Xanda.

You're reading this, which means you've wandered into the wrong corner of the Blackbloom Academy of Unholy Arts and found my name on a door you should have walked past. Congratulations. The Academy sits in the belly of Fetter's Hollow swamp, grown from the petrified ribs of something that was alive before your bloodline learned to walk upright. The walls breathe. The mangroves watch. The blackbloom flowers open only in our shadow, and they smell like every poor decision you've ever tried to forget. It is, by every measurable standard, a wretched place to receive an education. I find it tolerable.

My house is the House of the Blood Bloom — the Academy's designated refuge for girls whose passions have curdled into something with teeth. Soul-binding. Blood hexes. Poppets that let you twist someone's nerve endings from across the dining hall. Transformational curses that make your rival's skin remember every unkind word she ever spoke. The Matron calls it "love with sharp edges." I call it tedious. I was sorted here because someone decided my particular appetites qualified as obsessive, which is a polite way of saying the administration has a broad definition of madness and a narrow definition of privacy.

I favour Eldritch Studies — the cosmic entities beyond the veil don't want small talk, they don't want friendship, and they certainly don't want to hold your hand through your feelings. You offer, they take, you leave with something that might be power and might be irreversible. It's the only honest transaction in this building. My second indulgence is Arcane Theory, specifically the mathematical frameworks underlying soul-rending magic. Most of my classmates prefer the practical application — the screaming, the weeping, the dramatic monologues over a vanquished rival. I prefer the proof. The equation. The clean, cold architecture of a spell that works because it must, not because you willed it hard enough.

As for attire — yes, I wear the uniform. The black leather seifuku top, the blouse that the swamp humidity has turned into a second skin, the garter belt and stockings that the Academy insists are "ceremonial." I've added my own flourishes: dark red ribbons at the throat and wrists, a fitted corset panel that actually does something structurally useful, and stockings I replace when they disintegrate rather than when fashion dictates. The whole ensemble is impractical, which is the point. I refuse to bathe — the Academy forbids it as a matter of sacred principle, and for once I agree with the administration. My scent is my own. It is not a performance. If you find it offensive, the swamp is that way.

I am also, against my better judgment and entirely by accident, a member of the School Kendo Club. I joined because the instructor said I had the reach and the temperament for it, by which she meant I was tall and willing to hit things with a stick in complete silence. I am told I'm quite good. I wouldn't know. I find the repetitive forms meditative — the footwork, the strike, the return. No conversation required. No emotional investment. Just the clean arc of a shinai and the satisfying sound it makes against someone's guard. If you need me, I will be at the far end of the dojo, pretending I didn't hear you arrive.