One morning after finishing all that work, she stood on the basement steps, watching the light outside slowly spill over the threshold at ground level. In the morning mist, it carried a cool white hue, its edges blurred, utterly different in texture from sunlight in the afternoon.
She stood at that boundary for a little while, then stepped across it and walked toward the world beyond the estate.
Over the following years, the estate gradually returned to "normal," settling back into a daily rhythm the townsfolk could accept. Circe rarely appeared in the public areas of town, but every so often, she ordered a batch of basic ingredients from the local potion shop by owl. The handwriting on those orders was neat, the wording proper, and the notes column always specified the payment method and delivery time.
The shopkeeper and the delivery apprentices all knew that the estate at the edge of town was "that witch's residence," but they deliberately ignored whatever she actually did there. Clearly, the "mound of heads" at the green dragon breeding ground and Inspector Wizard Fairwood Cross's silence had proven one cruel fact quite well—Circe possessed the strength to effortlessly destroy the entire wizarding town. There was nothing shameful about the townspeople pretending not to know anything.
During that time, Circe gradually tested and filled in several unfinished ideas from her notes on Plant Fusion Magic. One of them, a method for the long-term preservation of cross-species blood activation factors, became a complete experimental paper. It was not long, but it provided the existing theoretical framework with a full, reproducible, verifiable case of implementation.
She copied the record and sent it through a reputable express intermediary to the public mailbox of the Swiss Botanical Society. There was no signature, no cover letter, only a lone