Star's End

Golden eyes floated above Airi’s face. She blinked drowsily and saw that the eyes belonged to a child's round face. His wispy white brows lifted, and he turned to shout, “Mom! Mom! She’s awake!”

A woman appeared in the doorway. Airi's first thought was how odd her clothing looked. She wore a high-necked dress, lacy gloves, and an apron covered in mysterious stains. Various sharp metal instruments poked out of her pockets. Her son was more plainly dressed, but they both looked like they could be from 18th-century England.

“Quiet, Nestor,” the woman snapped, striding to Airi's bed. Unlike her son, she had brown eyes. She removed one of her gloves and pressed her hand to Airi's forehead. "She's still feverish. How strange; it's been two days already."

Rubbing his face, Nestor said, “Will she die?”

His mother said, “It is unusually severe for mana fever. Watch her, and if she starts burning up again, come get me."

"Where am I?" Airi asked hoarsely. Her throat felt like it was on fire when she spoke.

"You're in the village of Star's End."

Airi awoke several times after that. Each time, the light from the window showed a different time of day. In her fragmented wakefulness, she gradually took stock of her surroundings.

She was in a small, low-beamed room, familiar in its messiness. But when she looked closely, the little details reminded her that she was in another world—like the star-handed cuckoo clock on the wall and the baskets of herbs hanging from the beams on the ceiling.

There were several other beds in the room, though they were all empty. A chair had been pulled to her bedside. Sometimes when she awoke, Nestor was sitting in it, reading a book.

In the afternoon, she was awoken by voices just outside the door. It sounded like the doctor was talking to a young woman.

"Your arm is hurting again? I thought it healed properly last time."

"No, my arm is fine, but it looks terrible! Look! This scar shows up whenever I wear short sleeves," the young woman said. "And it's too hot to wear long sleeves right now."

"What a pity."

"Please, Doctor Caroline, isn't there anything you can do?"

The doorknob turned, and two people stepped into the room: Nestor's mother, and a freckly-faced village girl. Airi saw a nasty scar on the girl's arm. After a sideward glance at Airi, the girl plopped down onto one of the empty beds.

The doctor opened an overflowing medicine cabinet and picked out a small bottle of clear serum from among the vials and bottles. Airi saw a faded label with a small yellow flower on the bottle.

"I'm nearly out of curiosity serum, so you'll have to make do with what I've got." The doctor poured a drop of the clear liquid onto the young woman's arm. As they watched, the scar began to smooth out, finally disappearing completely.

"Thank you, Doctor Caroline!"

"Don't let me hear about you tripping again. I haven't got enough serum for that." The doctor put the bottle back into the cabinet.

Airi was awoken in the middle of the night by water dripping onto her face. Irritated, she opened her eyes.

A basketball-sized ball of water was hovering above her head.

She shifted and saw Nestor sitting beside the bed, illuminated by a half-melted candle. He was bent over a book, muttering under his breath.

“Hey. What are you doing?” she asked, relieved to find her voice intact.

The little boy jumped, the water ball burst in a shower of droplets, and Airi dove under the blanket. She emerged dripping wet and opened her mouth to complain—

The boy pressed his hands over her mouth. “Shh!” he whispered. “Mom's sleeping!"

Airi lowered her voice. “That was magic, wasn’t it?”

The boy looked alarmed at the mere mention of the word. “Don't tell my mom, please!"

“Why not? Your mom doesn't like magic?”

The boy looked at her balefully, cradling his book like a baby. It looked like it was bound together by bits of string. “Mom wants me to be a shepherd like my brothers and sisters.”

This was a bewildering statement. Did this world value shepherds more than mages?

“Jane and Eliza are already married and so’s Charlie. And Fitz is good at herding sheep, so he’ll probably become a shepherd. But I don’t wanna herd stinky sheep.” Nestor sighed gustily and opened his book again. “I wanna help people with my magic.”

Airi lurched to a sitting position. Nestor scrambled to his feet and said, “No, you’ve got mana fever...”

“You know what would help me feel better? If you showed me more magic,” Airi said slyly.

So Nestor read from the ratty old book, which was titled River Runs Away. The front cover had a child's drawing of a river running across a grassy plain. Odd, it looked like a children’s fairytale—and a very poorly made one, too.

“Once upon a time there was a little river in the village and one day it ran away...” the boy read in a single breath. It even sounded like a fairytale.

Airi smelled rain a split second before the sphere of water materialized in Nestor's hands. With a look of intense concentration, he bounced it off his hand and knee, as if it were just a toy.

Magic!

Proudly, the little boy said, “There’s almost no leaks now. Isn’t it pretty good? I watched the other kids play straw ball to cast it.”

“It’s... it’s amazing.” Airi’s heart beat quickly, and it wasn’t because of the mana fever. “Can I try?” She reached for the book.

“You have mana?” the boy asked, suddenly excited.

“Oh... uh... how much mana do you have?”

“I had the most out of all the kids in the mana exam!"

The mana exam? What on earth was that?

“How did they test your mana?” she asked.

“With The Naughty Little Kettle. Do they do it a different way where you’re from?” Nestor asked in surprise.

“No, no," Airi said. “Do you have that kettle book? It’s one of my favorite books.”

“It is?” Now Nestor looked worried. “Do you still have a fever?”

Airi shook her head, but Nestor was already pouring water from a jug into a cracked teacup. He pressed the cup into her hands. “Here, drink this while I get the book.”

He dug around under the bed and surfaced with a proper leather-bound book. The title was spelled out in faded letters: The Naughty Little Kettle (Standard Edition).

Airi opened it and skimmed through, relieved to find that she could read the language, but instead of the exam book she'd expected, it was just a fairytale about a naughty kettle that whistled loudly, even when there was no fire.

She said to Nestor, “Can you show me how they tested you?”

“Okay.” Nestor began to read the book in his childish voice, stumbling on words every so often. Each time he stumbled, he looked up nervously, but Airi only nodded at him to continue.

Airi sipped at her cup, wondering how a reading test was a test of magic. This felt like a normal first-grade language lesson.

The cup in her hand grew hot in a flash, and a curl of steam rose up from it. She touched her tongue to the water; it burned.

There was a creak in the hallway. Nestor slid the two books under the bed and scrambled into the chair beside the bed.

When Nestor’s mother poked her head into the room, both Nestor and Airi were fast asleep.

That night, Airi dreamt of strange sights, as fleeting as they were colorful. She saw a million stars falling from the sky at once, dazzling the sky like fireworks. She saw a golden-curled princess, asleep and surrounded by roses like a pool of blood. She saw a shining city atop a hill, where three great rivers converged. At the edges of the dream, there was always an unwelcome darkness. She thought the darkness had teeth.