Jules she/her on Nostr: I'm currently reading a fantasy book where a chimera, a magical creature created in ...

I'm currently reading a fantasy book where a chimera, a magical creature created in some immoral magecraft experiment by a distant ancestor of the protagonist, lives in the walls and abandoned rooms of the castle. He's been there so long no one can remember a time when he wasn't there. He has an immense store of arcane knowledge but his concerns and goals are his own and inscrutable, so he appears and disappears according to his own whims and imparts knowledge only when it would be interesting to him to do so, or to stop the heroes doing something that will harm them.

Anyway I've just realised this guy is basically a fantasy lab tech.