
“It’s good for reflection,” she once said.
He thought it was good for making his back ache.
Still, she wasn’t wrong. Traveling this way gave her a buffer—time to recalibrate before diving headfirst into the next crime scene, the next body, the next wailing family demanding miracles. And Johan, for all his complaints, never minded the quiet if she was near.
This case seemed simple. Local authorities already had enough evidence to prove necromantic labor was being used at the Southport docks. The undead were being forced into semi-autonomous servitude—cheap labor, expendable, tireless. But the true culprit, the necromancer pulling the strings, remained elusive.
Without a suspect, without a caster, the operation could vanish in a day and pop up in the next town over.
So the Order sent Phanora.
Johan was pleased when she booked first-class accommodations for them both. The first few times they’d traveled by train, he’d been relegated to the common cars—sweaty benches, screaming toddlers, a man who once drooled on his shoulder for a full hour.
After that trip, he’d come to her dripping in other people’s sweat and despair.
“What if something happens to you?” he’d said dramatically, dabbing his jacket with a napkin. “As your resplendent right-hand man, I just couldn’t live with myself.”
“Johan,” she’d replied, unbothered, “please collect my things.”
From then on, he rode in first class with her. He discovered only later that the suite had an attached servant room he hadn’t known about.
“You didn’t think to tell me?” he’d asked, scandalized.
“If you had raised a fuss earlier,” she’d said, sipping her tea, “I would have.”
Her excuse was that he didn’t care for the temperature she kept her rooms at. Which was true.
Johan often felt like he was melting inside the manor. The fireplaces were always lit, even in summer. The air around Phanora was cold, naturally, magically—always cold. Her breath misted indoors, her fingers were like ice. When he first arrived to serve her, he made the mistake of lighting every hearth in the house, trying to bring the chill to heel.
Eventually, he’d complained. Quietly. She’d relented.
Now, only the parlor and her study remained lit. The rest of the house was left to the creeping cold. She wore her cardigans and shawls and fingerless gloves, and Johan was left mostly sweat-free.
The train rocked gently through flat, endless prairie, the sky a steel grey dome over wheat and windmills. On the third day, it dipped toward the sea. Southport appeared just after dawn, cradled in fog and salt air.
Phanora stepped off the train, wrapped in her sweater and silence.
She didn’t look back to see if Johan followed.
He did, of course. Dutiful as always. Hefting their luggage in one hand and holding her parasol in the other, shielding her from the early morning sun.
Southport was a crumbling jewel—a weather-beaten fishing town built on salt, wind, and old stories. Its streets were laid in cobblestone that had long since bowed with age. Stone shops leaned into each other like gossiping widows, their roofs patched with tar and hope. The sea glimmered just beyond, waves hissing softly against the dock walls.
“The air is quite cold here,” Phanora said, voice distant.
Johan took a deep breath and smiled. “Nah. It’s beautiful.”
They checked into a modest inn. She buried herself in texts on fish-skin grafts for burn victims. There was a new medical paper circulating—fish skin as a viable graft dressing for burn wounds. Phanora had skimmed it once before, but now, curled on the chaise in their inn, she read it carefully. The logic was sound. Fish skin, properly prepared, could accelerate healing, reduce infection. Particularly effective for delicate grafts—hands, face, anything exposed.
She turned the page slowly. Burned tissue remained just that, even after resurrection. Not even a witch could will scar tissue back into softness, not immediately. At least, not without wasting her kiss.
A kiss from a witch was more than sentiment. It was a covenant.
A witch's kiss could do what no incantation or sigil could. It could lift a curse temporarily. It could allow the kissed to wield magic beyond their own. It could grant a fraction of the witch’s power.
One kiss. Once. A gift given only once in a witch's lifetime.
Some never gave theirs. Hoarded it. Saved it for the moment they might need it most. Phanora had never used hers. She never needed to. She was a Profound witch—one of seventeen, direct descendants of the original coven. Her lineage alone made her feared.
Some whispered that witches were monsters in disguise, twisted creatures born of bile and bone. Others called them gods. Most simply kept their distance—respectful, wary, afraid.
The door opened with a gentle creak.
“Great news,” Johan announced, his voice cutting through the quiet, “there’s a shop down the road that sells carved rocks.”
He held up a paper bag of still-warm bread and a small cloth pouch, grinning.
They didn’t travel much besides work. When they did, Johan always looked for a rock to bring back. Once, as a child, it was all he could afford. A pebble from a riverbank. A stone kicked along a dirt road. He’d kept them in a jar beside his bed.
Now, he had a shelf for them. One from every case. One for every place she brought him.
Phanora folded a corner of the page. “I see.”
“Look how polished it is.” He handed her the stone. Smooth and warm from his palm, the agate had a tiny skyline etched into its surface—the Southport harbor, glinting with the curl of waves.
“I think it’s an agate,” he added, proud.
“I think you’re right.” She didn’t look up.
“You barely looked.”
He brought the stone to her line of sight, holding it flat in his palm, careful not to touch her book. She plucked it with a gently hand and studied the smooth weight of it.
“I think it is an agate,” she repeated, and passed it back.
Johan beamed.
Johan had grown up in the village just beyond the woods surrounding the Kristoffel estate.
His family lived on the outskirts, farmers by trade, though they also ran a modest grocery in the village proper. He was the fourth of seven brothers—John, Josiah, Joseph, Johan, the twins Jonas and Jonah, and the baby, Jonathan.
“All sons!” their father would proclaim, slapping his hat against his knee like it was the punchline to a well-worn joke.
“And thank the stars,” their mother would mutter from behind a laundry line or a stew pot. “They grow fast enough to work early.”
The boys spent their mornings and evenings tending to pigs, hauling produce, or shelving stock at the store. Whatever time wasn’t claimed by duty was devoted to boyhood chaos: wrestling matches, races down dirt roads, and headlocks tight enough to bruise. Even Jonathan, barely four and still in crooked sandals, got tackled if he wandered into the wrong yard.
“Call me Nathan!” he’d shout, desperate to stand out, even as Jonas dragged him into another dogpile.
They were a feral, loyal pack. Anyone foolish enough to take a swing at one found themselves surrounded by six more in a matter of seconds. Outsiders in the village learned quickly that the Jo-boys were to be avoided or befriended—there wasn’t much in between.
Their favorite game was a dare: who could get closest to the Kristoffel estate?
The manor stood atop the moor like a mausoleum, cold and palatial, cloaked in brambles and fog. No one from the village wanted to admit they feared the witches inside, but they all did—parents and children alike.
Still, bravado made fools of them all. They dared one another to touch the iron gate. To press a hand to the old stone fence. To climb a few feet and shout a name.
Johan remembered the first time he truly saw her.
He was twelve, standing near the wrought-iron gate with muddy shoes and grass in his hair, when he spotted her in the garden beyond. She wore white, pale as frost, like a ghost walking beneath the yew trees. Her mother knelt beside her, gathering something from the ground—a dead bird, maybe.
They both turned to look at him.
Their gazes were cold. Curious. Heavy.
Johan bolted.
So did the other boys.
His heart pounded all the way back to the village, a lump of shame in his throat. But what stayed with him most wasn’t the fear. It was the scent drifting from the garden on the breeze.
Chamomile.
Soft. Herbal. Unexpected.
He’d never smelled anything like it in all the grocery store’s bins and jars.