Chapter Text
The tea was cold. Lisa didn’t care.
The afternoon light filtered softly through the tall stained-glass windows of the Knights of Favonius’ library, painting a pastel orange across the ancient stone floor. Dust floated lazily in the golden shafts of sunlight, stirred only by the occasional breeze slipping past the half-open shutters. The air was warm, laced with the scent of old parchment and Mondstadt roses from the bouquet resting on a nearby shelf — a gift from Jean that Lisa hadn’t yet remembered to place in water.
She sat curled in the velvet-lined alcove, the same one she had claimed long ago as her personal refuge. A thick book lay closed in her lap. She hadn’t turned a page in over an hour.
Instead, her gaze was on the delicate ring around her finger. A pale amethyst gleamed softly in its gold setting, catching the light every time she turned her hand. Her thumb brushed over it again and again, like a ritual.
There was peace here. In this quiet moment, in the way the library seemed to hold its breath with her. A rare, golden pause in a life that had always raced forward. Lisa breathed it in, let herself feel the softness of the silence, the weightless flutter in her chest that had nothing to do with magic.
Soon, she would marry the woman she loved.
She stood slowly, fingertips brushing her dress to smooth the folds. Her legs tingled from sitting too long, but she didn’t rush. Some moments deserved to last just a little longer.
The books were still out of order on the far table, a small rebellion against her own meticulous nature. She walked to them, humming absently, and reached for the first volume. Her smile lingered.
It was a good day.
One of the last.
Sunlight filtered through the tall windows of Jean’s office, golden and warm, like the world itself had decided to bless the day. Dust motes drifted lazily through the air, and the scent of cinnamon tea and fresh parchment hung faintly over the room—familiar, comforting.
The table at the center of the office was a battlefield of scrolls, ribbon-bound folders, ink pots, and half-drunk cups of tea. A single vase of roses stood to the side, their white petals open and soft like whispers.
“Cecilias? Really?” Kaeya clicked his tongue as he strolled across the room with feline grace, brandishing a scroll as if it were a scandalous letter. “You’re planning a wedding, not a funeral.”
Jean didn’t even glance up. She paced the edge of the rug, boots silent over the worn fibers, eyes skimming her own list with soldierly focus. Her uniform jacket had been left unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up to the elbows. She looked nothing like the Acting Grand Master—just a woman, deeply in love, trying to get everything perfect. “Cecilias are Lisa’s favorite,” she replied simply, each word chosen like a pin set precisely on a map.
Kaeya stopped by the bookshelves and raised a brow. “Not even one Glaze Lily?”
“No.” Jean said without missing a beat.
Eula, perched elegantly near the window with one knee crossed over the other, dipped her quill into ink and began copying floral arrangement notes with neat, even strokes. “He does have a point, though,” she murmured, lips barely parting. “It wouldn’t kill us to add some color.”
Jean sighed, pausing her steps just long enough to rub at her temple with two fingers. The gesture was habitual now, like punctuation at the end of every conversation that involved Kaeya.
“Fine.” she said, exhaling. “Add violets. And maybe Sumeru roses, if Port Ormos can deliver them in time.”
Kaeya’s grin widened as he leaned one shoulder against the shelf, arms folded. “Look at you, compromising. I’m touched.”
Jean muttered something under her breath — it might’ve been "insufferable" — but the corner of her mouth twitched upward in spite of herself.
A breeze fluttered the corner of the seating chart laid out across the side table, and Jean stepped closer to anchor it with a paperweight shaped like a dandelion. Her fingers traced a few lines before she sighed again, this time deeper. “The seating chart is still a disaster. Varka won’t be back in time, but I’m supposed to find space for half the Capitains, maybe Snezhnaya diplomats, two representatives from Sumeru, and at least three bards.”
Eula looked up. “Three?”
Jean didn’t look away from the chart. “Venti has already promised music. Twice.”
“That’s a threat.” Kaeya said, deadpan. “Not a promise.”
They all laughed then—not loud, but rich. Familiar. The kind of laughter that filled a room and left it warmer afterward. There was a lightness to it, something rare in the walls of the Knights of Favonius’ headquarters. Joy not born of victory, but of something softer. Hopeful.
Jean stepped away from the table, crossing towards Eula with a small roll of parchment in hand. As she leaned over to show her the updated list of ceremony rites, her pendant — a small, pressed purple rose encased in crystal — caught the sunlight and glimmered. A gift from Lisa. She always wore it during planning, even if she said nothing about it.
“I still think we should let Lisa choose the final spellwork display.” Eula said gently, accepting the parchment. “She’ll want something dramatic.”
“She said no fireworks.” Jean said with a half-smile. “But I’m suspicious. That woman’s idea of subtlety is casting a glamour just to sneak books out of the restricted section.” Jean smiled to herself and reached for a discarded tea cup — cold now, but still sweet with honey. She sipped it anyway.
There was so much left to do. Cake tasting. Ceremony readings. Spellweaving over the rings. A thousand details that filled her schedule to the brim. But none of it mattered more than the thought of Lisa waiting at the end of that aisle. Smiling. Alive. Hers.
The room was glowing with their shared energy: the shuffle of parchment, the scratch of Eula’s pen, Kaeya’s laughter lingering like perfume. It felt, for a moment, like peace was something real.
Then…
The door creaked open.
Not in a rush. Not with urgency.
But slow. Too slow.
All three turned, reflexively—expecting a courier. A page. Perhaps even Lisa herself, mock-fainting from too many lilies.
But it was Albedo.
His presence always carried stillness with it. But this time, there was a hollowness to it. His expression was perfectly composed. Too composed.
Jean’s smile faded immediately. Kaeya’s brows dipped. Eula lowered her quill, the tip still dripping ink.
Albedo’s eyes scanned the room—the lists, the ribbons, the laughter that hadn’t quite vanished yet. He took it all in, quiet and surgical.
Then he looked at Jean.
“Lisa was found in the library.” he said, his voice low and even. “Unconscious.”
It was as if the sun had blinked out of the sky.
Something in Jean’s stomach dropped. The tea cup slipped from her hand and shattered against the stone.
She didn’t hear it. She didn’t hear Kaeya curse under his breath, or Eula rise from her seat.
She was already moving.
The lists fluttered behind her like discarded dreams as her boots hit the stone floor — loud, fast, urgent. Her footsteps echoed down the hallway like a heartbeat growing too fast to follow.
The scent of holy oil clung thick to the walls of the cathedral’s infirmary. It didn’t drift or fade — it sat there, heavy, like incense at a funeral. Candlelight flickered from sconces set high on the stone walls, casting golden halos that shuddered with every shift of air. The curtains around Lisa’s bed were drawn back, but they swayed gently, whispering against the stone floor as if reluctant to reveal what lay within.
A basin of water steamed quietly on the nightstand. The herbal infusion — rosemary, juniper, lavender — curled upward into the room like an offering. The warmth from it didn’t reach the chill in the air.
Lisa lay still.
Her skin had lost its usual golden glow, replaced by a waxy pallor that made her smallest wrinkles stand out in cruel contrast. Beneath the blanket, her form seemed too small, her breath too shallow. Every so often, a faint tremor seized her body — not violent, not dramatic — just enough to make the blanket twitch, like the earth itself rumbling far below.
Barbara knelt beside her, hands glowing soft with Hydro light, her palms pressed gently against Lisa’s chest. The magic shimmered for a moment — translucent, trembling — then dissolved into Lisa’s skin like mist over cold glass. There was no change. No color returning to her cheeks. No weight lifting from the room.
“She came to a few minutes ago.” Barbara said softly, her voice hoarse with fatigue. She didn’t look at Jean. “Her pulse is weak… but steady. She’s—” A pause. “She’s very tired.”
Jean stood on the opposite side of the bed, unmoving except for the restless twitch of her fingers where they curled around the edge of the mattress. Her other hand was clenched into a white-knuckled fist against her side. Her armor felt too tight. Her breath caught every few seconds, like her lungs didn’t trust the silence.
She couldn’t bring herself to look at Lisa’s face. Not yet.
“Was it her magic?” Jean asked finally, her voice frayed at the edges. “Or the curse?”
Barbara hesitated. That was answer enough.
“I think…” She lowered her hands, and the glow of her Vision faded. “I think both. But the curse is accelerating. I’ve never seen it move this fast.”
Jean shut her eyes and bowed her head. She could hear her heartbeat — loud, uneven, wrong.
“I’ve been treating the symptoms.” Barbara continued, quieter now, as though afraid the truth might crack the walls. “Headaches. Fatigue. The pain in her chest. But the cause—” Her voice faltered. “We can’t reverse that.”
Across the room, Rosaria moved like a shadow from the back wall to the small apothecary table. Her boots were silent over the stone, despite the heels. She uncorked a bottle of thick black liquid and poured it into a porcelain cup, its bitter scent filling the room like spoiled wine.
Her hands, wrapped in fingerless gloves, were steady as she measured each drop. She didn’t look up.
“Let’s not pretend we’re not all thinking it.” she said, voice low and dry.
Jean’s head snapped up. “Rosaria—”
“She’s dying, Jean.” The nun turned then, holding the cup in one hand, her gaze sharp and flat as iron. “You can’t keep pretending this is just a bad week.”
The words cut with no intention of mercy.
Jean’s breath caught in her throat. Her hand fell from the mattress. Her chest ached as if the words had landed there, not in the room.
She looked at Lisa.
Her Lisa.
Still, beneath the sheets. Her hair spread out over the pillow like melted gold, her lips parted just enough to breathe. There was a fragile serenity to her face, like a painting frozen in time — but it was a lie. Her expression was too calm, too quiet. It looked like peace, but it was the kind of stillness that comes just before something breaks.
“I know.” Jean said, barely audible.
Barbara looked up then — startled, perhaps, to hear her admit it.
“I know she’s dying.” Jean said again, more firmly. Her voice cracked anyway.
She stepped closer, brushing her fingers over Lisa’s hand, careful not to disturb her. The skin was cold, not like death should be, but like her body couldn’t warm her. Her pulse, when Jean found it, was a flickering thing. Faint. Like candlelight struggling against the wind.
“She started fainting two weeks ago,” Jean whispered. “First in the mornings. Then after trainings. She didn’t want me to worry. Said it was just mana depletion.”
“Lisa never just depletes.” Rosaria muttered, placing the porcelain cup on the table beside the bed. “She lets the Ley Lines drink from her like wine.”
“She knew.” Jean said, eyes still locked on Lisa’s face. “She knew what it was.”
Barbara reached for the basin, soaking a cloth and dabbing gently at Lisa’s forehead. “She didn’t want to stop working. Well, not to worry you… I tried to make her rest, but…”
“She wouldn’t.” Jean finished for her, voice low. “Of course she wouldn’t.”
For a moment, none of them spoke. The only sounds were the drip of water back into the basin and the flicker of flame in the candles overhead.
The silence felt heavier than grief. Rosaria was the one to break it. “Then… what do we do?”
“Then we have to find a way to stop it.” Jean said, quietly but with resolve. “There’s a solution. There has to be.”
Neither Barbara nor Rosaria answered.
Later that evening, the room they shared was dark but warm. Lisa sat against the pillows, hair damp from a sponge bath, her nightdress soft and wrinkled. Jean tucked the blankets around her with more gentleness than necessary, lingering in the touch. The witch was quiet, quieter than usual. It wasn’ a comfortable silence at all, but the kind that meant too much was thought
“You didn’t have to cancel your meetings.” Lisa said, voice hoarse but teasing. “Mondstadt might crumble without you.”
“I’m not worried about Mondstadt.” Jean murmured, and leaned down to kiss her forehead.
Lisa’s eyes fluttered shut, and within moments, she had drifted into a light sleep. Looking more tired than she should.
Jean watched her, sitting quietly at the edge of the bed, until her own hands stopped shaking.
Jean didn’t intend to go into Lisa’s office.
She told herself she was only walking past. That she needed air. That the cathedral’s silence had grown too suffocating that afternoon. And well, all of that was true, as much as Jean did know she expected top find some hope of a plan in that place. But when she reached the familiar wooden door, with its gold-rimmed sigil and soft scent of old herbs lingering at the seams, her hand moved without thinking.
The handle turned easily.
Inside, the room greeted her like a ghost of its owner — warm, cluttered, and alive in all the ways Lisa now wasn’t.
Purple roses. Dust. A trace of ozone… And the typical mess of Lisa’s attempt at organization.
Scrolls were piled high on nearly every surface, some bound with ribbons, others left open mid-incantation. Bottles glowed faintly on the shelves. A chalk circle marred the center of the rug, hastily drawn and only half-faded, the sigils jagged like they'd been scrawled through pain. On the windowsill, the afternoon light filtered through glass flasks filled with half-finished potions, their colors dulled, their magic dormant.
Jean stepped in slowly, her boots barely making a sound over the wooden floor. Her fingers brushed the edge of a tome left askew, and she straightened it automatically. Then another. She began tidying — not out of duty, but desperation. As if organizing the chaos might organize her thoughts.
She didn’t know what she was looking for. It could be… Anything.
And she wasn’t a scholar herself to locate it in the middle of that all.
Lisa’s desk was buried in books, quills, stray notes — maps of ley line currents, half-translated Sumeru treatises, scribbled hypotheses about time perspectives. Jean moved a chipped teacup aside, stacking parchment with practiced precision. Her hands moved faster than her thoughts.
And then — something caught.
Beneath a pile of ancient manuscripts, yellowed with time and frayed at the edges, a folder lay half-concealed. Thin. Unassuming. But not where it belonged.
Jean frowned and pulled it free.
She expected lecture notes. Maybe student reports. Something academic and clinical.
But the paper was brittle, the ink faded. Older than anything else on the desk.
She opened it slowly.
Inside: diagrams drawn in Lisa’s looping hand — circles of binding, formulas etched in Sumerian script, annotated with margin notes that grew shakier the deeper into the folder she went. Spells dealing with elemental theory. Magical decay. Bloodline resonance. Visions connection. There were dried tears on one page, long since absorbed into the paper, staining the ink permanently.
And near the bottom — a photograph.
It wasn’t magical. Just ink on paper, curled slightly at the edges from age.
Two students stood before the sunlit gates of the Akademiya main entrance. Their robes fluttered in the forest breeze, the sandstone gleaming gold behind them. Lisa — younger, unburdened — smiled brightly, not the charming, calculated smile she wore in public, but something open, real. Her eyes squinted just slightly from laughing. Jean knew that smile all too well — it was the way Lisa smiled for her.
Beside her stood a man.
Tall. Pale. His expression unreadable, composed, but his crimson gaze wasn’t on the camera — it was on her. Fixed like gravity. And he stood a fraction closer than necessary. Not touching her, but near enough that the air between them felt charged. Her shoulder leaned towards him, subtle but undeniable.
Jean stared.
Her heart began to pound.
She knew, certainly, that Lisa had studied in Sumeru. That she'd been exceptional. That she'd left early — far earlier than she should have — with reasons never fully explained. Lisa only told Jean, as everyone else, that she wanted a peaceful, easy paced life.
Jean had seen the name Dottore before. Once or twice in old reports, hushed discussions at the Knights’ table. A Harbinger. A monster. She never care about him.
Except when Lisa told she had studied with him. Lisa didn’t get into details, and Jean chose not to ask.
On the back of the photograph, something had been scribbled out. No — not scribbled. Violently scratched away, the ink torn through with such force it had punctured the paper. Over it, in angry, heavy lettering, a single word remained:
Dottore.
The name rang through Jean’s head like the shattering of glass.
She sat down heavily in Lisa’s chair, the photo trembling in her hands.
A cold weight settled in her chest.
It didn’t make sense. And yet — it explained so much.
The secrecy. The exhaustion in Lisa’s eyes when no one else was looking. The rituals left half-finished. The mutterings in her sleep, the way she touched her own sternum like something inside her was burning. And now, this.
How long had Lisa been fighting this?
How long had she been alone?
Jean pressed her lips together, willing herself not to cry. Her fingers curled tighter around the photo until the edge bit into her palm.
She couldn’t let her go. Not like this. Not with regret, not with unfinished pages. Not knowing there might have been something — someone — who could have helped.
Even if it meant turning to a devil.
Her hand moved before her mind gave permission. She reached for a quill and parchment, her movements mechanical at first, then faster, sharper, as each word carved itself into place.
To the Harbinger known as Il Dottore,
This is Jean Gunnhildr of Mondstadt.
I am writing to request your assistance.