Esther :)

When Airi woke up, Mildred was still hunched at the desk. Had she slept at all?

“What time is it?” Airi searched blurrily for a clock.

Mildred turned, startled. Airi saw dark circles under her eyes. “What? It’s five. Go back to sleep.”

Airi muttered something like, “Did you sleep?”

“Later.”

When Airi awoke again, Mildred was gone. Airi found a clock on the desk, which told her it was seven in the morning. She also found a note.

‘I have research all day. Don’t go out.’ She could almost hear Mildred’s voice in the messy handwriting.

In a burst of defiance, Airi grabbed the quill and wrote, ‘I won’t :)’

Then she opened the door and left the room.

This early in the morning, the corridors of Lower I were silent. Airi went down the stairs to Lower II. The classroom doors were shut, but she could hear children's voices from behind them. It was eerie to be back at school, even if it was a magic school. The halls felt cramped, the floor creaked, and Airi felt like she should be in class instead of skulking around.

No one stopped her. She passed by Marianne’s office, with its flower-engraved door. Her footsteps lengthened, and she reached the narrow wooden staircase leading to Lower III.

Lower III was colder than Lower II, but the decor was just about the same.

She heard footsteps coming around the corner and whirled to the nearest bookshelf, pretending to browse intently. She recognized Henry’s clashing voice. He was talking animatedly to a second-class mage with pale blonde hair and gray robes.

“I think we're nearly there! We’ve never had such a perfect duplicate.” His silver-haired half grinned as he spoke, while the other half of his face didn't move at all.

Airi thought she saw the blonde mage roll her eyes. “Then, pray tell, why does the result look like this?” She held up a tiny hairbrush, which looked like it was made for a mouse.

“Okay, maybe it’s not exactly perfect yet—”

Airi waited till they were past. Up ahead, there was an archway and a glittering stained-glass door that depicted white calla lilies. The words over the archway read ‘The Sunroom.’

Airi opened the door and found herself in a vestibule, like the kind they had in aviaries to prevent birds from escaping. She pushed through the second door, which was covered in red stained-glass lilies, and sunlight washed onto her face. She looked up and saw a skylight in the ceiling.

The Sunroom walls formed a glass dome. There was no floor, only tall grass and clusters of exotic plants. Airi saw a pond in the distance, framed by flowering trees. A group of older mages sat on a picnic blanket, talking and laughing.

Airi walked through the grass, disturbing crystal-winged butterflies. She’d seen them before in Star’s End, but not in this many colors.

In the purple flowering tree by the pond, fluffy sylphets clung upside-down to the blossoms. The sunlight seemed to make them tired. Airi was strongly tempted to pluck out a sylphet and pet it.

“You're feeling adventurous,” said a child’s sleepy voice.

The little girl sitting at the trunk of the tree moved, and Airi noticed her for the first time. She was nearly as odd-looking as Henry. She had pale-blue antlers that slanted from her head and long, pale-blue hair. Small pink flowerbuds sprouted from the antlers, the same pink as her dull eyes.

Even in this world, Airi had never seen anyone with horns. She wondered if the little girl was human.

“Now you're curious,” the little girl said.

Airi backed away a step. “How can you read my mind?”

“Not your mind. Your mana. It follows your emotions,” the little girl said. Her expression never changed as she talked.

“Who are you?” Airi asked warily.

“The mages call me Esther.”

“Is that not your real name?”

“I don’t know,” Esther said. She stared lazily into the distance. The picnicking mages were casting spells now. The sunlit trees stirred with an invisible wind, and they laughed, holding onto their hats and bonnets.

When Airi was preparing to leave, Esther said offhandedly, “Your mana is on the outside. Mages have their mana on the inside. You’re not a mage.”

Fear spiked Airi’s stomach, and she touched the bronze crest on her robes. She remembered, too late, that Esther could read her emotions.

But Esther didn’t seem particularly intrigued. “You're scared. Why are you scared? I’m not a mage either,” she said.

“What are—”

“I’m a monster.”

Airi thought the little girl must be joking, but her expression was as placid as ever.

“It means I’m made of crystal on the inside. I don’t know why,” Esther said.

“You don’t remember what you were like... before?”

Esther looked dully at Airi. Instead of answering, she remarked, “You want something right now. I can’t tell what it is.”

There was no use trying to lie to Esther. “I’m looking a first-class mage. Pyg something.”

“I don’t know their names,” Esther said. Airi almost smiled. That made two of them.

“He’s the one who studies monsters,” Airi said.

Esther thought for a bit. “He’s the one who talks to me.” She pointed at one of the doors in the distance. “He goes out that way.”

When Airi walked away, Esther was watching fish swim around in the pond. Her pink eyes followed them around and around in circles.