They Were Roommates

Airi sank into an awkward curtsy. “Nice to meet you...” What had the doctor called Mildred? “...Distinguished Mage.”

Marianne leaned in with a mischievous smile. “Did Mildred tell you to say that? She's such a bore! Whatever you call me, don't make it that!"

"Uh—"

"It's so boring. Just call me Marianne. You and I are going to be friends, I bet! Oh, but actually, would you mind waiting just another moment?" She picked up a book titled Little Bo Peep, with a picture of a shepherdess in a rose-covered bonnet, surrounded by fleecy white sheep. "A student's gotten lost in the Upper Palace. I should find him before I forget."

Like Mildred, it took only a few seconds for Marianne to cast her spell. Tracing her fingers across the pages of Little Bo Peep, she smiled. "Hm, as I thought! Our talented escape artist is alive and well in the Hall of Heroes, right under the tapestry of King Benedict the Third. His name's Arthur. Let me see... when did I meet him?" She looked at Mildred with a puzzled expression. Mildred frowned deeply, and Marianne laughed. "Oh, I remember now. He was sent to my office just last week for forging a doctor's note!"

Marianne wrote something down on a piece of parchment and whispered a few words to it, and it folded into a paper crane, which flapped to the door. "There! That's taken care of."

"You can find anyone with that spell?" Airi asked incredulously, watching the paper crane slide under the door.

"Well, as long as I've met them, the spell tells me where they are. The actual finding and retrieving—you know, the boring part—I leave to the staff." Marianne winked. "So, yes. Now that we've met, I can find you. Unless—" She leaned across the desk, mock-serious. "You do have a soul, don't you?"

It was a joke, but Airi's heart pounded wildly. She looked into Marianne's eyes, sure that Marianne could see into her soul, see the fragment of darkness that slumbered inside. "Yes," Airi managed to say.

"Then I'll be able to find you just fine! Don't worry about getting lost." Marianne dusted off her hands. "Now, back to the important business! Mildred, what brings you to Lower II? Trying to relive some school memories?”

Mildred didn’t smile back. “Airi’s younger brother arrived a week ago. A water mage, six years old.”

Marianne gasped. “Oh, you must mean Nestor! He’s making great progress. He can levitate living creatures now. His teacher tells me that he's moved on from beetles to frogs.”

“I knew he could do it,” Airi said, glancing sideways at Mildred.

“Even so, it will take time for him to complete his studies,” Mildred said. “Airi would like to stay here in the meantime.”

“What an unusual request!” Marianne giggled at Airi as if they were sharing a private joke. “Mildred, you know that non-magical folk aren’t allowed in the Lower Palace. I’m more than happy to contact one of our sponsors. Lord Adler has recently returned from vacation, and his home is quite large.”

“She needs to stay here,” Mildred said.

Marianne stopped giggling. “May I ask why?”

Mildred was probably thinking, Because I broke her out of prison and if the guards recognize her, I'm done for.

As for Airi, she was thinking, Because I need to find a strong mage to help me fight monsters.

And Marianne... she was smiling like she knew something they didn’t and found it vastly amusing. Airi couldn’t even imagine what she was thinking.

“Because Airi isn’t just Nestor’s sister,” Mildred said. “She’s my... my...”

“...new research subject,” Airi finished.

“Ah, I see! How exciting!” Marianne said. “I wonder what’s caught your fancy?” Her unsettlingly bright eyes fixed on Airi’s glove. “This is unusual. It's crystallized mana, isn’t it? I see why you’re interested, Mildred!”

“So you approve my research,” Mildred said.

“Approved,” Marianne said. “We’ll have to find somewhere to house your friend, though...”

“We’re not friends,” Airi and Mildred insisted in unison.

“Yes, yes. The king can’t find out you’re friends,” Marianne assured them, oblivious. “After all, it’s certainly against royal regulations to house a non-magical person in the Lower Palace. So, Airi... where shall we hide you? The student dormitories?”

She waved her hand dismissively. “No, word would get out within a day. I could put you with the second-classes in Lower III... no, no. The royal inspectors are visiting. Hm...”

She brightened and slammed her spellbook on the table. “I know! You’ll room with Mildred in Lower I. Not even the inspectors would dare to inspect a first-class mage’s room!”

Mildred blinked several times. “Mage Hestia, you can’t be serious.” Airi would have laughed at the look on her face if the same thought wasn’t racing through her own head.

“I know what you’re going to say,” Marianne said, holding up her hand. “Towels, right? You don’t have enough towels in your room! And you certainly need a new wardrobe for your friend.”

“That’s not—”

“Have no fear! Mari’s got your back. I’ll ask the servants to prepare the room right away!” Marianne looked Airi up and down. “Hmm, blue’s your color, isn’t it?”

And she dashed out of the room, leaving Airi and Mildred with matching flabbergasted expressions.

“Do I really have to wear this?” Airi asked, plucking at the clasp of her loose white robe.

It was a rhetorical question, but Mildred answered in her usual manner: “You can’t walk around in plainclothes in the Lower Palace. You’ll stand out more than you already do.”

“More than I already do?” Airi frowned at the mirror. She was wearing one of Mildred’s spare robes. She didn’t think she looked suspicious, since the robe covered her crystalline arm.

Mildred’s eye peered over her shoulder like an icy jewel. “You don’t look or act like a mage.”

“Okay, and how am I supposed to act like a mage?” Airi asked, standing up straight.

Mildred sifted through a few different cabinets and walked towards Airi with something in her hand. “Well, that depends on your class.” She pinned the object over Airi’s heart: a bronze crest. Third class, then.

Airi smiled wryly and touched the crest, tracing the shield and the stars on its surface. She didn’t even know the name of this country.

As if she’d read Airi’s mind, Mildred said, “Solumbria. To become an officially recognized mage, you swear an oath to the country of Solumbria. ‘I devote my life to the practice of magic and the use of mana to strengthen the manasphere.’”

Airi nodded. She was definitely going to forget the name of the country in five minutes. She had already forgotten the oath.

“You cannot forget the name or the oath. I don’t know where you’re really from, but if you’re questioned, you need to know this much.”

Airi blinked. Mildred couldn’t be reading her mind. “Questioned? I didn’t see any guards in the Lower Palace.”

“There aren’t any, but mages are notoriously curious. And there are the royal inspectors, too.” Mildred grimaced. “Just try to stay in the room.”

This was an unpleasant request. Mildred’s room contained a bookshelf, a wardrobe, a desk piled with books, and a four-poster bed. Airi was disappointed. She’d expected vaulted ceilings and grand furniture, but this was hardly bigger than her room at home.

“I have a conference to attend. Don’t leave, don’t open the door, don’t touch my things, and stay quiet... please. Goodbye.” Mildred was out the door before Airi could say ‘goodbye’ back.

Mildred had scarcely left when there was a loud knock on the door. Airi looked up warily.

“Open up!” someone yelled. Strangely, it sounded like two voices. “Open up, Distinguished Mage! It’s Henry!”

Airi peered through the peephole and saw the strangest mage she’d ever seen. The man’s face was split cleanly from forehead to chin. One half had heavy lidded eyes, gray hair, and a toothy grin, and the other half had doe eyes, brown hair, and a bashful expression. He had a silver crest, so he must be second-class.

She backed away from the door. Henry continued to knock.

“Hey! I know you’re in there. Marianne said you’d be in here. Didn’t you order a new bed?” he shouted.

The bed. It was the only hiding place. Airi dove under it as the door flew open.

“Huh, guess she’s really not here,” Henry muttered. “I’m sure she won’t mind if I install the bed now.” A wild smile appeared on one half of his face, and he opened a book that looked like a bunch of parchment cobbled together. Notes spilled out of it onto the floor. “Yes, I can feel it. This version will work. I know it.”

Airi wasn’t so sure. She covered her head with her hands, just in case he sent the ceiling down.

But there was only a quiet thump. A tiny, identical copy of the four-poster bed appeared on top of the large one.

Henry scooped up the tiny bed. “Still not efficient enough, huh?” he said, looking at his spellbook affectionately. “We’ll get there, we’ll get there.”

And he walked out of the room, seeming to have forgotten about the new bed entirely. This was why, later that night, Airi fell asleep on a pile of Mildred’s robes while Mildred studied at her desk, a fistful of her seafoam hair in one hand and a quill in the other.