Lapis Blue

The trip back couldn’t have been more different.

Right after we burst out of Isaac’s lab, we dashed right by tired students in uniform and several professors whom I’d seen more than once around campus. All professors whose offices were on the upper floors of Call Hall.

I couldn’t fathom how, or what magic Isaac used to do it, but somehow that key had teleported us straight from the basement to Isaac’s lab.

On the third floor.

“Princess, I’m gonna puke…”

“No you don’t.” I skittered to a halt in the grass. Surely, we had to be far away enough to be out of eyeshot. At least I hoped. “I’d rather not have to clean that out of my uniform.”

Mary stumbled like a drunkard as I looked around in the dark.

“We’re a five-minute walk, are you good to make it back to my dorm?”

“Yeah,” Mary muttered, clearly not in any state to walk that far.

“Come here.” I gently wrapped my arms around her shoulders.

Mary tried to push back, but that just made me grip her even tighter. “One step at a time, ok?”

“F-Fine,” Mary stuttered, still blushing red.

“You’re normally the one helping me.” We started the short trek back, one step at a time. Motion sickness had always been Mary’s weakness. She could fly up on her own vine and flip midair no problem, but the literal millisecond she wasn’t in control of the thing moving her? It was like she’d drunk an entire bottle of whisky. “Let me do the same for once.”

“But, I’m your personal maid—”

“You're also my friend. And friends help each other, okay?”

Mary hid her face in the dark, but I could see a small smile come from her lips. “If you insist.”

Neither of us felt like speaking the rest of the way back. But it was a comfortable silence, the kind of silence that came from watching the wind sway on a cool night, the kind of peace that came before a storm.

“At least we can sleep after this.” I had been able to fight my sleepiness in Call Hall, but now that the dorms were so close, that feeling of needing to crash was starting to get overwhelming.

“I think I’m good to walk now, Princess.” Mary gently pushed off as we reached my door.

I let her go, relieved to see Mary stand tall on her own.

My hand quietly grasped the doorknob. I didn’t want to wake Val up, especially considering how late it was.

But as I slowly creaked the door open, all thoughts of staying stealthy went out the window. Instead of a dark room, every single light was turned on, the smell of fresh coffee wafted out, and two extra cups had been set out on my desk.

“Nice to see you two are alive.” Val set her cup of coffee down. “Catch me up, will you? I have a feeling it’s going to be a long night.”

                                                                              ☀ ☀ ☀

Val didn’t say a word as I rambled on about Isaac’s lab. She took sips of her drink and didn’t change her expression once the entire time.

She couldn’t hide her interest in Isaac’s notebook, though. She nearly snatched the thing from me, flipping through its pages as I went into detail about the fight—or lack thereof—we had with those two thugs.

“I see you two were busy.” Val finally spoke after I finished ranting for half an hour.

So much for crashing in bed.

“There’s still a lot we don’t know, but I can guess why Isaac died…” I wanted to laugh at the irony. Sure enough, Isaac most likely died because of his research. Exactly what Arthur guessed.

Just for the exact opposite reasons.

“That explains my rumors too. If your stories are accurate, I can make a guess.”

“You can?”

“Isaac wanted to prove the natural existence of Prismas, that much is clear.” Val slid the notebook back toward me. “I don’t have any proof for the rest, but here's what I’m seeing.”

Val snapped her fingers. A bright flash exploded from her wrist, and her dagger flew out toward the desk, bringing a chalkboard out from a pile of discarded junk.

She effortlessly caught the chalkboard midair. “Let’s start with Isaac’s thievery.” She scribbled on the chalkboard. “Isaac was, in fact, the thief. Shocker. Half the stolen artifacts in the room prove that. But you said there were piles of that junk, right?”

“Yeah?” I tilted my head. Where’s Val going with this?

“Then, I can guess why Isaac was going to Pongi, or I should say, going through it.” Val flipped the chalkboard over. She’d drawn a rough sketch of downtown, with a single arrow sneaking through. “We screwed up. He wasn’t visiting Pongi at all. It just happened to be the fastest way to Wefald.”

“Isaac probably assumed Pongi would give him a good cover, too.” I mused. I knew Isaac wasn’t that type of person!

I breathed a sigh of relief. These last few days, I’d been having to weigh the Isaac I knew with Val’s rumors, and Isaac’s lab actually being in one of the rumored buildings hadn’t helped matters.

“That would be my guess.” Val tossed the chalkboard back and started to flip through Isaac’s notebook again, well past where I’d gotten back in the lab.

It wasn’t until she reached the end that her posture stiffened. “You said Isaac wrote all this, right?”

“Who else would have? It’s in his handwriting.”

“Well, damn.” Val reread the page at least three times, judging from her eyes, and held her breath the entire time. “You missed something.”

“What? Let me see!”

Val leaned back as I leaped for the book.

And crashed onto the table. “Ow…”

“Save that head of yours; there's not much left up there to lose.” Val ran her finger along the pages. “Let me read it.”

“Fine…” I muttered, rubbing my head.

“I uncovered some more information about our new transfer student today. Fairburrow’s idea, apparently, something about bridging the gap between countries that the upper echelon of the Church ate up.”

“Fairburrow’s idea?” I raised an eyebrow. “You have to be joking.”

I could feel my rather high opinion of the man falling in real time. The reason I got randomly yanked from my home, forced to live here, forced to watch back whenever I wanted to light a candle, was it all because of him?

No good deed goes unpunished and all that.

“Isaac’s words, not mine,” Val said, head turning back to the notebook. “That isn’t what interests me. Fairburrow’s apparently extremely interested in the princess. Rumor is, he thinks she is secretly a Prisma…”

The room got quiet as she read that last part.

“He does?” I finally blurted out. “Honestly, I didn’t get the idea he thought anything specific of me.” Professor Gregory on the other hand…

“Isaac’s words, not mine. Though…” Val hesitated. “Never mind, let me get back to his notes.” She said, glancing back down. “The Church didn’t have any data on the princess, so it's not something the Church commanded him to do. But, from the rumors I’ve heard, Fairburrow’s certain that she became a Prisma.”

“Became?” I scoffed. “So either Isaac’s making this up, or Fairburrow’s insane.”

What’s with all those lunatics thinking you could become a Prisma? If there was some secret way for anyone to gain all eight colors, every king on the planet would be one.

I glanced back toward Mary, who gave a slight nod. I just have to keep it natural.

It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Val, we had been together way too long for that, but there were some things I just couldn't risk. The fact I hated fish on a meat platter mattered a lot less than the facts that would get me burned at the stake.

But that didn’t keep Val’s expression from hardening as she looked me in the eye. “Are you a Prisma, Ruby?”

“W-What?” This time, it was my turn to stutter. “What brought that question on?”

“I think it’s pretty obvious.” Val leaned forward in her chair. “I promise I’m not asking this to get you arrested or anything. But, for your safety, I need to know. Are you a Prisma?”

“No? Of course not?” My heart was beating a million times a second.

“Are you sure? I can’t see Isaac writing this down if he didn’t have a hunch.”

“I—” My voice caught in my throat. There was something about the dark glimmer in her eyes, a feeling of almost desperation. “Do you think I’m a Prisma or something?”

“No idea. I didn’t think so before today, but now…”

“Well, you’re right. I am.”

“Princess!” Mary leaped out of her seat. “W-What are you doing?”

“I don’t… Something just came over me.” I hadn’t planned to tell her, but something about her gaze almost compelled it out of me.

“Knew it.” Val’s expression tightened. “Fairburrow’s onto you then, for sure.”

I hadn’t seen Val get this serious, maybe not since we discovered Isaac’s body. There was a tenseness to her body, the kind I really only saw once every few years back home.

The kind of feeling that I saw in the soldiers right before they went to war.

“W-What makes you think Fairburrow knows?” It was Mary who cut in, her small voice cold.

“He does.” Val slowly got to her feet. “I got something to do, don’t bother staying up until I come back.”

“I can’t let you do that.” Mary snapped her fingers. Vines crawled across the door like snakes. “Protecting the princess is my number one priority.”

“I guess that did sound like I was planning to report her,” Val chuckled. “Part of me wishes this was something that easy. Trust me, okay?”

“There’s—”

“Let her go, Mary?” I couldn’t even begin to explain the feeling in my stomach. But there was something, some tiny fire, that kept telling me to let Val leave.

“You have to be joking, Princess…”

“Worst case, we fight our way out of here, doesn’t that sound exciting?” But again, that same odd feeling in my chest gave me the feeling it wouldn’t come to that, not from telling Val.

“Is this an order?”

“Yes.”

“Very well, Princess.” Mary snapped her fingers again. Her face made it very clear how much she wished this was just a request.

“Thank you, truly.” Val creaked open the door as the vines came down. “I promise, eventually I’ll be able to explain myself.”

And with that, she was gone.

Neither Mary nor I said a word for a bit after that. My heart still beat like a drum, half expecting the royal guards to come bursting in any second for my head. But they never did.

There wasn’t a sound other than the gentle swaying of the night wind.

“Do you mind if I stay the night, Princess?” Mary asked, creaking the door back open one more time.

“I’d be freaking out if you didn’t.”

“Very well, Princess.” Mary let the vines grow over my door one last time. “I’ll sleep once the sun rises.”

I knew well enough not to argue, it was far from the first time Mary had done this, after all.

She leaned against the wall as I tucked under the sheets. As much as I hated the thought of sleeping, I needed the rest. Part of me felt that, sometime soon, I’d not have the chance to for a long while.