The Path of Destiny

Yew woke up, but he didn't open his eyes right away. He didn't feel the usual weight of the comforter, so he assumed that the covers must have fallen off of him, but as he began to search around for them, slowly his awareness drifted back and he began to wonder why was his bed so grainy.

He slowly turned around. He felt like he was lying on a bed of sand. He opened his eyes and sat up, unable to believe in what he saw. He looked in every direction, but no matter where he looked the scenery never changed.

He was surrounded by an endless desert. All around him, there was nothing but sand, and sand, and even more sand. All the way to the horizon, and in every direction, there was nothing but sand and sand dunes.

However there was one thing, which stood out even more than the endless desert of sand.

The color of the sky was evenly spread all over the firmament. It was the first time, when Yew saw the sky so uniformly violet in color. During the sunrise or the sunset, the sky in some parts would turn violet on occasions, but the whole sky being covered by this one rare shade of violet was something out of ordinary.

He stared at the sky with a slightly open mouth. He couldn't decide whether he should be in awe at this phenomenon, or worry about his location. He didn’t know, where he was, and it bothered him. But the admiration he had for the eerie sky overshadowed any strong feelings of fear or confusion.

Yew couldn't believe that the sky was in such a color all on its own: there was no sun, no stars, no moon and no clouds. The sky was empty, just like the earth, which had no plants, no animals, no insects nor rocks, not even one single dried-up strand of grass.

Yew began to ponder the possibility that maybe this was a dream. He stood up and began walking. He continued to walk on and on. After a while, he began to wonder how long he was walking, because it felt like he had walked for a very long period of time, but without any sun in the sky, it was impossible to tell how much time had passed.

If this was the real world, he should have gotten hungry or tired by now. He should have felt some fatigue from walking. But he felt none of that, and this assured him that he was indeed dreaming. However, soon after he came to that conclusion, he realized something scary.

What if this dream wouldn't end?

The time had passed, but nothing changed. He didn’t wake up. He didn’t feel tired. No matter how far he walked, it was always the same scenery all around him. All the time, he saw the same endless desert of sand, and the same empty violet sky. There was no day nor night, no cold nor hot, no water nor fire, no animals nor plants, no men except for him.

And the longer he stayed there, the more he desired to get out.

He missed the world he knew. He missed both good and bad things. He missed the sun in the sky. He missed the dark nights. He missed the hot days. He missed cold snow and ice. He missed nice weather and the refreshing breeze. He missed rainstorms and strong freezing winds. He missed everything that he couldn't experience anymore.

He fell to his knees, scooped some sand in his palm, and ate it. It had no taste, and no texture. It felt no different from eating air, but even the air was so empty in this world. It had no smell. For the first time in his life, he had realized that the air in the real world was always full of smells, and he could feel it on his skin. Over here, even if he moved very fast, he couldn’t feel the blows of air, which was neither moist nor dry. It was as if there was no air there to begin with.

He hit his own head with his hand, but there was no sensation of pain. And he tried to scratch his own arm, but no wounds appeared almost as if his own body was nothing but void itself. He could touch it, but he couldn’t feel it. He tried to feel his breath or his heartbeat, but it was all in vain.

He was going mad, and there was nothing but one desire on his mind: he wanted to go back.

After a while he gave up his last bits of hope, and like a dead statue, he had been sitting on a large sand dune. From that height, he could see far into the distance, but that didn’t change anything for him, as there was nothing to see except the same endless sand and the same violet sky.

He thought that it would have been better for him to be dead than continue to exist in this empty world. He wished that his death would come for him, and end this nightmare.

As he sat with his empty eyes staring at the distance, he saw what appeared to be a figure of a human. Someone appeared on the horizon and slowly walked in Yew’s direction. As he got closer, the boy saw that the man had no shadow, but neither did Yew.

"I am hallucinating," the boy quickly came to a conclusion, closed his eyes and lay down on the sand.

He tried to forget what he saw, but he was curious whether he’d still see the figure, if he looked one more time. Ergo he sat up and looked again. To his surprise, the hallucination didn't disappear, and he watched the man coming closer and closer. Ultimately, his hallucination was standing right in front of him.

The man, who maybe wasn’t Yew’s hallucination, wore long pants that covered over his feet, with the exception of toes, which were sticking out from under the material. He was barefoot, and wearing a long shirt up to his knees, with half-length sleeves. On his head, he wore a beret. He looked at Yew, and with a face of a wise sage, who has lived for many centuries, he nodded and stroked his short beard. "You are one sneaky bastard.”

"Huh?" Yew was wondering what the man was talking about.

"Couldn’t you wait for me?" the man tried to use a scolding tone, but he couldn't hide how amused he was.

"Huh? What?" Yew was getting more and more confused by the man's baffling words and actions.

"Right after you arrived at Dreamworld, you went off somewhere, and I had to look for you! I get that I was a little bit too late, but you could have waited for me!" the man sat down across from Yew.

"Eh? Why?" Yew was confused by everything said by the stranger.

"What why?" asked the man, who was also getting perplexed by the boy’s confusion.

"Who are you?" Yew asked directly, without any manners.

"I'm your teacher," responded the man, who wasn't offended at all. Quite the contrary, he felt some pity for the boy, who was so confused as if he had lost all his memories.

"What teacher?" A long time spent on a lonely journey in the land of endless sand had caused Yew to forget what he was doing right before he arrived in Dreamworld.

"You really don’t know?" the man was genuinely baffled and thought of why didn’t anyone explain anything to the boy before Yew was sent here.

Yew himself had many questions. He couldn’t decide what he should start with, so he sat in silence, curious as to what the man would say next.

After a while of thinking, the man took a deep breath in and out. "Do you know where you are?" was the first sentence he said after the long silence.

Yew shook his head. He had no idea where he was.

The man put his hand on his forehead, and sighed. "Were you sent here without any explanation?"

"Maybe?" Yew wasn't sure what sort of answer he should give, so he went with the most generic one, which he could think of. To top it off, he made it sound like a question, which further assured the man that Yew wasn’t aware of anything.

"I got it," he took the hand off of his forehead, and looked straight into the eyes of the boy, "But at least you do know that you're a student of Hypnos, do you?"

Yew looked through his memories and slowly he recalled that right before waking up in this odd place, he agreed to go to Hypnos. Parsley explained to him about the difference between the physical realm and the spiritual realm. Then the chairman of Hypnos told him about how soul pieces can never be eternally separated, because they automatically merge together, if they meet.

After he responded positively to the chairman’s question, the chairman put the hand on Yew’s head, and then… then what? He realized that he didn't remember what happened after the chairman of Hypnos put his hand on his head.

He thought for a long time, trying to recall anything else, but it was futile. He had no memory beyond that moment. Looking at the man sitting in front of him, he realized that his teacher was still waiting to hear the answer. Quickly, Yew put aside his thoughts, and nodded, "yes, I know that I'm a student of Hypnos.”

"Good. I’m glad I don’t have to explain that," the man began stroking his beard.

"Um," Yew had something more to add. “The chairman of Hypnos talked about taking a piece of my soul and sending it to study in Hypnos." Yew looked around. "Is this Hypnos?"

"Yes and no,” the man’s response arrived fast.

Yew blinked, "I don't understand."

"Neither do I,” another fast response.

Yew looked at the man, then around at the desert scenery, then back at the man, "what is this place?"

"This is the border between the physical and the spiritual, to the students of Hypnos it’s known as Dreamworld," the man explained, stroking his beard.

"So where is the school of Hypnos located?"

"The school of Hypnos has its location in the physical realm, but all the students of Hypnos study here in Dreamworld."

Yew furrowed his eyebrows, “if all the students of Hypnos study here, then where are they? I’ve never met anyone."

“Every meeting is a miracle.”

“Is it that rare to meet someone here?”

“It’s always a special occasion to meet someone anywhere.”

Yew tried to comprehend the man, but it appeared as if the man had no intention of speaking in an understandable manner. Thus Yew decided to just drop the topic altogether before he got a headache, "so… what's your name?"

"I am Tembusu River," the man answered.

"Are you magic-talented?" the question just randomly came out of his mouth.

"No, I am magicless, but you’re not.”

“How do you know?”

The man laughed, “the world has no borders.”

Yew furrowed his eyebrows. He was no longer in the physical realm, so his secret should be safe as long as it stayed here in Dreamworld. “What will you teach me?”

“Anything.”

“Anything?”

“Anything. Do you want me to teach you magic?”

“A magicless person cannot teach magic to a magic-talented person."

The man laughed, “talents, like birds, come and go, and each one chooses a different place for its nest.”

Yew remained silent for a moment, “so what am I going to learn here?”

“Do you know how to make a man?”

Yew slowly shook his head. He had ideas on how to answer, but he chose not to answer.

“You take the dirt from the physical realm and mold it into the right shape. Then you take a soul from the spiritual realm and you breathe it into the body,” Tembusu made hand movements of molding something, then breathing onto his hand.

Yew just nodded.

“The soul is immortal, because it was born from Immortal God, and just like children take after their parents, so do souls take after God,” he had a warm smile on his face. “The body is mortal, because it was created from a mortal realm. Just like the physical realm itself, a body has its beginning, its growth, and its death.”

Yew was glad that his teacher was finally speaking in a more understandable manner, even if he was talking about souls and bodies, instead of school studies.

“The soul and the body can exist separately, but when they merge, the body can become like the soul, or the soul can become like the body. As a human, you can either take your body to the spiritual realm, where the body will become immortal, or you can drag your soul into the physical realm, where the soul will become mortal.”

“I can become immortal?”

Tembusu didn’t affirm or deny Yew’s question. He simply continued to speak. “In the spiritual world, everything is perfect. There are no sicknesses and no problems. Everything, which you always wished for and wanted from the deepest depths of your heart, exists there. If you take your body to the spiritual world, you will live in Heaven. On the other hand, if you drag your soul down, your soul will become vulnerable to all the diseases and problems of the physical realm, and you will die in Hell.”

Yew understood the words, but he didn’t really understand the difference between the soul and the body. He did understand that, at the moment, he was only a piece of his own soul, which had been separated by the chairman of Hypnos and sent to Dreamworld, but at no point in his life, had he ever felt like there were two parts of him. Even now, he didn’t feel like a piece. He felt like he was complete.

“Do you know who you are?” Tembusu asked.

"Yew Sky."

"Are you sure?"

Yew tried again, “I’m a piece of Yew Sky’s soul?”

“You’re not a piece. You’re complete.”

“But the chairman said that…”

“You are complete,” Tembusu interrupted him. “You were complete before you came here, and you’re still complete. A soul cannot be separated.”

“But the chairman said that…”

“A soul cannot be separated.”

“So my body has no soul right now?”

“A soul, which has merged with the body, cannot be separated from the body.”

Yew stopped speaking for a moment, and began thinking that the man was playing a joke on him. “So is the soul in my body complete?”

“The soul merged with your body is complete.”

“And I’m complete?” he pointed at himself.

“You’re complete.”

“So there are two complete souls of Yew Sky?”

“There is only one complete soul of Yew Sky.”

“So there’s only one soul of Yew Sky.”

“There’s only one soul of Yew Sky.”

“But I’m in two places.”

“You’re in one place.”

Yew looked at him, furrowing his eyebrows. What was this man trying to do? He looked very serious, when he was giving him answers, but he was denying almost anything logical, which Yew tried to say. “If I’m in one place, then where is my body?”

“In the physical realm.”

“Am I in the physical realm?”

“Yes and no,” the man responded with a very honest look on his face.

Yew rolled his eyes, and decided to give up on seeking any more clarification, “am I even a human?”

"Do you have a body?"

"Of course," he spread his hands, showing his body.

Tembusu took the beret off of his head, and stretched out his hand with the beret toward Yew, "hold it."

Yew tried to grab the beret, but his hand went through the object. Shocked, he tried over and over again, until Tembusu began to laugh.

"That's not funny," Yew scolded him. “Am I a ghost?”

Tembusu threw his beret at the boy’s face, who instinctively caught it, and to Yew’s surprise, this time he was holding the beret. He moved it between his fingers, and passed from one hand to another, trying to understand what was going on.

"Do you have a body?" Tembusu asked again.

The boy looked at the man's deep blue eyes, and with an unsure voice, he said, "I don't know."

"Good. Finally you learned something," Tembusu praised his student.

Yew wanted to point out that he hasn’t learned anything, but then he decided to say something else, "do I have a body?"

"Yes and no," Tembusu answered once again with that mysterious response. He waited for Yew’s response, but when no follow-up came from the boy, he said, "what is precious to the flesh, is trash to the soul. And what is wisdom to the soul, is foolishness to the body."

Yew no longer said anything, because he felt like no matter what he said, it would lead him nowhere, and he’d just waste time talking.

"The schools of the physical realm teach knowledge of the physical world, but the school of Hypnos teaches wisdom from the spiritual realm. Both the spiritual and the physical realms are infinite in size, and the border between them is also endless. It is only up to you to decide how much and what you’ll take out from here.”

"Take out?"

Tembusu smiled, "you’ll forget all that you choose to leave behind."

"Mesquite Wind?" Yew repeated the name. "I never heard of the Wind household."

"Quite likely," Aspen said. "The Wind household has been declining for many years, and Mesquite Wind is the last living member of the Wind household."

"The last living member?" Yew looked at Aspen. "So, if he dies, then there will be no more royals from the Wind household?"

"Precisely," Aspen nodded.

"A-ny-way," Chervil interrupted, "now that you're also a student of Hypnos, we need some introduction, don't we?" She raised up her chin, straightened out, and started her show, "this beautiful missy in front of your eyes is Chervil Wanderrie Yidian Sun. She's a very intelligent and talented fifth year student, but mh-mh, she has a secret. She's a student of Hypnos," she winked at Yew, "just like you."

"I already introduced myself to Yew, but as a reminder, I'm Parsley Gold, a seventh year."

"I don't think you need my introduction," Aspen said.

Yew nodded in response. "So you’re all in Hypnos?" he asked to confirm.

“Yuppie-yeah,” Chervil clapped.

There was another thing that Yew wanted to know, “are there more?”

Parsley, who was the first one to understand his question, explained. “Here, in the school of Hecate, it’s only us four. The school of Hecate doesn’t have a lot of students overall. Last year, the total count was roughly thousand ten hundred students, and no matter the year, the proportion of students of Hypnos is always about the same in Hecate. On average it’s one student of Hypnos per twenty hundred students.”

“So there should be at least five of us,” Chervil did the simple math. “Maybe there’s one more student of Hypnos hiding somewhere.”

“On average doesn’t mean all the time. Sometimes the number is a bit lower, and sometimes it’s a bit higher.”

“Why aren’t there more students in Hecate?” Yew began to wonder.

“Because there aren’t that many magic-talented people in the world.  Don’t you know that every year, the school of Hecate is always second from the bottom, on a ranking of student population?” Parsley stated with the isn’t-it-obvious look on her face.

“And which school’s at the very bottom?” Chervil asked.

Parsley looked at her to check, if her question wasn’t a joke, before she answered, “the school of Nike.”

“That makes sense. Wait, what about Hera and Zeus? Don’t they have, like, one new student per year or something like that?”

“Those are special schools only for royals, so they’re not counted in the ranking.”

“I see. So which school is at the top?” Chervil was interested in the topic more than the boys.

“It changes, but last year it was the school of Hermes, with more than one hundred thousand students, followed by the school of Athena with almost hundred thousand students.”

“Hundred thousand?” Yew couldn’t believe the large number he heard. “There are almost hundred thousand students in Athena?”

Parsley crossed her arms, “didn’t you know? The school of Athena has the largest schoolground area among all the schools. It’s also a metropolis all on its own.”

“I thought only the best ones go to study in Athena,” Yew recalled what he heard from his sister.

“Yes. They have strict criteria for new students. But every year people from all around the world apply to Athena. From among millions of applications, the school accepts only the best ones, but that’s still a large number of new students.”

Yew recalled Hyssop. He knew that his older sister was attending Athena, just like his mother. Hyssop always talked about her studies and teachers, but she never mentioned the size of her school. He always imagined Athena to be a small building for a small class of geniuses, where all of them competed every day for the top spot.

Wait, the top spot. Wasn’t Hyssop among the top ten students of her year? Up until this day, Yew thought that Hyssop defeated hundred or so other students to be in the top ten, but if there were almost hundred thousand students in the school, if divided by nine years... Yew couldn’t do such math in his head, but he was certain of one thing. His older sister was beyond amazing.

“So how big is Hermes?” Chervil asked, curious to compare the size of each schoolground.

“Average size per building,” Parsley answered. “Unlike most schools, Hermes isn’t located in one place, but it’s scattered around the world. All the trading and business cities have at least one school building, and students of Hermes relocate a lot during the time they spend in Hermes.”

“Most of them don’t graduate,” Aspen added what everyone knew.

“Yes, the school of Hermes is at the bottom in the ranking of graduates, and at the top in the ranking of dropout rate.”

“Good thing, we’re in Hecate, the only dropouts occur in the first and second year,” Chervil grinned as she spoke out the only piece of information she knew about Hecate, since it was a common knowledge among all students.

“What?” Yew looked a bit scared by the news.

“Oh, no worries, no worries,” Chervil laughed. “Nobody has ever been kicked out of Hecate due to poor scores, or whatever other reason. What I mean is that after trying out Hecate for a year, some students change their mind, and they leave on their own to go to a different school.”

“Some students find learning magic to be too difficult,” Parsley explained. “Especially those less talented in magic drop Hecate at the end of the first year, or within a month or two after they start their second year. These are ninety nine percent of the total dropout rate in Hecate, which is still fairly low, about one out of every fifty students.”

“So one student in every class,” Chervil rephrased it. “It also means, that if you don’t drop Hecate in the first two years, you’re sure to graduate, unless you happen to die.”

"Anyway, let’s get back to the main topic,” Parsley interrupted, before the conversation drifted away into something else. “Hypnos has some rules you need to follow. They’re not here to constrain you. They’re here to protect you."

“Okay.”

“First, don’t tell anyone about Hypnos, unless you’re sure that they’re either students or graduates of Hypnos.”

“This is the rule, which Aspen broke,” Chervil squeezed in a comment, and Aspen looked to the side embarrassed at his mistake.

“Second, don’t talk about Hypnos in places, where anyone could hear you. You don’t want someone to accidentally overhear your conversation about anything related to Hypnos. Since both of you are neighbors,” she pointed at Yew and Aspen, “I’m sure that you’ll talk with each other a lot, but be very careful that no one else hears you talking about Hypnos.”

Yew nodded, confirming that he understood the gravity of such a mistake.

“Third, don’t act suspicious. Otherwise you’ll attract unwanted attention. It’s best that you’re not thinking too much about being a student of Hypnos. If you just concentrate on being a student of Hecate as a priority, everything will look natural, and you’ll have nothing to worry about.”

"To sum it up, the school of Hypnos has to remain an absolute secret until you graduate," Chervil warned, "once you graduate you can say whatever you want to whomever you want."

"Exactly,” Parsley nodded. “But now, things could get troublesome, if wrong people were to find out that you're a student of Hypnos. Also the school of Hecate has a right to expel you, if they find out that you’re already enrolled in another school. So don’t tell anyone, or you could get into real troubles," Parsley finished her explanation.

"So what do we tell Spruce?" Yew looked at Aspen, who just shrugged his shoulders.

"Nothing," the boy responded.

"What do you mean - nothing?"

"We cannot tell him anything about Hypnos, so let’s just stay quiet, or do you want to lie?" he asked Yew.

“What if he asks about the magic books of the higher years."

"I'd tell him the truth. I got them from Chervil, who is our class tutor."

Yew looked at Chervil, who nodded.

"You can tell him about me - the accomplice, who helped you kids break the school rules,” she grinned. “Even if the teachers find out, at worst it'll end with some severe scolding or a light punishment."

"As long as we don't mention Hypnos, it'll be fine," Aspen added, and Yew wondered what is the definition of the word «fine».

“And if you want books from higher years, you can always ask me,” Chervil offered with a wide grin.

“Also if you’re in trouble related to Hypnos, it’s best that you contact us as soon as possible,” Parsley pointed at herself and Chervil.

"How do I contact you?" Yew asked.

"Mindteaming,” Chervil stated.

"Mindteaming is a spell of the fifth year," Parsley explained. “It's easy to learn, just ask Aspen.”

“I’ll teach you later,” Aspen spoke to Yew.

Parsley looked at the exit, “anyway, I still have classes today, so I’ll be off,” as soon as she said it, she teleported out.

"It sucks to be a student of the seventh year," Chervil pouted, "all day long, you have nothing but classes. No time for fun."

"You don't have any more classes today?" Yew asked.

"Of course I do," she responded, "but I'm skipping them. Hey, did you have lunch?” she changed the topic.

Both boys shook their heads sideways.

“Then I have a great idea. Let’s go eat together. We can chat as well.”

“Aren’t we supposed not to talk about Hypnos in public?" Yew recalled what he just learned.

"Not about Hypnos, about us. Let's get to know each other," she started walking out of the cave, "oh, and let's go to Sheepcrown. There's this place, where I heard the food is super delicious."

The boys followed her out of the cave, and toward the city. They walked behind her, but kept a safe distance as if to make a statement that they’re not together and it was only a coincidence that the three of them walked in the same direction.

Chervil attracted more attention than anyone else. Instead of walking normally, she was half jumping. Sometimes she was swirling around, or humming some song. When suddenly she yelled "yay" and jumped up with a big grin on her face, she had everyone around staring at her. After that, both boys added an extra meter of distance between them.

Until now, the boys didn’t know that Chervil was an embarrassment, wherever she went. The gal lived in her own world, and she didn’t care what the world around her thought about her. On her way to Sheepcrown, she randomly picked leaves from trees, played with them, carried them to another location and left them somewhere once she was bored with whatever imaginary game she was playing.

"Do you think she's normal?" Yew asked Aspen. Both boys walked at a distance, and he was sure that Chervil couldn't hear the question.

"Is there such a thing as a normal person?" Aspen responded in a philosophical manner.

"I never saw anyone behave like that," Yew pointed at Chervil, who was trying to stick two, red and yellow, leaves into her hair, but unfortunately for her, they wouldn't stay still. Eventually she got the red one to stick, and content with the result, she played with the yellow leaf in her hand.

After they entered the city of Sheepcrown, the streets got more crowded with people, and it got harder to follow Chervil at a distance without getting separated. After losing sight of her for quite a long moment, the boys decided to follow right behind her.

She entered a very long but narrow alley between the buildings. After coming out of the alley they were in a tiny plaza surrounded by buildings overgrown by ivy.

“It’s right here,” she pointed at an old wooden door hidden under the ivy hanging from the rooftop. With her hand, she moved the ivy to the side, opened the door and walked in.

Aspen followed next. Exactly at the moment, when Yew took a step inside, something crashed onto the ground outside, right behind his back. The three of them looked outdoors at an iceball that smashed into the stone pavement in the same place, where Yew stood a moment ago.

All of a sudden, hail began to fall down with thousands of iceballs hitting down like a rain of bullets. Chervil grabbed Yew and pulled him inside the building and away from the entrance. From outside, they heard the sounds of people shouting and yelling, sounds of windowglass shattering, and an endless beating of iceballs assaulting the stone pavement and walls. The roofs, which were covered by plants, didn't create loud sounds, but the plants weren’t spared at all.

The hailstorm ended as suddenly as it started.

Outside, the ground was covered by thousands of iceballs. The smallest ones were the size of cherries, and the biggest ones as big as strawberries. It wasn’t unusual for the sky to hail in the city of Sheepcrown, but the hail was always made up of tiny iceballs, no bigger than the smallest blueberries.

Everyone was confused at the unexpected event. In the building across, a window was shattered and the people gathered around to estimate the damages. Some kids showed up out of nowhere, and started collecting the biggest iceballs, while their mothers kept looking at the sky, as if they wanted the sky to tell them that it was safe to be out.

Yew looked away from the outside and focused his eyes on the interior design of the restaurant. The place was empty except for the three of them. There were only two tables under the wall. Each table had four chairs, and two flower stems in a clear vase standing at the center of the table.

Yew wondered whether this was really a restaurant, because he had never seen a restaurant that could seat no more than eight customers.

Chervil kept staring at the iceballs on the ground. Her usual over-energetic attitude was gone without a trace.

"Chervil?" Aspen called her name, but she didn’t react.

It took her a long moment to realize, where she was, and what she was doing before the hail. She closed the entrance door. Without the daylight coming in through them, the restaurant became much darker. Some light was still coming in through the single window next to the door, but the ivy leaves blocked most of it.

"Let's just sit down," she said, and sat herself on one of the tables.

The two boys sat across from her. Aspen was sitting by the wall, and Yew was sitting directly opposite to Chervil.

"That hail was scary," Yew decided to start a conversation.

"Yeah," Aspen agreed with him.

Chervil looked at them, then she looked at the wall. She stared at it, lost deep in her thoughts.

Aspen watched her with interest, "first time I see you so quiet."

Without moving, she spoke in the direction of the wall, "that hail reminded me of something."

"Which is?"

"Weather anomalies are signs of approaching disasters.”

Both boys looked at her in silence.

The Yew asked, “how do you know?”

“It said so in one of the books I read,” she moved her eyes away from the wall and onto the table in front of her. “I like weather, all kinds of weather. I wanted to study weather since my childhood. I even applied to Athena to become a weather scientist, but they rejected my application.”

“You wanted to go to Athena?”

"The school of Athena has its own department on weather studies, but I was rejected so it doesn’t matter anymore. The school of Hecate doesn’t have any weather department, but they offer classes in Weather Magic. I will take that as my major next year.”

When she finished speaking, the silence returned to the room, as neither one of them continued the conversation.

“Do you have a major you like?” Chervil asked Yew.

“Me? No, I didn’t decide yet.”

“How about studying Weather Magic? Oh, wait. I forgot you’re magicless.”

Aspen gave Yew a quick look, but Yew didn’t say anything.

A small toddler, who already knew how to walk on two legs, approached the table with a low tray on wheels. On top of the tray, there were eight plates laid one on top of another, and a pot of soup. Yew looked at the toddler, and quickly realized that it was no toddler, but a bald patriarch, who was unbelievably short. He wore a green shirt and brown pants on suspenders.

"Today's special - tomato soup," he said, but Yew couldn't see his mouth through the thick but short beard that covered the bottom half of his face.

"Is that a gnome?" Aspen asked as he stared at the server.

"Yuppie-yup," Chervil confirmed with her usual cheerful smile. "This restaurant is owned and managed by gnomes. I heard they make really delicious soups.”

The gnome poured the soup into a plate, then put the plate on the table by the edge. He repeated his actions, and left after leaving three spoons next to the three full plates, all located at the edge of the table.

Chervil pulled one plate closer to her and grabbed one of the spoons. Yew picked up one plate and put it in front of Aspen, before placing the other plate in front of himself, and grabbing two spoons he passed one of them to his classmate.

Aspen tasted the soup, "it's really good.”

“Yup, it's delicious," Chervil agreed and looked at Yew, “so tell me something about yourself, like your hobbies."

"I don't have a hobby."

“Anything that you like to do?”

Yew thought for a moment, "playing in the creek, or in the woods... I grew up in a small village, so there wasn't much else to do."

"That sounds interesting. There’s no creek to play nearby, but did you check out the forests around here?"

Yew shook his head sideways, "I'm still learning my way around the schoolground."

Chervil kept asking him questions: about school, about classes, about teachers and students, about his opinions and thoughts about Hecate, but Yew never said anything more than a short, vague or general response. They finished eating, and Chervil gave her money card to the gnome, who disappeared with it to the back room. When he came back again, he handed her her money card, and took the dirty dishes away.

When the three of them were outside the restaurant, Chervil turned around and said to the boys, “do you know that gnomes will come to visit you at night, if you take anything from them without paying?"

“I didn’t know that,” Aspen answered. “How would they know where I live?”

"Dunno,” she shrugged her shoulders, "I never stole anything from gnomes, so I don't know whether it's true or not. But you just ate without paying, so if you get a visit, don't forget to tell me," she ran away laughing, before either boy understood her last words.

"Didn't she pay for us?" Yew asked, as he looked at Aspen.

Aspen, who was looking at Yew, turned around, "I'm going to check.” He walked into the restaurant, "excuse me.”

However, there was no response. Yew walked in behind Aspen, and both boys waited standing near the entrance door. Yet no matter how long they waited, nobody showed up. After a long time of waiting, Aspen gathered his courage, walked past the tables, and entered the small kitchen, which was completely empty.

"Where's that gnome?" Yew entered after Aspen, and walked around the kitchen.

They couldn’t find the gnome, but another guest entered the restaurant, and the two boys walked out of the kitchen. A middle aged man sat himself at the table, and quietly waited.

"Excuse me, sir," Aspen approached the man, "do you know where I can find the gnome, who owns this restaurant?"

"A gnome will come, if you sit long enough, but I don't know whether he'll be the owner," the man responded. "Just sit down and wait, the soup here is really good."

"We just ate. There was one more person with us, who left and we didn’t get a chance to ask whether she paid for us too. So we wanted to ask the owner.”

"Oh, if that's all, then just go outside," the man pointed at the entrance. "The doors won't let you out unless you paid in full."

Hearing it, the boys looked at each other. They both thanked the man, and left the restaurant.

"That was embarrassing," Yew said once outside.

"How were we supposed to know?"

Both boys laughed at each other's behavior. Chervil made them think that they really left the restaurant without paying, and just a moment ago, they were afraid of whatever consequences that carried. But now, they were in a good mood, and laughing at the ridiculous worry.

When Yew woke up, Linden was still fast asleep in his bed.

After Yew got out of his bed and went to the restroom, he looked at his face in the mirror, and tried to recall the weird dreams he had. Even though he remembered them clearly just a moment ago, right now those memories were steadily slipping away from his memory. In the end, he barely remembered that the dreams were about "a red cup of tea" and "a rain of sand", and by the time he left the restroom, he forgot all about them.

Once he returned back to the bedroom, he dressed up, then looked at the clock to check whether he still had enough time to eat breakfast.

Yesterday, on their way back from the restaurant, he agreed to meet Aspen again this morning. Since it was almost time to meet, he grabbed an apple from the table and left the cottage.

He snacked on the apple, while he walked through the sunny, but a cold morning. The day would get warmer later on, but with no clouds in the sky, the air wouldn’t stay warm overnight. Yew kicked some of the colorful leaves on the ground and sent them flying upward. He watched them fall, while he ate the rest of the apple. He threw the stem onto the ground, then went on to kick some more leaves up into the air, until he recalled his agreement with Aspen.

He came over to the neighboring cottage forty four hundred thirty five and knocked on the door.

A moment later, Spruce opened the door and let him in. "I heard what happened," he said to Yew, who was caught off guard.

Based on the conversation from yesterday, Hypnos was a top secret, and Aspen should have already learned to be careful with whom he talked about it.

"What did you hear?" Yew asked as he took off his outdoor shoes.

"Aspen will be tutoring you on the spells from higher years," Spruce responded.

"Oh," Yew realized that Spruce knows nothing about Hypnos.

"But, seriously. I would have never thought that both of you study magic from higher years in secret, because you wanted to surprise your parents. I wish I had enough talent to do that. If I could surprise my dad like that, he’d surely let me stay in Hecate."

After Yew took off all outdoor clothes, Spruce led him into the living room.

"Anyway, I won't pester you about it. Your secrets are safe with me," Spruce put his hand on his heart, showing his sincerity.

"Thanks," Yew looked at Aspen, sitting at his desk and reading books. "Hey, Aspen," he said but there was no response.

"You need to wake him up," Spruce walked up to Aspen.

"Wake up?" Yew repeated dumbfounded. Wasn't Aspen already awake?

 When Aspen began taking notes, Spruce took the textbook from his desk and began moving it away from him. Aspen observed his textbook moving toward the left edge of his desk for a long moment before his countenance showed, that he realized something important.

Yew came up and asked, "What are you doing?" but no sound came out, even though his mouth moved. Yew also realized that, when he approached Aspen, all sounds had disappeared. But before Yew started to ponder what happened, Aspen undid some charms by drawing some symbols with his fingers, and suddenly all the sounds and noises could be heard once again.

"Oh, Yew, you're here. Great timing, I was almost done," Aspen said as he took his textbook back from Spruce.

"What was that?" Yew asked.

"Concentration charm," Aspen responded. "It creates a vacuum of silence around the user, and also the attention charm, so all living people and animals become invisible to avoid any distraction." He got up and saw that Yew had no shoes, “why are you barefoot?”

“Erm…”

“You can use any of our shoes,” Aspen led him back to the entry room, and put out his indoor shoes in front of Yew, “try them.”

Yew put on the slippers.

“How do they fit?”

“Good.”

“Great.”

Aspen and Yew walked back, and they both sat on the sofa.

“Those charms for studying, are they from higher years?" Yew asked.

"No, but sadly we only learn about the charms in the second half of the first year, so to officially learn the concentration and the attention charm, you’d have to wait until after the new year. Based on the chapters in the book, I’d assume we’ll start learning about charms mid-month of Toas. However, it’s still too early to think about charms, the class has yet a lot of spells to learn this year.”

"Really?" Yew was doubtful about that. "Everyone already learned how to float their pens, and then we also learned how to manipulate the movement of a floating pen. This month, professor Sorrel told us that we'll be learning how to concentrate on two pens. Other than increasing the number of objects, what else is there to learn?"

"Didn't you read through the textbook?" Aspen asked, and Yew shook his head sideways.

"I only read what was assigned this week."

Aspen weaved his fingers together as he put both palms on top of his head. "Controlling two pens has two stages. The simplest spell is to move both pens in the same way. A more difficult spell is two move each pen in a different way. And then the difficulty gets increased to three pens."

"What about me?" Spruce joined. "I don't float the pens, I burn them."

"Similar," Aspen responded. "First you learn how to burn a pen, then you learn how to control the flame..."

"Yup, I managed to make it super small, like a candle flame. Even the professor complimented me," Spruce interrupted, to bring up the event from yesterday's class with Sorrel Cave.

Aspen waited for him to finish speaking, "then you learn how to burn two pens at the same time, first with the same flame on both pens, then with two different flames. Then you try three different flames on three different pens at the same time."

"And after that we'll learn charms?" Yew asked.

"Not yet. At the end, we’ll learn how to partition a spell. Then we’ll begin learning charms."

"What’s a partition spell?" Spruce asked.

"A partitioned spell,” Aspen corrected him. “We learn how to consciously apply the spell only to a part of an object. In other words, how to use the spell only on half of the pen, leaving the other half of the pen unaffected."

"But wouldn't that still make the whole pen float?" Yew pondered, "if you pick up the pen by one side, the other side will also lift up."

"No, it won't," Aspen responded. "There will be a split, where the magic border exists. The pen will cleanly cut into two, and only half of it will rise up and float. At least, that's how it will look like, if you do it correctly. Most likely, you'll fail in the beginning and break the pen apart."

"So how will it look like with fire?" Spruce was curious.

"If you do it properly, half of the pen will be burned to ash, but the other half will remain without any burn marks. If you fail, then there will be burn marks around the corner of the other half, where the magic border wasn't clearly defined."

"That sounds like some very difficult magic," Spruce commented.

"It is. Controlling one’s own magic and limiting the scope of the affected area is the hardest thing to do in magic."

"Aspen," Yew called out, and Aspen looked his way. “are we learning only one spell in our first year? I mean, we learn to use it in a different way, but it’s still only one and the same spell of moving an object."

"Kind of," Aspen affirmed. "The first year isn't about the diversity of magic. It's about strong foundations. Afterall, we need a good control of our concentration and a well-developed stamina regardless of the spells or charms we use."

"So we also learn only one charm?" Yew concluded.

"Nope, two charms."

"Which ones?" Spruce quickly asked.

"The concentration charm and the attention charm."

"Really?" Spruce looked so happy.

"Just kidding," Aspen followed up on his previous comment. "These charms are from the extra chapter at the end of the textbook."

"Oh, well," this time Spruce sounded down.

"You saw professor Sorrel lifting up the chair with the levitation charm? That's the first charm we'll be learning."

"So the same boring floating of a pen?" Yew remarked.

"Yup, the same boring floating of a pen," Aspen repeated after him, "but this time, as a charm."

"And what's the second charm?" Yew asked, before he remembered Aspen’s sense of humor. “Oh, I get it. There’s only one charm.”

"No, there are two charms we learn this year. The second charm is barrier charm," Aspen surprised him.

"Whaaat?!" both Yew and Spruce said at the same time, and then looked at each other, and back at Aspen, hoping that the charm is as amazing as it sounds.

"It's meant to keep us safe, when we learn magic. In higher years, we will cast it to block any physical objects from touching our bodies, so for example, if we practice sky magic on knives, we won’t get hurt if any knife falls on us."

"Wow," Spruce was excited.

"However, it's not a perfect charm, and it doesn't protect others around us," Aspen pointed out the biggest flow of the barrier charm, “and also I don't know how it will be for you," he pointed at Spruce. "This spell is of sky magic variation, but you're using the fire variation, so…" he didn't finish the sentence, but Spruce already understood what he wanted to say.

"Maybe there's something like a fire barrier charm?" Yew offered a hopeful alternative.

"Maybe," Aspen repeated. "There's nothing about that in our textbook."

"But the textbook also doesn't say anything about tools with fire magic," Spruce pointed out.

"Of course, because the textbooks for the first year in Hecate require all magicless students to acquire a tool with the sky variation, since these tools are easiest to learn," Aspen pointed at the textbook on his desk, "I think you're the only magicless student with a tool of the fire variation among all the first year students."

"I bought it, because Linden…"

"I know, I know," Aspen interrupted and waved his hand away. "And I don't think it was a bad idea. Most magicless students will need to buy another tool once they start their second year, but you should be good with that one tool at least until fourth or fifth year."

"That’s convenient," Yew looked at Spruce.

"Anyway, I have something I need to talk with Yew privately,” Aspen moved his eyes between Yew and Spruce, “so let's talk about fire tools another time."

Spruce sighed, stood up and before leaving the room he said to Aspen, "don't forget that you promised to tell me all your secrets, right after we graduate from Hecate."

"Don't worry, I will," Aspen responded.

Spruce left the living room and went to the bedroom.

"So? What did you want to talk with me about?" Yew asked, and Aspen waved a hand toward the shelfcase. A small book pulled itself out from among many other books and flew toward them.

"You're so proficient," Yew commented, "just like Linden. Aren't you afraid that someone will find it suspicious, if you use magic like that?"

Aspen caught the book with his hand and blinked twice, when he heard Yew's statement, "this is the levitation spell, which we just finished learning last month using pens and leaves," he pointed out. "All the first year students can do at least this much."

Yew stared at Aspen, with an open mouth like an idiot. All the time, he was so focused on hiding his talent and using absolutely no magic around others, that he totally ignored the fact that other students around him would act the exact opposite, and use whatever magic they have learned as soon as they officially learned it in school.

"Oh, right," he said, "everyone can already do that," and as if to prove the point, he waved his hand at a pen on Aspen's desk and moved it up.

Aspen looked at the pen, then at Yew, then back at the pen. He looked carefully at Yew from top to bottom, and back to top. Afterward, he half-closed his eyes, and with a smirk on his face, he stated his observation, "you forgot your brooch."

"Oh, sorry, I'll bring it," Yew dropped the floating pen, and was going to go back, but Aspen stopped him.

“Wait, you don’t need it.”

Yew sat back.

Aspen continued to smirk at him. "I'm glad that I'm not the only idiot, who cannot keep a secret," he implied the time, when he accidentally talked about Hypnos. "Anyway, you better keep that brooch with you all the time. Teachers will surely have a lot of questions, if they realize."

"I will be more careful."

"So this book,” Aspen waved in his hand the small book from the shelfcase, “is a list of the top twenty most useful spells," he gave the small book to Yew. "On page sixteen, it has the mindteaming spell, which allows two or more people to connect their minds, so that they can converse with each other through thoughts."

"Why would I want to share my thoughts with someone?"

"That's the easiest way to communicate. That's how I contacted Parsley, after I spilled that secret, and that's how Parsley contacted the chairman."

Yew recalled the event two days ago, and it finally made much more sense to him.

"But this book is from the fifth year, so make sure nobody, and I mean, nobody sees you with that," he pointed at the book, which was already in Yew's hands.

"What if I was actually magicless? Would I be able to learn the mindteaming spell?" Yew opened the book on page sixteen, and asked out of curiosity.

"The mindteaming spell requires such little talent that even magicless people can learn it. In Hecate, they could be teaching this spell in the first year, but they don't, because it causes many problems, such as cheating on tests."

"Oh," Yew quickly imagined himself mindteaming with someone more knowledgeable to get the answers to the test questions.

"Of course, there are ways to detect this spell, but actively searching for users is harder, so the school simply keeps this spell a secret until the fifth year, but I wouldn't be surprised, if there are students, who learned it earlier than that."

"So when do I return it?" Yew asked.

"Keep it until you learn the mindteaming spell, also make sure nobody finds out. If anyone asks, just tell them that you found this book somewhere on the schoolground. Sometimes, it happens that older students leave books in the cafeteria or on benches in parks. So it's always a good excuse."

"And once I learn the mindteaming spell I return it to you?"

"Or you can give it to Chervil. She borrows the library books for me, so she can go and return it without suspicion."

"Okay," Yew confirmed that he understood the instructions, "so this is all what you wanted to talk about?" he raised up the book in his hand.

Aspen nodded, but then he added, "one more thing. Sometimes, in rare cases you may meet a person, who somehow knows that you're studying in Dreamworld, before he or she even talks to you. It will feel as if they know all about you, even though you know nothing about them."

"What? But nobody should know about that, right?" Yew recalled the conversation from yesterday.

"Yes, nobody would normally know about that, except for graduates of Tyche."

"Graduates of Tyche?"

"I don't know how they do it. Actually nobody in Hypnos knows how they do it, but these guys can somehow know your secrets. And that’s why they may know about a part of your soul that is studying in Dreamworld. So in case you meet them, don't panic and just ask them if they're from Tyche."

"I assume they'll keep it a secret."

"They should, but don't ask me too much. I myself have never met anyone from Tyche, so I don't know what to expect, but it's something Parsley and Chervil warned me about, so I'm passing this warning to you."

They heard a knock on the bedroom door, before Spruce walked out, "are you done? It's almost time to go, or we'll be late to class."

"Yeah, we're done," Aspen confirmed, and packed up his backpack.

Yew left their cottage and returned back to his cottage in order to get ready for class.

When Linden woke up, he lifted up his head to check whether Yew was still in bed. He wasn’t, so at first, Linden thought that he overslept, but then he glanced at the clock, and realized that he still had plenty of time to get ready.

He didn't wonder where his roommate went, because it was either one of two options: Yew went to the neighboring cottage and was with Spruce, or he already went to the class. Unlike Linden, Yew had a simple lifestyle, which was typical for a ten yrold boy.

He recalled the night from yesterday. He forgot about his size, and overdid it a little bit. On his way to the bathroom, he reminded himself to hold back a bit until his body is no longer that of a kid. He went to check the back of his shoulder in the bathroom mirror. He could clearly see the big bruise located in the top right area of his back. Based on how wide it was, it was going to take a while to disappear. Luckily, he didn’t feel much pain, when moving his right arm.

After he was done dressing up, he went to the kitchen and looked inside the fridge. He always brought in whatever leftovers he had from his outings, but none of that food stayed long in the fridge. Yew would eat all of it within a day or two, and Linden didn't mind at all. It was better than letting the food rot. That’s why he personally gave Yew an annual permission to eat his food in order to make Yew stop asking for permission every single time. Getting asked “can I eat this?” several times a day, annoyed Linden to no end.

However, right now Linden was looking for something to eat for breakfast, and there was nothing in the fridge except for ketchup, soy sauce and one tomato. For a brief moment, he regretted letting Yew eat his food, but he quickly got over his regret, once he remembered that he had a chocolate wafer. He bought it yesterday, and it still should be in his backpack, as he never took it out.

He no longer felt hungry after he ate the large wafer, so he got ready to go to classes, certain that the food should have been enough to keep him hungerless until lunch. Just as he was almost ready to leave, Yew returned back to the cottage. They greeted each other, and Yew went straight for his backpack. Linden didn’t have to ask to know that Yew was with Spruce, because the other kid soon entered the cottage all dressed up and ready to go to school.

The three of them left the cottage together, and met up with Aspen, who was waiting for them outside.

Linden looked up at the wide blue sky, "the time to face the monster has arrived."

Neither of the boys asked him, what he meant, because they all understood. The previous day, Linden didn't return until late at night, so he didn't have the time to copy any of the homework for the History of Magic class. And exactly as they expected, Cacao Bark mercilessly took off points from Linden for the missing homework. Linden didn’t even bother speaking, as the teacher surely wouldn’t even listen.

After the two morning classes ended, they headed to the cafeteria, and on the way Linden spoke toward Yew, "I transferred three hundred syfras to your account."

"Oh, ok" Yew responded and then looked at Spruce, "I’ll send you half, once we’re at the cafeteria."

In the cafeteria, hidden in a small room away from the main dining area, there were four cash machines - two on each side. Anyone was allowed to use it, and it was free for the students and faculty of Hecate. Linden could have transferred hundred fifty syfras to Yew, and another hundred fifty syfras to Spruce, but he was too lazy to do the transfer twice. So he always sent money only to Yew's account, and let the two boys share it among themselves.

The four of them ate lunch together. Spruce, Yew and Aspen talked among themselves, while Linden was doing nothing other than eating, and soon he was done with his meal. He stood up and took the plates back. On his way out, he passed by the table, and Aspen was the first one to speak out, “you’re leaving?”

Linden nodded, "I have something I want to take care of."

Aspen nodded in response.

Linden quickly waved his hand once and left the boys behind.

He walked through the main schoolground of Hecate. He passed through the cottage village of some older students and arrived at the border of the schoolground. He stood by the river, which separated the schoolground of Hecate from the wild forest, which surrounded the city of Sheepcrown.

The river was vast and deep, and there was a steep cliff on each side. The access to the river was blocked by a railing from the side of the schoolground, but there was no safety precaution from the other side. However, only a fool would try to approach the powerful currents, which could easily drown anyone attempting to swim there.

Linden walked along the riverside, until he got to a gated bridge that could be used to cross to the other side. The gate wasn't locked, as it wasn't there to block humans from entering the forest, but to keep wild animals away from the human settlement. Furthermore, the school of Hecate had their own powerful set of charms to protect the students, so locks weren’t necessary.

Linden opened the iron-bar gate, which made a high-pitched squeak, and closed it with a bang. After passing through the bridge, he headed onward on a wavy path into the woods. He didn't see any animals on his path, but he knew that the forest wasn't empty. If an adult saw such a young boy walking alone among the trees, Linden might have been scolded and brought back home by force, if necessary.

The woods around Hecate had plenty of dangerous animals living there. From wolves, who could easily turn a young boy into their lunch, to poisonous snakes, and aggressive boars, which were known to randomly attack whomever they saw. Moreover, animals weren’t the only danger that resided in the forest.

And yet Linden walked through the wilderness, as if it was his own backyard. He showed no sign of fear or anxiety. Like a man, who could firmly cross the bridge, knowing that it won't break under him, Linden firmly kept moving on a wavy path into the darker and darker areas of the forest. The trees around him were getting bigger and bigger, and soon the treecrowns were so large, that they blocked almost all the sunlight from shining onto the ground.

In those dark woods, there were less plants growing at the bottom. Instead of bushes, moss covered all the ground, and all that laid on the ground. Rocks, fallen trees, and what appeared to be a skeleton of a large animal, all were covered by lush moss. Linden ignored all that view. He passed by the skeleton the size of a car, without paying it any attention.

Some animals in the distance spotted him, and ran off, before he could even see them. He kept going on until the very end of the path, where he stopped to take a look at the ground in front of him. There was no more path to lead him forward. All the ground was covered by moss, and God only knew what was hiding underneath that thick carpet of green.

He took out a piece of stone from his pocket, and let it fall to the ground. Afterward, he moved on toward the goal, which he could see in the distance. Among the trees, there was a tiny spark of light, like a lamp hidden deep in the woods. As Linden came closer and closer, the light grew bigger and bigger, and upon arrival at the spot, Linden stood basking in the sunlight. He was no longer under the treecrowns of the dark woods.

However, this place was nothing like the exit out of the forest. Quite the opposite, it was one of the deepest places, which rarely had seen any visitor. Right in the center of the area, grew a gigantic tree with its roots taking up so much space, that no other tree could grow anywhere near it. Only flowers and small bushes grew in small holes between the thick roots of the tree, which was bigger than a twenty-story building.

Among the roots, there was one big stone boulder with an inscription. Linden approached and put his hand on the boulder, looking at the inscription. He silently stared at it as he recalled an event from his past. Today was the anniversary of that night.

He was still nine yrold, when he first entered the forest around Hecate. At that time, he was spending vacation by his mother’s side, who as a teacher of Hecate had a residence at the Hecate schoolground. In that month of Dees, his mother for some reason was staying at Hecate, while he was allowed to freely roam around the mostly-empty schoolground as long as he didn’t go too far. He also had to study by his mother’s side, but that was his second priority.

At first, he roamed only on and around the Hecate schoolground, but it didn’t take him long to go farther away.

When he first entered the forest, he didn’t feel scared at all. He was a clever boy, who knew ahead of time that danger awaits in the outside world, and in order to protect himself he took one of his mom’s self-defense magical items. He never used it before, but he saw his mom using it in the past. Assuming that he knew how to use it, he felt confident about his safety.

After spending many hours in his new playground, he saw what appeared to be a little kitten. He walked farther into the wild forest, and upon closer inspection he saw that the animal wasn’t that little, and it surely wasn’t a cat. The animal was hissing at Linden, who was steadily coming closer.

The boy looked at the fox, who had a swollen leg and couldn’t move. The poor animal must have been infected and needed help, but Linden didn’t have with him any medication, so instead he decided to take the fox to the city in order to ask his mom to get the poor fox to a veterinarian.

However, when he tried to pick up the fox, it moved away from him. It was in a lot of pain, but it wouldn’t let Linden come near.

“Oy! Why are you like that?!” the boy yelled back feeling betrayed. “I’m trying to help you!”

He took off his jacket, and tied up the sleeves. If the fox wasn’t coming on his own will, then he'd bring it back by force. Linden jumped at the wounded animal, and pulled his jacket on it, locking the animal inside it. The fox didn’t know how to get out of the jacket, so it struggled in vain, and moaned in hopes of getting back his freedom.

“Don’t whine. Soon you’ll feel better,” Linden tried to cheer up the animal.

He hadn’t even realized that it was getting dark, and the day was getting closer and closer to the sunset.

Right before the last rays of sunlight had disappeared from the canopy, he suddenly became aware that he was all alone among the darkness of tall trees. For the first time ever since he entered the forest, he wondered how far away was he from Hecate.

He tried to carry the fox and go back, but the fox was a bit heavy, so he tried to carry it in a different way. When he finally managed to find a way to carry the animal, all the daylight was gone, and in the night the forest became eerily different.

Linden refused to panic. Instead he kept on walking, believing that sooner or later he’d get out, and he’d be back in Hecate. Like this, he walked and walked, but there was no sign of Hecate anywhere.

His legs were already tired, and his eyelids were closing in need of sleep, when he saw something that looked like a light haze in the distance. Believing that to be the lights coming off from the direction of Hecate, he hurried up, but instead of the schoolground, he found himself standing alone by a gigantic tree. The source of the dim light was the tree bark, which reflected the light from the full moon shining directly at it.

The fox in his hand-made bag moaned one last time before it fell into silence. In the distance he heard a howl, followed by shrieks, and shivers ran down his spine. His eyes were now wide open, and any desire to sleep left him completely.

He gulped down his saliva, when he saw two pairs of eyes staring at him from the darkest shadows of the trees. He slowly moved away from the forest with his back toward the gigantic tree.

The two pairs of eyes also began moving. Some large animals were coming closer and closer. When they stepped out of the shadows, Linden saw their faces in the moonlight, and it caused him such a shock that he stumbled. He quickly recovered his balance, but the jacket with the fox fell behind one of the tree roots, which were sticking out of the soil.

Linden wanted to comfort and apologize to the animal, but he felt that he must never look away from the eyes of the two large werewolves, which were hungrily staring at him, with saliva dripping from their mouths.

Slowly, he put his shaking hand in his pocket and took out a small notebook. Feeling confident that he can win this fight, he turned over the cover with his other hand, and with a big smile of sure victory he shouted, “fly, my arrows!”

The first page of the notebook tore itself out, and changed into a small arrow, which flew like a mad bee, zig-zagging in the air, targeting the werewolves in front of Linden. One by one other pages followed, and the beasts were attacked by a shower of arrows. Neither one of the werewolves ever met with anything like this, so they didn’t know how to react to arrows, which never flew straight, but their speed and stabbing power was enough to kill any average enemy.

Soon the two werewolves fell to the ground, but the magical item never stopped attacking. Even after the enemy was dead and laying on the ground in their own blood, the notebook kept producing arrows which were getting more and more unpredictable. Terrified, Linden threw away the magical item, as far as he could, hoping that it would turn off while out of his reach, but that didn’t happen. Having no control over the arrows, Linden hid himself behind a large root, and prayed that no arrows hit him, while arrows continued to fly until the notebook ran out of pages.

Even after the last arrow got lodged in the gigantic tree and lost its power, Linden continued to wait for a while before he came out of his hiding spot from a narrow cave underneath the tree roots.

He carefully looked at the damage that the arrows did. It was very easy to see in the bright light of the full moon. The werewolves were dead, which was good. But he no longer had any means to protect himself and the fox. Oh right, the fox - he recalled the animal, which he was trying to save, and he ran up to where he last left it.

His jacket was wet with a red liquid and more than five arrows were stuck inside it.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Linden’s own heart immediately started beating faster, and he could barely breath as the sensation of reality became more and more distant. He could easily think of the worst possibility, but he didn't want to believe it.

Silently, he prayed to God. When he stretched out his hand and touched the animal, he still hoped for a miracle. The fur was soft, and the body was warm, but the fox had no reaction to his touch, and its eyes looked so empty and cold.

Linden quickly moved away his hand, as if he got stung. The guilt overcame him, and he didn’t want to accept it. He surely hadn’t killed the fox, which he wanted to save.

However, the reality was against him. When he finally accepted that the fox was dead, he directed his words at God, who failed to make a miracle. He begged Him. He threatened Him. He promised Him. He accused Him. He cried as all his hopes for a happy ending were slowly disappearing.

He didn’t even notice, when his mother arrived and stood by him. Looking around, she quickly understood the situation. She sat down and hugged her son.

“He did nothing wrong,” Linden said about the fox, “but I killed him.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Sorrel said, seeing the notebook arrows - she knew exactly what kind of magical item was used.

“The magic wouldn’t stop,” Linden cried and she kept on stroking his head until he calmed down. “Everything has its beginning and its end. Every beginning is an end, and every end is a beginning. His body had died, but his spirit had begun its journey.”

Linden sniffed, and hugged his face in his mother’s bosom.

“Let’s bury the body, so that its spirit can feel at peace.”

Linden nodded in agreement, and Sorrel maneuvered her hand as she used magic to create a deep hole between the roots of the gigantic tree. After the fox’s body was slowly levitated into the hole, and buried under the soil, Sorrel lowered her hand, and stood up. “Let’s say goodbye.”

She led Linden to the grave, where he apologized to the fox. Afterward, he asked Sorrel, if he could visit the grave again, and his mother agreed to come again with him at another time. In order to find the grave, she summoned a big boulder from the forest and put it above the area, where she buried the fox.

On their way back home, Linden asked, “will his body turn into a spirit?” while holding his mom’s hand.

“No,” Sorrel answered. “Bodies don’t turn into spirits. The spirits live inside the bodies of animals, and when the body dies the spirit is free to leave, and go on a journey.”

“So he’s on a journey? Then can I meet him again?”

“I’m sure you can meet, but it may be many years until you meet again.”

“Why?”

“Why,” Sorrel repeated the word. “I have a question for you as well. Why were you in the forest so late at night?” she sounded somewhat angry, so Linden just dropped down his head, and mumbled a quiet sorry.

Linden never forgot about the fox. As time passed, the nature had smoothed out the mound of the grave, and without the boulder, it would have been hard to find the location.

Linden remembered this event as his first mistake in his handling of magical items. Ever since that day, he swore to never use any item unless he knew all about it. In order to achieve this goal, he had spent all his free time learning about diverse magical items, which were created in the world, including even the rare ones that were hard to acquire.

At his current age, he wasn’t a master of knowledge, but he was certainly among specialists, when it came to magical items.

Even now, Linden wished, that he could just change the past. Since he couldn’t do it, he concentrated on another task - to never repeat the same mistake twice. In order to remind himself about his guilt, he inscribed just one phrase on the boulder: «I’m sorry».

And now, sitting in front of the grave, he closed his eyes and once again he apologized to the fox. He felt something touching his lower back, as if there was a small animal behind him. He turned around but there was nothing there. Looking around, he realized that it was getting late.

He hadn't felt the time passing by at all, while he stayed deep in contemplation. But it was already time to go back, so he took another stone from his pocket. This stone was exactly the same as the stone he left on the path.

“Take me home,” he whispered softly.

The stone glittered, and a thin line of yellow light spread from it, all the way to the other stone. He followed the line, and arrived at the path, which he took earlier. He collected the matching stone from the ground at the end of the path and went back following the same route. By the time, when he was out of the forest, it was already dark with only a bit of purple colors on the western horizon.

After Linden stepped onto the bridge, he heard what sounded like a voice, but it wasn't a voice, "spirits can see inside the heart."

He turned around and in the darkness, within the woods, he saw a white fox with red markings on its face. Its colors were so distinct, as if it was radiating light. Its vivid figure didn’t fit with the obscured scenery of the night. It was far enough that it should have been hard to see, and yet Linden was seeing it so clearly.

The fox didn’t move its mouth, when Linden heard another message, "the living grief, because they don't know. The dead rejoice, because they have seen."

"Are you a kitsune?" Linden asked.

He knew about kitsunes. They were creatures, who looked alike foxes, but in reality they weren’t just mere animals. They had powers to transform into other creatures. They were known as very cunning and hard to encounter. There were rumors that dead foxes sometimes turn into kitsunes, but ever since the beginning of the world, nobody has ever been able to confirm those rumors.

The kitsune turned around and ran into the forest. Linden thought about running after it, but after getting close to the woods, he realized that it was way too dark. It was a new moon several days ago, and the moon of tonight hadn’t even shown itself in the sky yet.

Chasing a rare creature in that darkness was foolish. There was no way he could catch up to the kitsune, even if he tried. So he turned around, and went back home.

When he was right in front of the door to his cottage, he looked up at the stars in the night sky, and smiled at a wish that was born in his heart, "I hope we'll meet again."

Spruce was writing the answer to the last homework question, which he had just solved with Yew, when Linden returned back to the cottage. The two boys could feel that there was something different about Linden, but they didn't know whether they should have pointed it out or not.

"Are you done with homework?" Linden asked.

"Yes," Yew answered.

"Nice. I’ll copy," he said and took out his notebook from his backpack, approached the kitchen table and sat next to Yew. He looked into Yew's notebook, and in silence he copied the three homework problems. Meanwhile Spruce packed up his belongings, said his byes to both of them, and left the cottage.

When Spruce returned back to his cottage, Aspen was already in pajamas and ready to sleep. Spruce also decided that it was a good time to go to sleep, so he changed and moved onto his bed. When he was already laying under the comforter, he began thinking about many things, among them, the promise that he had made with his father.

He didn't forget that his father allowed him to study in Hecate on one condition: he had to finish his first year with top scores among his classmates. The good news was that he didn’t have to be the top student among all the first years. The bad news, however, was that he had to somehow get to the top of his class, and that meant getting better scores than Aspen and Linden.

With his current scores, he was somewhere near the bottom in the class ranking, and he couldn’t see himself scoring anywhere near the top of his class. However, even with no chances to win, he still refused to give up. No matter what, this was the path, which he chose, and even if it was impossible for him to achieve that goal, he had no intention of acknowledging defeat before the battle was over.

He dreamed of becoming a wizard ever since he was a kid. He didn't consider it to be that difficult. Before he started the school of Hecate, he thought that just like in the school of Ares, hard-working students can compete with talented ones. However, the difference between magic-talented and magicless people turned out to be much bigger than what he originally expected.

He was getting better at using his magical tool. One way or another, he somehow managed to keep up with the Process of Magic class, which was a practical use of magic. However, History of Magic, which covered magic from a theoretical point, was a different type of challenge. In the beginning it appeared to be something easy, because they indeed learned nothing but history. As students, they had to remember names, places, dates, and events, and that was something that Spruce could do.

However, a month later, instead of simple memorization of data, students were expected to learn from their predecessors. As homework, students had to analyze events, come to conclusions, and write down their observations. Theoretically, it shouldn’t have been so hard, but it was much harder than it sounded. All the historical events were interconnected, and no event could be analyzed without taking in account all the related activities. Every event had at least one prior event that caused it, and there was at least one consequent event that was caused by it. All of that info had to be included in the homework.

Magic-talented students found it easy to do the homework, because they automatically analyzed the events from the perspective of magic, which they were well acquainted with since early childhood. However, for Spruce who never grew up around magi or wizards, it was difficult to even spot magic.

Afraid that the class will only become harder and harder, Spruce hoped to gain an advantage by reading the textbook ahead of time. Unfortunately, it backfired, as the described events got more complex, and he couldn't understand them that well without an explanation. If this was the future content of his textbook, then instead of going up, his scores would inevitably go down.

He quickly got rid of that last thought in his head.

Future was something that was yet to be made. It was wrong to assume the future, before it arrived. So, instead of worrying about the future, Spruce concentrated on the present. He needed to improve, and that’s why he spent so much time learning and practicing. He knew that hard work would never betray him.

He loved coming to Exercise classes on Wednesdays, because Beech was so amazingly good at explaining. This tutor could cover even the most confusing topics in ways that made them easy to comprehend. It was regrettable that these amazing classes only occurred once a week, because it was impossible for Beech to cover six days of lectures for both morning classes in such a short time.

However, his talent at teaching was acknowledged by all his students, who would willingly stay overtime just to learn as much as possible. Yet Beech himself couldn’t stay for too long, because he had a class that he needed to attend in the afternoon, so his overtime lectures lasted no more than half an hour.

As Spruce was slowly falling asleep in his bed, he wondered what he should do next to increase his scores. He wasn’t hoping for a miracle. Instead he was certain that there must be a way for him to improve his scores through hard work.

Spruce had his mind set. He wasn’t going to go to any school other than Hecate, and if he needed better scores to make his father agree to this, then he would get better scores.

While thinking about his next plans, he fell asleep.

The next day, on the third day of Veuf in the afternoon, Spruce attended Exercise of Magic class as usual. And as usual, he was attentively listening to everything that Beech said. As usual, he was putting a lot of effort into his own practice of magic. However, unlike his usual self, he didn’t go back home after the Exercise class ended. Instead, he followed after Beech and caught up to him, when the two of them were quite far away from the classroom.

"Wait," Spruce ran up to Beech, who stopped and turned around, "I mean you don't have to stop, I know you have a class, so we can talk while walking," he corrected himself.

"Okay," Beech nodded and began slowly walking, "so what’s your question?"

"It's not a question, but a request," Spruce said.

"A request?" Beech was genuinely intrigued.

"You know, I really don't understand much of what professor Cacao is explaining in class."

"Yes, many students have that problem."

“And even though professor Sorrel is so nice, I don’t understand her sometimes.”

“It’s naturally difficult for magicless people to understand magic-talented people, and vice-versa.”

"But for me, it's seriously bad," Spruce looked down at the ground, on which they were walking on.

"Don't worry," Beech stopped walking, and put his hand on the boy's shoulder, "you'll understand more and more with each year."

"The problem is I don't have that much time. I only have this one year to do well, or my father won't allow me to attend Hecate at all," Spruce looked up at his tutor, who took off his hand. "My father was against this school, and he permitted me to study for one year only. If I don't bring back good scores after the end of this year, he won’t allow me to continue."

"That's a difficult situation," Beech summed up.

"I know, and I decided that I'm going to give it my best. I cannot understand professor Cacao and professor Sorrel is sometimes hard to understand too. I can understand you, each and every time, but you tutor only once a week. So I came to ask, if you could tutor me on other days as well."

"So that's your request?"

Spruce nodded, and looked at Beech with determined eyes. Beech looked in front of himself, stroked his neck, and began walking, while humming a serene melody. Spruce walked alongside for a while, but hearing no answer from the older student, he asked, "so?"

"I'm thinking," Beech responded. "I do have time on other days. Normally all tutors should tutor together the Exercise class, but because of the arrangement made by our group, I don’t have to do it daily. The issue, however, is this: if I start tutoring you (and I’m aware that I'm liked more than other tutors), then all the other students from your class will come to me for tutoring. And I will end up tutoring everyone six days a week, all by myself."

"I'll keep it a secret," Spruce put his hand on his heart.

"Now, now, I don't doubt your good intentions, but do you have skills to prove that you can keep a secret?"

"Of course," Spruce answered immediately.

"Have you ever kept a secret?"

"Of course," Spruce answered energetically, looking forward to a good ending.

"Prove it."

"How?"

"Tell me one secret that you kept. Any secret is fine. I just want an example as a proof that you can actually keep a secret."

Spruce blinked and moved his mouth without making any sound.

Beech asked, "what?"

"I cannot give you such an example," Spruce responded. "I'll spill the secret, if I do that," he stated as a matter of fact, confused why would Beech not realize such a simple thing.

Beech smiled, "so you have at least this much common sense.” He stopped, and moved his face closer to Spruce’s face. He lowered his voice, so nobody around could hear them and said, "fine, I agree to tutor you, but you have to keep it an absolute secret."

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," Spruce was happily whispering his joy.

Beech took the backpack off his back, opened it, and took out a notebook. He opened the notebook, turned around several pages, and tore out a page from inside. "I assume you skip Exercise classes on Friday, like most of your class does."

Spruce recalled the Friday tutor - Sage Moss, and immediately he grimaced, "well yeah, you know what she's like."

Beech chuckled, "yeah, I know what she's like." He put the page, which he tore out, on top of the notebook’s hardcover, and using a pen, which he took out from his pocket, he wrote a single word «dum-dum», followed by a fullstop mark.

After he had put the fullstop mark, the word had disappeared, and the page showed blank. "Okay, now you write on it the same thing."

Spruce took the pen from Beech, and on the same page, he wrote «dum-dum». This time the sentence disappeared as soon as he wrote the last «m».

"Great," Beech said, "now this pen and paper belong to you.” He gave both items to Spruce. "So now whenever I write a message to you in my magical notebook," he pointed at the notebook, from where he tore off the page, "that message will go to you," he pointed at the single piece of paper in Spruce's hand.

"It will appear here?" Spruce pointed at the piece of paper in his hand.

"Not immediately, but it will appear whenever you use that pen and write the password. That way, you’re the only person able to see my message,” he stood up and put on his backpack. “I'll try to arrange a quiet meeting spot, and I'll let you know by Friday morning, the time and the place."

"But what's the password?"

"dum-dum."

"But I just wrote it and nothing showed up," Spruce put his finger on the paper.

"That's because I haven't sent you any message yet."

"So why did you ask me to write it?"

Beech sighed, "let's keep moving, I'll explain on the way." He began walking, with Spruce tagging along.

Beech explained how the notebook worked, and Spruce understood that the owner of the notebook had his name written on the first page, and by doing that, all the pages in the notebook belonged to him. Which meant that he was the only one, who could write inside the notebook.

He could set a password to unlock the content, by writing a word followed by a fullstop. Like this, the first word written on the ripped-out page and followed by a fullstop had thus become the password to unlock any content hidden by the same password. Afterward, whoever else was allowed access, had to write the same password within the next five minutes. This ensured that even if a stranger got to know the correct password, the message wouldn’t show for him.

Spruce asked Beech how did the notebook recognize people, but Beech didn’t explain that. He told Spruce that it was advanced stuff, and he’d understand it in the future. However, he also told Spruce to keep the pen, since that pen was connected to the notebook. And using that pen allowed Spruce to write responses and messages back to Beech on the same sheet of paper.

In order to use the page, all he needed to do, was to write the password “dum-dum” followed by a comma. Any message written afterward wouldn’t disappear until he wrote the fullstop. Only then, the message would disappear, but it would always reappear to whomever wrote the password.

Yet, if the viewer of the hidden message were to cross it out, the message would disappear forever, and no one else would ever be able to see it again.

The reason why Beech was using the notebook to pass secret messages, was because the written content could appear on any page of the notebook, regardless whether the page was attached to the notebook or far away from it. Ergo, Beech could write messages to Spruce, who could read them at any time, as long as he had the page with him, and vice-versa.

"That's so convenient," Spruce said. “I wonder why I never heard about this magical notebook before”

"Because you’re not a girl,” Beech responded. “This type of magic is usually used on diaries, and that’s something boys don’t have any interest in. Girls use this magic to keep their diaries a secret. I simply found a better use for it."

"Wait,” Spruce looked shocked. “You mean this is a diary for girls?"

"Yeah," Beech showed him the hardcover. "Don't you see the pretty floral pattern?"

"Aren't you a man?" Spruce grimaced looking at the notebook and then at the single page in his hand, which had a tiny flower image in the bottom corner.

Beech, who kept on walking, looked down on the boy by his side, and started laughing.

"What's so funny?"

"Your age," he responded.

"How is that funny?"

"Normally kids your age don't care about that stuff. Well, at least I didn't. There aren't that many differences between boys and girls. Even all the babies look the same. Normally people don’t pay attention to their gender until they’re older.”

"But I'm not a girl," Spruce didn't understand what Beech was trying to say.

"Of course you're not. But at your age, you could put on a girly dress, and nobody would realize that you’re a boy. Oh, don't get offended,” he added seeing Spruce’s countenance. “You're a man, right?"

"Of course I'm a man," Spruce said in as low a voice as he could, being a nine yrold boy.

Beech smiled at that, “men don’t get offended for petty reasons.”

“But why do you have a girly diary?"

"Why are there different clothes for men and women?"

Spruce thought for a moment, then shook his head, "I don’t know."

"It's because the outer appearance doesn't matter. Even if a man were to wear a skirt, he would always be a man. And even if a woman were to wear pants, she would never turn into a man. Whatever's on the outside doesn't change what's on the inside. The manhood of men and the womanhood of women comes from the soul," he pointed his thumb at his own chest. “Outside appearance cannot change our souls.”

“I would never wear a skirt.”

“And that’s okay. The gender of your soul decides the gender of your body, and the gender of your body decides your preferences. It’s only natural that a man would choose manly things. But you know, there exist men, who like girly things.”

Spruce made a face, as if he ate something slimy.

Beech laughed at Spruce’s countenance. “Hey, even if I own a girly diary, my soul and my body still remain that of a man.”

"But it's embarrassing to use girly things."

"It's embarrassing for wimps,” Beech rebutted. “Real men will always be real men, or what? Do I suddenly look like a woman to you?"

"No," Spruce answered immediately. For a man to be called a woman was just as offensive as for a woman to be called a man.

"Good answer," Beech smiled and there was no ulterior motive in his pure smile, "if you said «yes» I'd spell you straight to a hospital."

Spruce wasn't sure, whether Beech was joking or not and he didn't want to ask, feeling unpleasant about this topic. He himself would feel very angry, if anybody called him a girl, so he could understand those feelings.

“Besides,” Beech spoke again, “every man is a bit like a woman, and every woman is a bit like a man. So sooner or later, you will discover some parts about yourself, which aren’t manly.”

“That’s never going to happen,” Spruce almost shouted.

“Only time will tell,” Beech stopped walking. “This is where I have my next class, so see you Friday.”

"Ah, okay," Spruce responded.

Beech walked inside the building.

Spruce, who was still holding the page he got from his tutor, looked around. Then he slowly began walking back to his cottage. On the way back, he kept staring at the page, which came from a girly diary.

Surely it hadn't turned him into a girl, and the page itself looked like a normal blank page. If Beech didn't tell him where it came from, he would have never guessed.

He recalled the time, when he was younger. After his mother died, he cried a lot, and one day his father told him that "boys don't cry". He didn't believe that at first, but after observing the men around him, he had indeed confirmed that those men didn't cry. Women, on the other hand, cried all the time, and anything was a good reason for women to shed tears.

Upon this realization, he felt ashamed of his tears and had made a strong decision to never act like a girl again. After he began acting like a man, his father praised him and told him that his mother in Heaven was surely pleased with such a manly son. That one compliment made Spruce joyous like nothing else he had ever heard.

In order to act like a real man, he avoided anything that was girly or feminine. He thought that in order to become the most manly man among men, it was a natural and proper thing for him to do.

However, today Beech had stated an obvious but important point on manhood. It was something, which Spruce should have known, and yet it was a moment of enlightenment for the boy to realize that a man was manly, because he was born a man, and there was nothing in the whole world, which could take away his manliness.

"What are you writing?" Wasabi asked Spruce, who was scribbling something on a piece of paper under the table.

It was Thursday afternoon. Spruce was sitting in the cafeteria eating late lunch with Aspen and Yew. Wasabi, who was passing by with another girl, saw them, and came over.

"Nothing," he responded immediately and hid the paper. “Shouldn’t you be in class?”

“Exercise class is optional,” she responded.

Yew and Aspen looked at her, and her companion. They quickly recognized the other girl as Wasabi's roommate, not by face, but by height. At the age of seven, she was much shorter than all the other students in Hecate, and that characteristic particularly stood out about her.

"So what were you writing?" Wasabi repeated her question.

Spruce couldn't wait until Friday afternoon, so he kept writing "dum-dum" on the piece of paper that he got from Beech. He didn't expect that anybody would be interested in it, since it only looked like he's writing some notes for himself.

However, no matter how many times, he wrote “dum-dum”, nothing showed up on the single sheet of paper, which meant that Beech hadn’t left him any message yet.

"Nothing," Spruce answered Wasabi’s question, and showed her the empty page.

She looked at it, and smiled as if she knew that the page had more to it than the eyes could see. "Long time no see," she looked at Yew and Aspen, "so how are you lads doing?"

"Do we have to waste our time here?" Galangal asked with her usual lack of friendliness.

"We have a bit of free time, don’t we? We already finished lunch, and we decided to skip Exercise class, because we didn’t have any questions regarding today’s lecture." Wasabi said and took a fifth chair from another table and squeezed it between the empty chair and Spruce. She sat on it next to Spruce, and patted the empty chair between her and Aspen. Unwillingly, Galangal sat down.

Unlike the lunch hours, the cafeteria was mostly empty. Of course, there were other students, who ate their lunch meals this late in the day, but there weren’t a lot of them. And the majority of the tables were empty.

"So how are you doing? Is it hard?" she looked at Yew.

"What is hard?" he responded with a question.

"Studying in Hecate as a magicless," Wasabi specified what she meant.

"You're also magicless," Yew pointed out.

"Of course, that's why I'm asking only you two," she pointed her finger at Yew and Spruce, "there aren't that many magicless students in Hecate, so we should hang out more together."

Yew moved his eyes at Spruce, without moving his face, and neither one of them had a response to that statement. Galangal was staring for a while at a tart cookie, filled with red jelly and a strawberry on top, which was standing by Aspen's plate and waiting to become his dessert.

"You can have it," Aspen said toward Galangal, and pushed the small plate with the tart cookie in her direction.

She quickly looked at him, then without a word of gratitude, she took the tart cookie and began to devour it. She looked more like a hungry cat than a lass from a noble household.

"You just bought her heart," Wasabi winked toward Aspen, who ignored her and finished his lasagna.

"Nobody can buy my heart," Galangal stated after she ate the tart cookie, "I don't refuse good presents from the commoners, because it makes them happy that a noble showed them so much favor," she said the sentence with such a pride, that the boys began to wonder whether she wasn't a royal instead of a noble.

“You’re quite proud of your noble status." Aspen stated what the other boys wouldn't dare to openly admit to her face.

"Of course," she answered immediately.

"Hmmm… interesting," he said.

"What is?" she asked him.

"It's rare to find someone, who doesn't deny their pride," he explained. "Pride is one of the seven woes of the humanity, so most people deny it."

"What's a woe?" she asked, and the others also wondered about that.

"Seven woes, to be more precise," Aspen corrected her, "it's a list of seven feelings that are harmful to the soul and prevent spiritual growth. In extreme cases, each one of the seven woes can lead to irreversible crippling of the soul."

"What?" Galangal didn't understand the difficult vocabulary that Aspen was using.

"In simple words, the feeling of pride can damage your soul."

"What if I say I'm proud of my dad?"

"Same."

"I'm damaging my soul?"

"If what you're saying is actually the same as what you feel," Aspen considered the possibility that the words don't always match the reality.

Galangal lowered down her head, "but I do think that my dad is awesome."

"Then you're using the wrong vocabulary," Aspen pointed out. "Pride exists when you think that others are inferior to your dad. Recognition is when you see that your dad is awesome, but you don't disdain those who aren't as good as him."

“What’s disdain?”

“Hate for the commoners.”

"I don't hate commoners!" Galangal hit the table with both palms to highlight the honesty in her words.

"So use different words," Aspen offered. "If you say: I'm proud of my dad; then people will think that you disdain everyone else."

Galangal furrowed her eyebrows, "what different words do I use? I want to make people know that my dad is super awesome.”

"There’s many to choose from. You could say: I admire my dad; I feel honored by my dad; I hold my dad in high esteem; I dearly value my dad; I regard my dad with respect."

Galangal opened her mouth a little bit, surprised that there were so many alternatives, "I didn't know," she said. “Is it really that bad to say that I’m proud?”

“Yes,” Aspen put his chin on his palm. “If you use it so much, people will stay away from you, and you won’t have any friends.”

Galangal looked at him, terrified, "that’s why I don’t have friends?"

The boys looked at Wasabi, who had no idea what Galangal was saying.

“So that’s why I don’t have friends?” she got teary, and she wiped her eyes with her hands. “Because I always said that I'm proud of my dad, and I'm proud of my mom, and I'm proud of my cat, and I'm proud of my home, and I'm proud of my drawings,” she was mumbling to herself, counting on her fingers. “I'm proud of everything I have, and that’s why nobody likes me?"

"Possibly," Aspen wasn’t sure what to answer. "If you keep using the word «proud» all the time, you give off the impression that you hold contempt for everything and everyone else."

"I thought it was a good word," Galangal said.

"That happens a lot," Aspen didn't blame her. "Kids often misunderstand the meaning of words that are used with sarcasm, irony, scorn or as a joke."

"So you’ve been using the wrong word all this time, and now you don't have any friends," Spruce didn't ask that. He guessed it based on Galangal's earlier statement.

"I'm her friend," Wasabi fixed his statement.

“Really?” Galangal stared at her in surprise.

“Hm? Did you never realize it?” Wasabi was confused.

Galangal shook her head.

“I thought we’re just roommates,” Galangal said in a quiet, somewhat shy voice.

“Of course we’re roommates, and best friends,” Wasabi gave a pinky finger to Galangal, who stared at it. “Show me your pinky,” she added, after realizing that Galangal didn’t know what to do.

Galangal also showed her pinky to Wasabi, who locked their pinky fingers.

“Here,” Wasabi said. “This is a friendship promise. From now on, we’re best friends forever.”

Galangal looked as if she was going to cry really hard, but was holding it back.

“Now I get it,” Spruce clapped his hands. “Remember, when we first met with Galangal? She didn’t want us to become friends, right?”

Both Yew and Aspen wondered, what he was going to say.

“I think I understand now,” Spruce looked at Galangal. “You didn’t want to be friends, because you were scared that we weren’t going to agree to be your friends.”

"Yeah," Galangal quietly asserted his deduction. "I thought you'd just leave, like everyone else. And then say horrible things about me behind my back,," she lowered her head, and everyone around her fell silent.

Nobody had anything to say until Aspen spoke, "you previous friends left?”

“I didn’t know it was my fault.”

“If they left without talking to you about your pride, then it’s not your fault. And I wouldn't be friends with them either," Aspen stated.

Galangal looked at him with hope in her wet eyes, "so I'm not the bad one?"

"Of course not," he confirmed. "A mistake doesn't make a bad person, but judging someone without trying to understand the source, does."

Spruce stared at Aspen in admiration, "I wish I was that wise," he said what he was thinking.

"I'm not wise," Aspen immediately responded. "This is just common sense."

Neither Spruce nor Yew wouldn't dare make another comment, afraid to make themselves appear stupid. Wasabi, on the other hand, steered the conversation into a completely different topic, "your family name is Breeze, so if you marry Galangal, that will make her Galangal Sea of Breeze."

"I won't marry!" little Galangal yelled back at Wasabi.

The yell was so loud that it attracted the attention of all the students around, who looked at their group with great interest. Some of them began laughing and repeating, "she won't marry," while pointing at Galangal, whose face turned beet red, and she tried to shrink in her chair, between Aspen and Wasabi.

After most of the people around them got bored with the topic, they returned back to whatever they were doing or talking before. Galangal looked up and glared at Wasabi with the most venomous glare, she could muster. As a response, Wasabi smiled at her in the cutest manner.

"I'm going back," Galangal said, stood up and began walking away.

Wasabi also got up, "see you later, boys," she waved at them and ran after her roommate. When she caught up with her, she repeated "Galangal Sea of Breeze," and ended up getting a kick at her knee from the smaller girl. "Hey, that's too much," she complained.

"You deserve that," her roommate responded, and ran off.

The boys watched the girls leave. Wasabi tried to get an apology, but Galangal refused to serve her anything other than one more kick. After the girls were out of sight, Spruce quickly finished his hamburger, and stood up.

"I have to go," he said, and left as well. After dropping off cafeteria dishes, he headed straight to the Eastern Park. There were five parks in total on the schoolground of Hecate. Each park was unique and had its own design.

The largest park was in the center of the schoolground, and was known by the name of Fountain Garden, and just like its name implied, the main theme of the park was water. It was a park with fountains, rivers, waterfalls, ponds, and even one small lake in the center.

The Southern Park was located in the southern area of the schoolground, and could be seen from the school gate, which wasn’t too far away from the park. The theme for the Southern Park was a jungle, or more like a dense forest. Hecate had a somewhat cold snowy climate during the months of Tsun and Toas, so jungle plants didn’t grow there. Except for a swamp right in the center of the park, there were no water basins. However, the place was full of large and tall trees of many different kinds, and some of them were more than hundred yrold.

In the west, there was the Western Park, which was full of flowers and grasses. There were no trees in the whole park, and the biggest plants were several flowering bushes near the center of the park. Of course, the students weren't allowed to walk among the flowerbed or in the grassfields, because that would create nasty pathways. Instead, there were multitudes of alleys made with colorful bricks that blended well with the wide meadowlands. Furthermore, there were plenty of benches and tables for the students to sit and study among the flowers.

In the north of the Hecate schoolground, there was a park that looked like a mountain. The theme of the Northern Park was a mountainous terrain, primarily created with rocks and stones. Some slopes were made steep, while others were mild. And there were hundreds of diverse stone stairs all over the park. However, the park wasn't completely devoid of plants, as wild mountainous flowers and crippled evergreen shrubs grew in areas of the most difficult access.

Finally, there was the Eastern Park, located in the eastern area of the schoolground, which was the closest to the hamlets numbered one and two. This park had a theme of the desert. It was full of sand, sand dunes, palms, and several oases. Spruce liked this park the most, especially because it was so full of empty space. That's why he decided to practice there the fire magic.

He sat down on the sand, took out his dagger, and burned the sand in front of him. The sand burned a bit, but other than getting warm to touch nothing happened to the sand. Spruce repeated the spell again, and again, and again. He was so engrossed in the activity, that he didn't realize when an older student walked up to him, squatted down and put his hand on the area that Spruce was burning just a moment ago.

Spruce looked up, and saw his tutor - Juniper Root, who gathered some of the sand into his hand, then rubbed it between his fingers. "When I saw you, I thought you were crazy," he said after he let the sand fall out of his hand.

"I'm practicing," Spruce explained himself.

Juniper looked at him, "do you know what happens to sand, when it undergoes high temperature?"

Spruce shook his head.

"It turns to glass, and glass has sharp ends," he pointed behind his shoulder, "some students walk here barefoot. Can you guess, what will happen, if they step on a glass shard."

Spruce gulped and looked down at the sand, upon which he was practicing, "I didn't know."

"Well, you do now."

"How do I fix it?" he looked at Juniper with eyes pleading for help.

"There's nothing to fix," he responded calmly. "Your magic is still weak, so the fire isn't hot enough to melt the sand. There's no glass here," he pointed at the sand, "but you better find something else to burn. How about the stones in the Northern Park?"

Spruce gulped again, "okay.” He looked away.

"Is there a reason, why you look afraid of the Northern Park?" Juniper picked up the vibe of fear coming off Spruce.

"It's because… it's high," he forced the words out of his mouth.

Juniper snickered.

"It's not funny," Spruce got upset.

"You're scared of heights," he summed up the problem. "Like a baby," he added with a smirk, then stood up. "Let's go."

"What? Now?"

"Yes, now," he pointed at Spruce's backpack lying on the ground, and at the dagger that Spruce held in his hand. The dagger flew right inside Spruce’s backpack. Then Juniper drew a U shape in the air, and Spruce’s backpack flew up and levitated next to Spruce, "put it on," he ordered.

Spruce stood up, and put on his backpack, "are we really going?"

"Of course," Juniper responded, grabbing the boy by his arm, and dragging Spruce with him.

They went in the direction of the Northern Park.

"I can walk on my own," Spruce raised his voice, after an unsuccessful attempt to get himself free from Juniper's strong hand.

"Don't even think about running away," his tutor said as he let go of Spruce’s arm, who quietly followed.

When they were getting close, Spruce saw the tall mountain and his legs grew weaker and heavier.

Juniper was being attentive to his younger schoolmate, who didn't run away all this time. When they were almost at the Northern Park, he was going to praise Spruce for his courage, but just then the boy made a sharp U-turn and ran in the opposite direction as fast as he could.

Juniper was surprised that Spruce suddenly ran away, but he didn't waste much time, and ran after him. His longer legs gave him an advantage in speed, and soon he caught up. He grabbed the boy's backpack causing Spruce to fall backward, right into Juniper's arms.

Both of them had to catch some air, before they could say anything.

"I'm not going," Spruce forced out the words, even though he was still breathing heavily.

"Okay, we won't go," Juniper responded, and let him go, "but you have to explain to me the reason. That didn't look like a simple case of fear of heights."

Spruce looked down at the ground, and after a long moment of silence, he said, "my mom fell off.” His body began shaking at the memory.

Juniper took the boy by the arm, and said, "let's go somewhere quiet.” He led him away from the busy wide walkway, where students and teachers walked, and took him into a small narrow alley between the buildings without anyone around.

"So what happened?" he asked after making sure that nobody could hear them.

"My mom fell off, when we were in the mountains," Spruce repeated his earlier statement with more details.

"You mom died by falling off?" Juniper asked, careful about his tone.

"She wanted to go, but dad couldn't come with us. So we went together, with several servants, and then she went ahead of everyone. And suddenly the snow under her feet broke and she fell. I saw her disappear," Spruce explained more in a barely audible voice, but Juniper, who stood right next to him still heard it.

"What did the servants do?"

"They took me back home, but mom never returned," Spruce was quietly sobbing while remembering the event that happened, when he was still but a four yrold baby.

While Spruce was slowly calming down, Juniper remained silent for many long minutes. When the boy finally calmed down a bit, the guy spoke, "both of my parents are dead."

Spruce rubbed away the tears from his face. Upon hearing the statement the boy looked at Juniper with shock.

"When I was six, they went for vacation together, and left me with my grandparents,” Juniper continued. “On their way back, the train derailed, and both of them died. One by one, my grandparents also died of old age, or disease. I was eleven, when my last grandma passed away, then the family of my wife-to-be took me in."

"You have a wife-to-be?" Spruce was honestly surprised to hear about that.

"My dad and her dad were best friends, so they betrothed us, when we were babies."

"Is she a nice person?" he asked.

"What do you think?" Juniper smiled back at him.

"I don't know her."

"She's teaching your Exercise of Magic class today, and also on most Saturdays."

"Oh," Spruce realized that he was talking about Maca Waterfall. "She's a nice person," he answered Juniper's question.

Juniper didn't respond to that, instead he sighed and said, "sorry to bring back the old topic, but you need to practice your magic somewhere other than the Eastern Park. And if the Northern Park is also out of the question, maybe try the Fountain Garden."

"Uhm, okay," Spruce nodded, "I will find another place to practice."

After they came to an agreement, Spruce said his goodbyes, and left for the cottage. He still needed to do his homework with Yew, and he didn't want to think anymore of what happened between him and Juniper. He didn't want to remember that someone saw him that weak.

The page, which Spruce received from Beech, remained empty on Friday morning.

Since Spruce began to worry that maybe the page wasn't working, he didn't pay attention to anything, which was said in either one of the two morning classes. His mind was wholly preoccupied with thoughts on what to do, if the day ended with nothing appearing on the page.

Right after the lesson with Sorrel came to an end, he byed Yew, Aspen and Linden, and without any further explanation he hurried off, leaving his classmates confused at his unusual behavior. Neither of the boys stopped him, because he looked as if his business was too urgent. Moreover if he wanted to keep it a secret, neither one of them cared to know, since each one of them had plenty of their own secrets.

Spruce walked far away from the History building. He looked to the side to check, if anyone familiar was around. He didn't see anyone he knew, so he stood by a building facing the wall. From his backpack he took out the book, the page and the pen. He squatted down, put the page on the book, and wrote "dum-dum" on it with a shaking hand. His heart was beating fast, full of hopes but also full of worries.

It was a pleasant surprise for him to see a rough drawing of a map appearing on the page after the words “dum-dum” disappeared. He put the book and the pen back into his backpack, and began to follow the instructions on the page. It was the map of the area west of the Fountain Garden.

Spruce walked from a building to a building searching for his goal. Beech drew a rough sketch of every building that Spruce had to pass by, and with this help, the boy arrived at a three-story building.

At the bottom of the page, there were further instructions from Beech: walk in using the northern entrance, go down the hallway until you arrive at the door marked as “storage room”. We’ll meet in that room.

Spruce had no problems finding the location inside the building. There were some other older students in the hallway, but none of them paid any attention to a boy, who entered the storage room.

Inside the storage room, it was perfectly silent. There was nobody there, and the thick walls kept all the external sounds outside of the room. The storage room, true to its meaning, was full of tables, chairs, shelves, blackboards, curtains, carpets, brooms, baskets, and many other items. All of them were arranged in an orderly manner.

"Maybe I'm too early?" Spruce sat down on one of the chairs, which was standing on the floor. He waited one hour, but no one came. Out of boredom, he began to read his textbook, and like that he waited one more hour.

Finally, the door opened and Beech entered the room. "You're late," Spruce said as he put his textbook back inside his backpack.

"How?" Beech asked. In his hands he carried a small carton box.

Spruce stood up, "I've been waiting here since my last class ended."

Beech closed the door by pushing it with his leg. He walked in, put the carton box on one of the tables. "If you're here, that means you saw the map I drew,” he looked at Spruce, “so how about you check the corner of that page before I erase it?"

Spruce took another look at the page. Right there in the top right corner, Beech wrote the time to meet, which was two hours after his Process of Magic class ended. "I didn't realize," he said in an apologetic tone.

"I can tell," Beech took out the notebook from his backpack, and began writing in it. Immediately after he was done, the map and the hour on Spruce's page disappeared and once again it was nothing but a blank page. “By the way,” he pointed at the page that Spruce held in his hand. “Next time, fold the page in half after you read it.”

“Why?”

“It will hide the message. If you keep the page open like that all the time, anyone will be able to read what’s on it.”

“Oh, sorry,” Spruce said and folded the page in half, before putting it back in his backpack between his books.

Beech also put his notebook back into his backpack, and opened the carbon box that he had brought. "Take as much as you want," he said to Spruce, who looked inside, and saw a fresh baked quiche. Right next to the food, there were napkins and some forks.

"Is it for me?"

"For us, to be precise," he said. "Training takes away energy, so it's important to replenish it."

"I don't need training," Spruce pointed out. "I'm quite good with Process. I only have problems understanding History. That class is just so confusing, but your explanations are so great, and so easy to understand. I wish you were teaching us instead of professor Cacao."

"What are the two primary factors required in magic?" Beech asked.

"Eh," Spruce tried to recall what he had already learned, "stamina and concentration?"

"Correct, so take out your magical tool."

Spruce took out the dagger.

"Give it to me for a moment," he stretched out his hand and Spruce passed him the dagger. Beech took it in his hands, and in the next moment a small candle flame lit at the tip of the dagger. "Can you do that?" he asked.

"I never tried," Spruce answered.

"Then try it," Beech made the flame disappear. With his other hand, he caught the dagger by the blade and passed it to Spruce, who grasped the dagger by the handle, and waited for Beech to let go before he took it away.

Spruce tried to repeat what Beech did, but it didn't work, so he looked at Beech with eyes begging for some hint.

With an empty countenance, Beech stated, "concentration is responsible for the power of magic, and stamina is responsible for the longevity of magic. But what do you think is responsible for flexibility of magic?"

"Our class has never learned about flexibility of magic.”

"Because it's something you learn next year," Beech explained. "Flexibility, which means ability to shape your magic, comes from the understanding of magic. Magic-talented people are born with an innate understanding of magic, so they don't need to learn it, but magicless people are different."

Spruce listened attentively, quickly realizing that it was a topic very important for him.

"Remember that time during the Exercise class, when the kids were asked to float the leaves, and some were better at controlling the movement of the leaf than others?”

Spruce recalled how some of his classmates were able to move the leaves in many directions, while others could move the leaf only in a vertical or horizontal motion.

"Magic-talented people will naturally figure out how to use the flexibility of magic, and as they get better at it, they can maneuver their spells more and more. Meanwhile, all you can do at the moment is to turn a leaf into ashes.”

Spruce felt ashamed at the comment.

“I don’t blame you though,” Beech crossed his arms. “Just the fact that you got this right proves that you can learn magic.”

“Really?”

“But without understanding what you're doing, you'll have a harder time as you move on through the years."

"So what do I need to do?" Spruce sounded worried.

"Train your ability in innate understanding," Beech responded as if it was the easiest thing to do.

Spruce blinked, and remained silent for a moment, before speaking again, "How?"

"Did you ever have to learn something, that you couldn't understand, no matter how long you were thinking about it? But suddenly, almost for no reason what-so-ever, you had an eureka moment, and it all became very clear?"

"Yeah, sometimes," Spruce was sure he had a moment like that, even though he couldn't remember exactly when was the last time, when it happened.

"That's what you need to train," Beech stated. "Your ability for innate understanding stems from your determination to understand. You saw that it was possible to light a candle flame at the dagger tip. Now it's all in your hands. Keep thinking about it, until something in your mind creates the answer.”

“That sounds difficult,” Spruce looked at his dagger.

“And it’s time-consuming,” Beech added. “But we won't be moving to another lesson until you figure it out, all on your own," he accented the last four words.

Spruce's eyes grew huge with shock, "isn't that too much?"

"Aren't you aiming for the top?" Beech responded with a soft smile. "If I were you, I wouldn't waste my time, and just start."

Spruce stared at the dagger in his hand. He was told to start, but he didn't even know where or how to start. He concentrated at the tip of the dagger and imagined it lit on fire, but nothing happened. Why?

What was he doing wrong? What was so different between lighting a fire above the dagger versus setting a leaf on fire? He began pondering and thinking hard about the solution, while he ate up all of the quiche. An hour passed, and he still accomplished nothing.

Beech sat down on a box by the table, and was doing his homework from the fifth year. He didn’t say anything to Spruce until two hours later, "how about we take a break here, and continue tomorrow? Same place, same time."

"I didn't do anything yet," Spruce pointed out the harsh reality.

"Beginnings are always difficult," Beech stated the obvious, "and it'd be a miracle, if you completed it in one day."

"Whaaaaat?" Spruce immediately felt all his will to continue just vanishing away.

"Giving up already?" Beech smirked at the boy, "such a loser."

Spruce knew that Beech was trying to stir him up, and he had nothing against that. A little bit of anger brought back the will to continue, "fine, let's meet tomorrow."

Their secret tutoring continued like this five times a week, from Monday through Saturday, with the exception of Wednesday. Yew and Aspen, who also skipped most Exercise classes, didn't even realize that Spruce wasn't attending them anymore.

A week later, on Thursday, Spruce concentrated as usual on the tip of the dagger. After many hours of trying the tip of the dagger would turn hot and red, but it never flamed.

Spruce was already used to failing and accepted that his efforts were in vain, when something clicked in his mind, and he had a sudden moment of realization that maybe he was concentrating on the wrong area.

He wanted the flame around the tip of the dagger, but because he was concentrating on the object, he ended up producing a flame inside the dagger. He didn't know how he knew it, but somehow it felt like a good hypothesis, so afterward he began to concentrate on the invisible air just above the dagger, and in less than an hour, he accomplished the task that Beech gave him.

"I made it," he said and proudly showed Beech the small candle flame burning at the tip of his dagger.

"Great," Beech said with a smile and approached the boy, "so now try this.”

Beech took the dagger. Spruce's flame disappeared the moment his dagger was taken away from him, and Beech made another candle flame. This time, the candle flame was next to the dagger’s tip and it was rotating around the dagger.

"No way," Spruce was at the same time amazed, but also scared of not being able to accomplish such high-level magic.

"You're thinking that this is something very difficult, don't you?" Beech asked, and Spruce nodded. "It's not," Beech denied that possibility. "All of it is very simple magic, but it requires innate understanding of the spell."

Spruce took a deep breath, "okay, let me try," he stretched out his hand. Beech cancelled the spell and put the dagger on Spruce's open palm, who tried immediately, but the best he could do was the flame on the dagger’s tip that he finally figured out after a week of hard work.

Spruce returned back to his cottage, feeling down after seeing the difference between his current skills and his goal. In the cottage, Aspen was taking the shower, while his books were all over his desk.

At first, Spruce just ignored all the books on Aspen's desk like usual. But then, he saw a book with an image of flames on the cover. He approached Aspen’s desk, took the book, and opened the first page. It was the textbook for the second year students of Hecate.

He turned over pages until he arrived at the first spell. It was a candleflame spell, which produced a small flame above an object. Right underneath the description of the spell, there were detailed instructions of how to perform it.

Spruce turned over the page, and looked at the next spell. He wasn't surprised to see that it was a spell to make a flame that circles around another object. Under the spell description, there were detailed instructions, which Spruce read through. He followed exactly what was written, and he was finally able to create a flame circling around his dagger.

The next day, he met with Beech feeling full of himself. He showed him the results right at the beginning of the tutoring, but unlike the last time, Beech didn't look happy at all. Instead he furrowed his eyebrows and looked angry. "I told you to figure it out yourself. Why did you use the textbook instructions?" he said in an angry tone.

Spruce stopped the spell, unsure of what he did wrong.

"Do you want to know how I realized?" Beech asked, and Spruce nodded. "Have you ever seen two professional musicians perform the same piece? Same music score has the same notes, and new students of music play each note exactly as it's written, so all beginners sound the same, but it's not true for professionals. They don't follow the score exactly. And that's why, each professional musician will play the same piece differently, in their own unique ways."

Spruce didn’t understand what Beech was trying to say.

"What you showed me is a textbook version of this spell, and that's not what I was teaching you. I wanted you to find your own way to spell. Magic-talented kids will eventually find their own ways to do magic, but for magicless students, if you follow the textbook too closely you’ll put yourself in a cage of the average. You cannot achieve the top like this."

"But you never explained what you were going to teach me, or why. You just told me to figure it out myself," Spruce sounded accusatory. He felt upset that he was left all alone to learn all by himself, and now Beech was blaming him for doing it wrong.

"Precisely," Beech affirmed. "I told you to figure it out yourself, because you were lacking in innate understanding. If you want to comprehend difficult topics, you can search far and wide for someone, who can explain it in easier terms, but what will you do, if such a person doesn't exist? If you want to excel in magic, you need to train in innate understanding."

"I don't get why," Spruce was honest.

Beech took a deep sigh, "If you follow the guidelines, you'll be the same as everybody else. It will be enough to pass the class, but that's not what you asked from me. You said you wanted to get to the top.”

“I do. I have to,” Spruce clenched his fists.

“Then you have to take the hard route and surpass your own limits.”

"Is this how you learned magic?"

"What do you think?"

Spruce looked at Beech, who was surely hiding more skills than what he was showing, but the guy didn’t have the air of a talented student.  "So what do I do next?" Spruce asked.

"You forget the textbook instructions and redo the spell," Beech ordered him in a serious tone.

"I cannot forget something I've already read," Spruce pointed out.

"You better do forget, if you don't want to be another chicken in a henhouse," Beech changed his sitting position, then added, "magic is a lot like plans. Everyone has different plans for their future. The plans undergo many changes before they come true, and even after they become the reality, they continue to change. In exactly the same way, magic is forever changing."

Spruce felt more and more confused with every sentence that Beech spoke. This was so unlike Beech’s simple-to-understand explanations from the Exercise class. "I don't understand anything of what you just said," he confessed.

Beech looked at him for a moment. Then he tapped a small pin on his trouserbelt. Spruce's dagger flew out of his hand and toward Beech, who caught it with one hand. Beech pointed the tip at the boy, and in the next moment a huge wall of fire appeared between him and Spruce. "If you want to continue learning, come over here," he said.

"But…" Spruce looked at him through the flames, "the fire is blocking the way."

"And what's the problem?" Beech asked harshly. He looked disappointed.

"Are you seriously telling me to walk into this fire?" Spruce was shocked at the sudden quest from his tutor. He looked at Beech sitting behind the fire, and in a completely different tone he asked, "you'll keep me safe, right?"

However Beech didn't answer anything. He was quietly sitting on a chair, with the dagger pointed at Spruce, who slowly approached the fire.

After several steps forward, Spruce quickly moved back, because the air became too hot to come close. He looked at Beech, and tried to read what the older student expected from him, but he couldn't.

Meanwhile, Beech was observing the panic in the eyes of Spruce, who was too afraid to approach the illusion. The wall of fire wasn't real, because if it was real then the objects around, including the floor, would get scorched, but nothing was damaged even when the fire was raging mad.

Beech didn't use Spruce's dagger to create the fire. He used one of his magical tools to make the illusion, and he used the dagger to create the hot air around the illusion, giving it a bit more feel of realism. He considered it a simple illusion that should be easy to see through, but there was a catch. Magic illusions, unlike hallucinations, could hurt, if the opponent didn't realize that they weren't real.

"Do you really want me to do it?" Spruce asked, but heard no answer. So he moved several steps back, got ready to run, closed his eyes and while keeping his eyes closed, he ran straight forward.

Beech immediately removed the spell, and caught the boy, who almost ran into the table. "Idiot," he summed up Spruce’s behavior.

"You told me to do it," Spruce accused him.

Beech put his hand on his forehead, "I give up," he said, "you're dumber than a pot. There's no point tutoring you!"

"What? Why? I didn't do anything wrong! You told me to run through the fire!"

"Mercy-of-God," Beech clearly couldn't take it anymore. He looked at the boy, "the only thing I told you to do was: come over here."

"Which means exactly the same as…"

"Think, idiot!" Beech shouted as he interrupted Spruce, "ever since the very first time I tutored you, I told you to think. I've been telling you to use your brain," he put a finger on the boy's forehead. "Do you even have a brain?"

Spruce began to understand, "so there was a trick?"

After he asked that, Beech sighed, sat down on a chair, and put his hand on his forehead, "that should have been the first thing you ought to start with, not the last one."

"Sorry," Spruce apologized, "can I try again?"

"No," Beech’s response was sharp. "Go back to the firecircle spell," he said and stretched out his hand with Spruce's dagger. "Unless you figure it out yourself, I won't teach you anything else. For now, my opinion about you is really low, and if you don’t want me to give up on you, you better start thinking before acting."

Spruce took the dagger and lowered his head. "Okay," he agreed and sat down on a chair. He stared at the dagger, and for the first time in his life, he was seriously deep-thinking about his assignment.

Ever since the month of Veuf started, the rain has become more and more common. Usually this month wasn't that rainy, but this year it was especially full of stream-like waters falling down from the clouds.

"God is trying to flood us," Linden commented sarcastically, as he looked out the window at the rivers of rainwater gathering on the paths outside their cottage. It was Monday evening, the fifteenth day of Veuf, and like usual, Spruce was in his neighbors' cottage, doing homework together with Yew.

"It's been raining nonstop for three days already," Yew sneezed right after he said it.

"Don't catch a cold," Linden grunted, "I don't want to be sick."

"I don't think I can control that," he responded, while rubbing his itchy nose.

Linden weaved his fingers, and stretched out his hands above his head. "Anyway, I'm done copying the homework, so I'll be going to bed early," he separated his hands, let them down, and walked out the kitchen into the bedroom.

"I don't think I can understand this," Spruce said as he pointed at the paragraph in the History textbook.

Yew looked at the paragraph.

…. Sky magic weakens without a distinct circulation of cold and warm air mingling in their area of occurrence, creating upward and downward drafts in parallel columns that spread out evenly at the convergence point…

"I don't either," Yew responded after he read the paragraph.

Spruce furrowed his eyebrows and read the paragraph over and over again.

"You know," Yew began, "recently you've been more studious than before."

Spruce knew that his friends would notice the change, but he had a good reason to go with it. "My grades aren't good enough. If I don't fix that, my father won't let me stay in Hecate."

"Yeah, you mention that a lot," Yew looked back at the textbook. "Sadly, I don't understand most of it myself, so I cannot help you."

"It's okay. I'll try to figure it out myself," Spruce responded and began packing up his stuff.

Yew stared at him, amazed at his determination. They said their byes, and Spruce left for his cottage. Afterward, Yew took out the small book that he received from Aspen, and looked at the page with the mindteaming spell.

Just as Aspen described it, the spell was indeed easy to learn, and easy to start, but keeping it active was a difficulty of another kind. The spell required different amounts of concentration and stamina based on distance. The farther away the recipient was, the more concentration and stamina it took to spell a mindteaming between them.

Yew practiced it with Aspen for the last two weeks. On the second day, he was already able to contact Aspen, even though his first successful connection lasted only for several seconds. During the practice he also encountered other problems; the message was sometimes too quiet to hear, or too unclear to understand, or it was broken up, or it was missing words, or it was totally unintelligible.

Aspen said that it will take him roughly two months to freely use the mindteaming spell. Of course, it wasn't due to the difficulty of spelling, but rather due to the difficulty of mastering the spell.

When the spell was used between two like-minded people, mindteaming would be much easier to use, and the message would be much clearer. The reason was that the mindteaming spell came with the requirement of an emotional bond, such as friendship, empathy, longing, or any other type of relationship that might bind people together.

The better the caster of the spell understood his own bond with the recipient, the better the connection quality of the mindteaming spell. Because of that, Yew spent quite a lot of time pondering on what exactly is his relationship with Aspen.

In the beginning, he was just a neighbor, a roommate of Spruce, a classmate, and maybe a friend. However, now the two of them shared the school of Hypnos, and both of them were keeping it a secret from the school of Hecate, so did it make them partners in crime?

Yesterday, Yew felt quite comfortable contacting Aspen. He had no problem starting the conversation, keeping it up for a good ten minutes, and ending it smoothly without any errors, so today he decided to try something harder, and contact Chervil. He closed his eyes, and recalled her appearance. He imagined her listening to his words. He included in his feelings the bonds between them, and when he felt ready, he tried, "Chervil?" but there was no response.

He tried again, and again, and again, but there was no response. He opened up his eyes, and sighed. He concluded that it didn't work, but then he heard Chervil's voice, "shut up, I'm trying to sleep.” This voice wasn't coming from outside. To his ears, it felt as if this voice was coming from inside. It was an odd feeling at first, but after mindteaming with Aspen so much, he began to get used to it.

He smirked after Chervil dropped the connection. He looked at the clock. It certainly wasn't that late yet, but he didn't speculate why Chervil was sleeping at such an early hour. After living for more than a month together with Linden, he already knew that some people had quite unusual sleeping hours.

Encouraged by his success, Yew went back to the small book, and tried to learn other spells. Although many of them sounded very useful, sadly, more than half of them were too advanced. He attempted and failed every single one of them except for the mindteaming spell.

He spent so much time trying out the spells that he didn't even realize that it was well into the middle of the night, and he was still awake. When he finally gave up on learning the other spells, he looked at the clock, and was stunned. In his mind, he calculated how little time he had left, before he had to wake up. He quickly packed up his backpack, changed into pajamas and went to bed.

The next day, he was awakened by the alarm, but he turned it off, and remained in bed. He wanted to just lay down for five more minutes. Unfortunately, he fell asleep, and didn’t wake up until he heard loud banging on the front door.

"Yew, we're going ahead," he heard Spruce's voice, and looked at the time.

It was so late, that he had no time at all. He quickly dressed up in the same clothes as yesterday, grabbed his backpack and ran out of his cottage.

Unlike the downpour yesterday, the morning was without a single raindrop falling from the sky, which was mostly blue except for occasional grey and white clouds floating here and there. The ground was still wet after the overnight rain, and puddles of all sizes were scattered everywhere.

Yew calculated that if he kept running at his best speed, he'd still make it to the class, so he ran as fast as he could. He didn't bother slowing down even when he was running through a fairly busy alley, located between school buildings and used by many students. He ran through the Hecate schoolground, at the highest speed he could muster, trying his best not to collide with people or objects, and avoiding puddles of water like a pro. He trusted his abilities, which he had acquired running around the mountains surrounding the village of Catriddle.

And then he accidentally bumped into a person. His backpack, hanging on only one shoulder, fell down and hit the ground. Due to the fall, the incompletely-closed zipper opened up and some of Yew's books fell out from his backpack. He quickly apologized to the guy, collected his stuff back into his backpack, and ran off.

He didn't even realize that he passed Cypress Sea, who was standing on the side, observing all, what had happened. The student that Yew bumped into, complained angrily about stupid kids without eyes, and left in the opposite direction.

Cypress took a look at the area, where Yew fell, and spotted a book on the ground. He realized that in a hurry, Yew didn't collect all of his things. One of his textbooks was still on the ground rapidly absorbing water from a shallow puddle.

*If I give it to the teachers, they'll pass it back to him,* he thought as he picked the book off the ground.

In the meantime, Yew barely made it on time to his class. Cacao Bark was already in the class and ready to start, when the boy suddenly ran into the class totally out of breath. The teacher gave him a questioning look, but didn't say anything. Yew sat down in his seat, and searched inside his backpack for the textbook, but he couldn't find it.

Spruce looked at him and quickly understood the problem, "Do you want to share?" he asked and pointed at the textbook in front of him.

Yew sighed, "Thanks. I must have left it at home."

Spruce moved the textbook to the middle of the desk, and they were both using it throughout the class. Cacao continued to teach the confusing terms related to the air, since learning about the air was a basic requirement for skillful control over the sky variation of magic.

After all the classes were over, Aspen went to the library. He told them that he was going to be busy the whole day, so Spruce and Yew ate lunch together in the cafeteria.

Spruce quickly finished his lunch. "See you later," he said to Yew.

"See you," Yew responded, assuming that Spruce was going to the Exercise class. He knew that today's tutor was Chervil, so he didn't want to go at all.

It was convenient for Yew, that Spruce was attending the Exercise class, because it gave Yew more personal time to practice magic in secret. Beforehand, Spruce wanted to hang out with Yew all the time, so it was difficult for Yew to practice all by himself.

On his way back home, a tiny pebble hit Yew’s arm.

"Ouch!" he looked in the direction it came from, and he saw Cypress Sea standing and looking right at Yew.

The older student tilted his head as a signal for Yew to follow him, turned around and slowly began to walk away. After four steps, he stopped, and turned back his head to check, if Yew was coming or not.

To Yew, this was a surprising meeting, and totally unexpected. What did Cypress want with him so suddenly? He didn't remember doing anything that would bring the older student's attention onto him. However, out of curiosity, he did follow Cypress, who led him into a dark alley between the buildings. The road went up, then left, then down through a narrow maze-like alley of stairs and hallways.

Yew kept walking ten steps behind, and after they walked for quite a distance, he began wondering where he was. He didn't recognize any of the buildings, and the whole scenery, although similar to Hecate, looked completely foreign. The place was devoid of any people or any sound of people. It was as if they had left the Hecate schoolground altogether, or as if all the other people disappeared from the world.

And then in that eerie place, Cypress came to a stop. Yew wasn't sure whether he should start running or not, but he couldn't remember doing anything bad that would turn Cypress into his enemy, so he decided to stay.

He was well aware of the difference in years between the two of them, which would also add to the difference in their magic abilities, so if Cypress went all out, Yew wouldn't even be able to escape.

"I saw you this morning," the older student started. "You ran by me, bumped into another student and dropped all your stuff everywhere."

"Eh?" It was embarrassing to hear a reminder of this morning, and Yew's cheeks immediately turned red.

"Then you picked up your stuff, and ran off," Cypress continued, "but you left one book behind."

Yew recalled the missing textbook from the History class and upon Cypress's last statement, he came to a different conclusion than previously. He hadn’t forgotten his textbook in the cottage. He lost it on the way to the class, or so Yew thought, until Cypress took out the book, which Yew dropped in the morning, and Yew's face turned pale right away.

"I mixed them up," Yew muttered to himself. Now he knew, why Cypress wanted to meet with him.

Then he realized that it would have been more normal, if Cypress just reported Yew directly to the teachers. Why would the older student scold him personally and in such a remote place?

"This is not a book that a first year has access to. How did you get it?" Cypress’s tone wasn't scornful at all, instead he sounded honestly curious.

Yew recalled that he was reading the small book from the fifth year before going to sleep. He must have been so tired yesterday night, that he put the book inside his backpack, but he couldn't remember doing that. And now Cypress was holding that secret book, and asking questions about it.

"Eeeeh… I found it," Yew's brain slowly started working again and he used the excuse taught to him by Aspen.

"That excuse may work on a teacher, but I already went to the library and checked the registry. Of course, there was a name of a student next to this book's number. I talked with that student. He never borrowed this book. So, I’d assume someone else actually took the book, but used another student's name to hide his true identity."

"Eh…" Yew didn't know that the book had such a suspicious past.

Cypress came closer to Yew, stretched out the hand with the book, almost as if he had the intention of returning the book. "You can take it," he said and waved the book in front of Yew’s face.

Yew was looking at the book for a moment, then at Cypress, then again at the book, then again at Cypress, and back at the book. The moment he moved his hand to take the book, Cypress lifted it up high above his own head. Yew, who was much shorter, couldn't even dream of reaching that high.

"But not for free," Cypress added with a smile on his face. "You do realize that if I report you along with all the infos I found, there's a high chance you'll be expelled."

Yew gulped.

"But it's not like I want to make enemies either," Cypress said and lowered down the hand with the book, "You're much more intelligent that I took you for, so I actually think we can have a fruitful relationship."

"Wha?" Yew didn't like the way this was going. He was wondering whether he should try to contact Parsley and Chervil via mindteaming.

He tried concentrating hard, like he did before, but without closing his eyes. He didn't want Cypress to get suspicious. However, no matter how hard he tried, there was no response. Finally, he decided to risk it. He closed his eyes for one final attempt, which also ended with nothing. He opened his eyes, and stared at the small book in front of his face, but he kept his hands by his body.

"Sorry about that," Cypress said something unexpected. "I wanted to know more about you, so I tested you on your magical skills. If you had strong spells necessary to break into the library, you could have easily snatched the book away from me and make a run for it, but since you didn't do that, it means that you didn't do it on your own, which leaves a much more likely scenario: you're in cahoots with an older student."

Yew began to get nervous, after seeing how easily Cypress deducted his secret.

"Ah-ah, don't be scared," Cypress laughed and tapped his head with the small book, "There is nothing wrong with making connections, and the earlier the better. The connections run the world. There is no big money without connections. There is no power or influence without connections. Even fame is impossible without connections. It is wise to value connections more than rules. After all, with proper connections even the laws can be ignored."

Cypress pushed the book at Yew's chest, who put his hands on it, and finally got it back.

"This is business," Cypress stated. "I'll be keeping your secret, and in exchange I want you to be my helper."

"I don't understand what you mean," Yew responded. He did know what a helper was, but he decided to play an idiot in order to get a better idea of what Cypress was expecting to get from this exchange.

"To clarify, every once in a while, I'll have you run an errand for me. You know the mindteaming spell, right?" He asked that last question with his mouth closed, so Yew realized that the guy was already using the spell.

"Yeah, but only for a short distance," Yew responded via mindteaming. There was no point hiding it, since it was an easy spell, and it was included in the small book that caused the current situation.

"Good enough," Cypress continued the conversation without using their physical mouths. "You'll master it soon enough. It doesn't take a long time to learn it."

Cypress smiled in a somewhat friendly way, but this type of a smile reminded Yew of a playful cat that has found a new toy, or maybe more like a playful tiger.

"Oh, don't make a face like a hurt puppy. I'm not a bully," Cypress defined himself, "I said - this is business. A personal connection between the two of us. You may dislike it right now, but who knows, maybe it will turn out to be a good thing."

"I don't understand why it would be profitable for you to have a connection with me," Yew snapped at the older student, no longer mindteaming.

It was much harder for him to stay silent and keep it all in his own head. He felt angry at how powerless he was in a situation that was steering him down onto the path of some slave. Spending the rest of his life following orders wasn't even on the list of his future plans.

"Because I see a great talent in you," Cypress responded honestly. "If you turn out to be someone outstanding in the future, I want to have a precedence over you, so I can have you work for me, before someone else is gonna snatch you away."

"I don't plan to work for anybody," Yew looked coldly at him.

"Doesn't matter. As long as you're weaker than me, I can always find a way," Cypress responded playfully with a sly gleam in his eyes.

"What if I grow up to be stronger than you?" Yew asked, feeling confident, but Cypress burst out laughing.

The guy waved his hand at Yew. "See you later," he said and teleported away, leaving Yew all alone and confused about the older student's reaction.

Yew turned toward the direction he came from, and after making two turns, he walked out into the typical scenery of Hecate schoolground. Right there, there were many students walking by and chatting among themselves. He looked behind, but the alley, whence he came out, was gone and instead there was a building behind him.

He approached the nearby bench, and sat down. He took out the guidebook that he got from Sorrel Cave on his first day in Hecate. He already remembered how to get to his classrooms, but he still carried it every day in his backpack. When he opened the page on the schoolground maps, he carefully analyzed his position in search for the maze that Cypress led him through, and he quickly realized that no such place existed in Hecate.

The thought that Cypress somehow created it, filled Yew with amazement and he realized the reason why Cypress was laughing so hard, at the idea that someone could be stronger than him.

Magic was theoretically omnipotent, but practically people were limited by their talent. Creating a large labyrinth in such a short period of time could only be achieved by the most powerful magi, who trained for decades, and not by a student.

In addition, Cypress created the labyrinth on the Hecate schoolground, where multiple powerful charms were protecting the school from any distortion or possible abuse of magic. Which meant that Cypress had to overpower all those protective charms in order to create that labyrinth. Yew wondered, whether there was another magus somewhere in the world powerful enough to do that.

In order to find out more about Cypress, he went to the library. There, he found a book about noble households that was published three years ago. He took it off the bookshelf, sat at a table, and began looking through the list of noble households until he got to the Sea household, then turned the pages until he arrived at the page, which he sought.

He read all the infos, which were written about the Sea household. Of course, most of them were infos about things that were common knowledge, such as the fact that the Sea household is the most magic-talented noble household. Eventually, Yew found a paragraph about Cypress Sea, which confirmed Yew’s suspicions about Cypress’s magical talent.

...Cypress Sea is considered to be the most magic-talented member of the Sea household currently alive. He is a promising magus, with a potential to become one of top ten most powerful magi of his household....

The paragraph went on to give examples of Cypress's accomplishments at a young age, such as floating a toy in the air two months after his birth. Yew continued to read about the Sea household for severalteen more pages. After he read the whole chapter, he thought about one thing, which he disagreed with.

The author talked about the most powerful ancestor of Cypress Sea, who lived more than six hundred years ago. He was so powerful that he could remove all Hecate charms from the schoolground at the age of nineteen. The author claimed that magical talents of that level are rare, but there's a small chance that Cypress might be able to accomplish it by the age of twenty five.

However, Yew knew that Cypress did not remove Hecate charms. If he did that, the school would have realized and then he'd get into problems. Instead of removing them, he somehow kept them in place, but deactivated them from interfering with his own magic, almost as if Cypress had added himself as an exception to the charms' list of allowed magic, which should only include the chairman and some elder teachers.

Modifying those powerful charms without anyone noticing, was far more difficult than removing them. Furthermore, Cypress was only fifteen yrold.

At that moment, Yew was certain that Cypress's magical talent wasn't among the top ten or the top five - not even the top three. His magical talent was far beyond what other members of the Sea household ever had. Furthermore, Cypress himself was aware of how much magical talent he possessed, and if others didn't know about it, there could be only one reason - he kept it a secret, just like Yew did with his talent.

However, Cypress didn't know that Yew wasn't average either. And Yew was sure that if he used his true magical talent, he could easily rival Cypress Sea. Certain about his superb talents, he imagined Cypress apologizing for underestimating Yew and calling him a mere helper.

And then, Yew recalled that Cypress was a ninth year student, who had access to all the corners of the Hecate library. Yew used the guidebook to cover his face, because he couldn't stop himself from grinning like an idiot. He couldn’t believe it. He felt as if all the Heavens were on his side.

He was so excited about his next meeting with Cypress.

He didn’t know when or where it would happen, but he was eagerly awaiting to hear from Cypress via mindteaming any moment now.

He expected Cypress to contact him soon. That’s why he was constantly busy with planning methods to use Cypress in order to get access to every part of the library, especially the files about past students of Hecate. He was so busy with his schemes, that his schoolwork quality worsened, but he didn’t care. He only attended Hecate in order to find out about his biological parents. His scores or studies didn’t matter to him at all.

However, more than a week had passed, and there was no communication from the older student.

Yew began to worry about his failing scores again after Spruce pointed out that they were worse than his, and that was odd. To avoid becoming a center of attention, he picked up studying again, and eventually he forgot all about Cypress, as he returned back to his daily routine.

It was already Saturday, the twenty seventh day of Veuf. Yew was taking a test in History class, and trying hard to ignore Aspen.

"Do you know what's the answer to question number six?" the other Hypnos student asked Yew via mindteaming.

"I don't, and could you stop mindteaming with me during the class?" Yew looked at the test paper in front of him.

He knew that Aspen was a studious type, who would easily score a perfect hundred percent. Yew, on the other hand, couldn't figure out most of the answers. However, this inability to score well on the History test wasn't due to his lack of abilities. He just didn't spend that much time studying History of Magic.

Instead of reviewing the class material, he practiced spells from the later years, since those could be useful one day in the future, as opposed to the boring worthless lessons of history, which were never meant to be used anywhere other than in school.

"If you don't use it, you won't master it," Aspen commented via the mindteaming spell about the mindteaming spell. "Do you know the answer to question number seven?"

"Even if I do, I'm not telling you," Yew responded and realized that he could answer question number eight.

"Come on, don't be so stingy," Aspen joked, while writing something on the bottom of his paper, most likely the answer to the last question, since it was already halfway through the lesson, and that was the usual time for Aspen to complete his tests.

"I cannot concentrate on writing my answers, if you keep bugging me," Yew complained. "And what if we get caught mindteaming during the test?"

"We won't," Aspen was sure, "they don't check first year classes for any sort of magical cheating. After all, officially we don’t know how to.”

Yew finished writing down all the answers, which he knew, while leaving more difficult questions with blanks. Then he got up from his seat and handed his testsheet to Cacao.

He left the classroom, because he saw no reason to stay any longer. He answered what he could, and it would be a waste of time to guess answers to the questions, which he didn’t know how to answer.

Once outside, he felt the sudden change in temperature. He wrapped his arms intuitively around him for a while until he got a bit more used to the chilly air.

It was a cloudy day outside, but no rain was falling.

By this time of the year, all trees had lost their leaves and typical white roads of Hecate scenery were hidden under a carpet of red, orange and yellow colors. No one in Hecate bothered to sweep the leaves, because both teachers and students enjoyed walking among the warm colors of the month of Veuf, which so beautifully decorated the schoolground.

In the last month, Yew spent almost every day mindteaming with Aspen. By now he already got pretty good at it, although not yet perfect. He also started contacting Chervil, who would happily bring him any library book from one of the older years, if he asked nicely.

As for Parsley, he tried contacting her several times, but he failed each time. Later on, when he talked about it with Chervil, he found out that Parsley was using barrier charms to keep mindteaming spells away from her. Thus it was harder to contact her, if she was in class or when she was studying. Chervil also promised to tell him the password to mindteam with Parsley in case of an emergency, after he mastered the mindteaming spell.

Several moments later, Aspen also stepped out from the classroom with a smile on his face.

"Did you score hundred percent?" Yew guessed the reason for his happiness.

"I think so," he responded.

"Do we wait for Spruce?" Yew looked in the direction of the classroom.

"No need," Aspen shook his head, "this morning, he told me not to wait for him. By the way, did you see Linden?" Aspen looked around for their classmate. "He was the first one to finish the test,” he stated what everyone in their class began to expect as the norm.

After more than a month, Linden became known by everyone in the class as that guy, who always finished all tests in less than half an hour, and always left the class first. Cacao wasn't too fond of this behavior, but since Linden started doing his homework, Cacao no longer had any way to discipline Sorrel's son.

Yew shook his head, "nope,” he answered Aspen’s question. “He must have gone somewhere, as soon as he left the classroom."

“We have some time before the next class," Aspen summed up, "anything you want to do?"

Yew shrugged his shoulders, "dunno, maybe we can just hang around here until the Process class starts."

Aspen snickered, "so creative."

"Do you have a better idea?"

"Remember the cave that Wasabi showed us before?" Aspen brought up the topic.

"You want to peek on older students’ battles?" Yew recalled the magical fight, which he saw before.

"Better," Aspen smirked, "how about we fight?" he said in a quiet voice, so only Yew could hear him. "Nobody will see us, if we do it in that cave."

"Fight? Without supervision?" Yew wasn't sure if Aspen was of a sound mind.

"Our spells aren't strong enough to cause any harm, but wouldn't it be interesting to fight with what we already know?" Aspen was seriously considering the idea, but not Yew.

Yew was still hiding a lot of details about his talent. Aspen may have found out that Yew is actually magic-talented, but he didn't know how much talented. And Yew wanted to keep the scale of his talent as much of a secret as possible. Something like a strong unwavering intuition was telling him to keep his above-average talent a secret no matter what.

However, Yew didn't have time to turn down Aspen's proposal. They were interrupted by Chervil, who mindteamed with them both simultaneously, "hey, guys, are you in class right now?"

"No," Aspen responded right away, "we had a test and we finished early."

"So both of you are free?" Chervil asked joyfully.

Yew didn’t know up until this moment that it was possible to mindteam more than one person at a time, and that everyone involved in the mindteaming could hear each other.

"Yes," Aspen confirmed.

"Great, I was going to ask one of you to fake a stomachache and leave the classroom, but this is even better. Both of you, come to the Fountain Garden."

"Right now?" Aspen was surprised at the suddenness of the request.

"Right now," she answered.

Both boys looked at each other questionably. Neither one of them had any idea of what Chervil would want from them. Uncertain and curious, they both went toward the Fountain Garden.

Yew was amazed at how Chervil connected all three of them in one mindteaming conversation. He clearly heard both her and Aspen, and he wondered how long it would take him to be able do something like that.

When Yew and Aspen arrived at the Fountain Garden, they began walking on a sidewalk between the streams, searching for Chervil. It wasn't difficult to find her, because the park was mostly empty. Other than her, there were maybe ten or so people in the park. Many students were still taking classes, and those who weren't wouldn't be awake without a good reason. Having a day off or having a class-free morning meant longer sleep hours for most students.

Chervil was sitting on a bench together with another older girl.

When the boys came over, she skipped the greeting, "now that you're here, I can go back to my classes.” She stood up, and via mindteaming she added, "If anyone finds you with her, just tell them that you were under a spell and your bodies moved against your will. No one will doubt that story," and she quickly walked away leaving the older gal with the two boys.

Yew took a good look at the woman sitting on the bench. She had long yellow hair that ended below her knees. It was tied in two high ponytails on each side of her head. She had quite a strong makeup on her face, with blue eyelids, purple lipstick, and cherry red powder on her cheeks. She wore black sweater and dark blue wedge boots.

The most striking feature were her shorts worn on top of thick black leggings. For both boys, it was the first time they saw a woman, who didn't wear a skirt. Even women, who wore pants, often wore very long sweaters or dresses on top, to hide the ugly seams between the legs. Because unlike men, women cared a lot about their appearance and beauty.

However, the gal in front of them didn't care much about the seams between her legs. She sat down with one leg on the bench and another leg on the ground. It was a position that allowed anyone to see the seams, even if they weren't looking.

"So you're the new students of Hypnos," she mindteamed the two boys simultaneously. Clearly, she was careful that nobody heard her words except for the two of them.

"Who are you?" Yew asked back via mindteaming.

"Liquorice Ash," she answered, "and what are your names?"

"Yew Sky.”

His classmate took a long look at Liquorice, before he also introduced himself, "Aspen Breeze."

"Wary, aren't you?" she looked at Aspen. "That's good. I like clever people," she smiled, then looked at Yew, "just like you two, I'm a student of Hypnos."

It was something that both boys were suspecting from the moment she mentioned Hypnos, and by the fact that it was Chervil, who called them to meet her.

"My main reason for coming here today is my homework. In order to complete it, I need your help. Or to be more precise, I could complete it on my own, but it'll be faster to have someone guide me around the schoolground of Hecate."

Neither Yew nor Aspen responded to the statement. There was some suspicious aura in the air around the gal, and Yew suddenly wondered where the mysterious gal came from, "if you're not a student of Hecate, then where are you from?"

"I'm a student of Hades," she answered with an eerie smile.

Aspen, who was the first one to comprehend the situation, immediately hit his forehead with an open palm and said out loud, "I forgot to turn in my homework, I need to get back," and before Yew or Liquorice could react, he made a run in order to be as far away from the Fountain Garden as possible.

It was Saturday. Sorrel Cave rarely gave homework, and she certainly didn't do that yesterday. Cacao Bark also didn’t assign them any homework on Friday. Today, there was no homework to turn in.

It was situations like this, when Yew was somewhat jealous at how good Aspen was at dealing with sudden problems. He wished he could have done the same, but just one look at Liquorice, and he realized that she wasn't going to just let him go. Yew didn't evacuate in time, and now it was too late.

"I'm only a first year, and I don't know the schoolground that well yet, so I’m not sure if I can help you." The conversation continued via mind-teaming.

"No problem," Liquorice patted the place next to her on the bench. "Let's talk," she invited him to sit down, and he did. "You've been betrayed and abandoned by your friend," she said.

"I don't think so," Yew disagreed. They still conversed via mindteaming. "If I was a bit more clever I would have done the same."

"Why?"

Yew looked directly at her face. He wasn't sure whether she was playing with him, or whether she was too slow to guess the reason on her own. He gulped down his saliva before he responded, "because you're a student of Hades."

Even though the whole conversation was done via mindteaming, Yew worried what would happen, if someone heard them. Afterall, there were spells and magical items that could be used to spy on those, who were mindteaming, and what if by some chance, someone overheard their voiceless communication.

"Are you scared of me?"

"I don't know, maybe," Yew was honest with his answer. He certainly felt a bit wary of her, but not because of Hades, but because of her unusual appearance. "So what do you need from Hecate?" he changed the topic back to her homework.

"I'm on my ninth year in Hades, so this is my last year before I graduate," she started. "Hades has this long-standing tradition that in order to graduate, each student has to take something from another school," she explained.

"Like what?" Yew asked for details.

"Anything. As long as the school isn't willing to part with it, it’s okay to take it," she rolled one of her ponytails with her index finger.

Yew repeated the last sentence he heard in his mind, and he concluded that if he understood correctly, then "you came here to steal something from Hecate," he rephrased Liquorice's homework.

"Yeah," she confirmed.

Yew began to wonder about something, "what about Hypnos?"

"What do you mean?"

"Hecate doesn't allow students to steal. Wouldn’t Hypnos have rules like that as well? Won't you get expelled from Hypnos?"

"Hypnos students go to all kinds of schools," she said as she kept rolling her ponytail, "so Hypnos doesn't get involved with any of the physical schools. I have nothing to worry about."

Yew kept staring at the older girl, unsure whether he should trust her words or not. If he were to help her, he was risking expulsion from Hecate, and if she was lying, he was also risking expulsion from Hypnos.

"You are forgetting that Hypnos is not a physical school," Liquorice spoke after a long moment of silence between them. "And all kinds of people go to Hypnos."

"Stealing is a crime," Yew pointed out the most obvious thing in the world.

"Hades is a school for criminals," Liquorice responded with the most common knowledge in the world.

"I'm not attending Hades," Yew responded, proving that he had no reason to help her.

"And you've never committed any crime in your life. Where's your aureole?" Liquorice drew an oval in the air with her finger.

An aureole was a symbol of purity, and supposedly an aureole of light was something that appeared around the head of saints and other holy men, who led a sinless life.

Yew didn't respond in any way, and Liquorice continued, "did your parents ever forbid you to do something, when you were younger?"

"Sometimes."

"And you always obeyed?"

"But that was not a crime," Yew couldn't deny that he wasn't the most obedient child in the world, but he wasn’t committing any crime by breaking rules made by his parents.

"You disobeyed the authorities. That's what a crime is," Liquorice pointed out.

"Crime is more evil…" Yew began and was going to give examples, but the gal interrupted him.

"If you take the last drop of water from a thirsty man, isn't that evil?"

Yew took a moment to think, then he nodded in agreement.

"And yet, you can go to every jail all across the Empire, and not even one person will arrest you."

"Really?" Yew didn't want to believe it, but he had never heard of a crime like that, so it appeared that Liquorice wasn't lying to him.

“Yeah,” she nodded. “Because stealing a drop of water is not a crime under any law. On the other hand, if you touch the walls of the Eternal Palace without the Emperor's permission, you'll be jailed for many years. But is it evil to touch a wall?"

Yew imagined the situation. He did know that there were many rules that people visiting the Emperor had to follow, and sometimes he heard of situations, when someone didn't follow a rule and was punished. Although, he had never paid attention to those news, so he didn't know any specifics of what those "criminals" did.

"Crime isn't the same as evil,” Liquorice asserted. “To be evil means to disobey God. To be a criminal means to disobey human authorities, like the Emperor, or the law enforcement, or the school rules. Sometimes the divine laws overlap with human laws, but that happens only once in a while. Typically human authorities make laws opposite to divine laws."

"Opposite?" Yew wanted a further explanation on the topic.

"For example, the divine law on marriage states that one man can marry only one woman. But a long time ago, the Emperor created his law allowing one man to have more than one woman. The irony is, everyone except royals and some nobles, follow the divine law, and not the imperial law."

"I never saw a man with more than one wife," Yew recalled the people, which he had met until now.

"Because it's rare and practiced only by sinners."

"What's a sinner?" Yew asked.

"Anyone, who disobeys God. Something like a criminal of the spiritual world."

"Do sinners get punished?"

"It depends on God. Sins are much harder to define than crimes, because a crime is merely a physical action, but a sin cannot exist without the intention of the heart, the thought of the mind, the knowledge of the soul, and the action of the body."

"What do you mean?"

"It means that if a man takes a second woman, it's not a sin, unless all four requirements are met. Knowledge of the soul means he is aware that it is against the divine law. Intention of the heart means he wants or desires it. Thought of the mind means he plans it ahead of time. And action of the body means he actually does it. If either one of the four requirements is missing, then it's not a sin."

"So if he doesn't know about the divine law, he's not a sinner."

"Correct, but once he learns of the divine law, he is required to correct his life, or otherwise what was not a sin, will become a sin."

"But how do I know what is a sin and what is not?" Yew wondered.

"If you want details, go to a temple.”

“Did you learn it all from a temple?”

“No, I learned it by myself.”

“How?”

“You can always learn from your own mistakes,” she smirked. “Human laws are written on stone or paper, but the divine law is written in every human soul. Whenever you break one of the divine laws, your heart will let you know."

"After I break a divine law? Why not before?" he wasn't the only one in the world, who wondered about this.

"Am I your religion teacher?" Liquorice wanted to get away from the topic, which was getting longer and longer. “I told you what I know. If you have any more questions, go and ask a clergy from a temple."

Yew looked away, pondering whether the topic was interesting enough for him to research it further. In the end, he didn’t have much interest in the details.

"Anyway, since both of us have disobeyed human authorities in the past, that makes us criminals, so let's help each other," Liquorice stretched out her hand in a friendly manner.

"What? No, I didn't agree to anything," Yew immediately refused to cooperate.

"Come on, think about it. You help me out today, and I'll help you out one day in the future. Wouldn't it be great to have a graduate of Hades as your backup?" she grinned.

Indeed, having a graduate of Hades owning him a favor, could be very useful. And not so long ago, Cypress Sea spoke to him about the importance of connections. Yew thought through everything that Liquorice said until now.

“So you only want me to guide you around the schoolground?”

“Yuppie,” Liquorice confirmed.

"Fine, I'll help you, but I’ll only be your guide, and that’s it."

"Great," she sounded like a purring cat. "So, let's start with the Sweet Dream Strawberry."

"Okay," Yew sighed as he took out his guidebook from his backpack.

He was certain that guiding Liquorice around the Hecate schoolground was not a crime, because the schoolground allowed visitors. However, he had a fleeting thought passing through his mind, so he asked Liquorice.

"By the way, it's not a sin to show you the way, is it?"

"Ask a monk," she responded with a grin.

Yew was looking through the guidebook, which he received from Sorrel on the day of his arrival at Hecate. Other than many useful infos about his classes, there was an appendix with a list of artifacts, which the school of Hecate kept within the schoolground. The new students were encouraged to go and see those rare exhibits, in which Yew had no interest until now.

Among the artifacts, there were many works of art, antique relics of the past long gone, unique magical items, and many other lesser known objects, which had a historical significance or a magical value.

Like all schools, Hecate had a long history and a tradition that continued unbroken for more than ten hundred years. All the artifacts, which the school possessed, were left behind by the ancestors, who had walked in the past on the same soil under the same sky. The school taught its students to respect the predecessors: those, who have added to the glory of the school; as well as those, whose mistakes became the source of critical reforms.

"I found it," Yew said as he looked at the description of the Sweet Dream Strawberry. "A powerful magical necklace that can be used to show people realistic dreams," he read an excerpt from the guidebook.

"Awesome, isn't it?" Liquorice asked, "I can make someone have a dream and when they wake up, they'll think that it really did happen."

Yew continued to read the description, where he learned that the Sweet Dream Strawberry was used to cure people out of trauma, but it could also be used to traumatize people. He looked at Liquorice, and wondered which of the two uses would she choose. Somehow, he couldn't imagine her as a doctor curing people's traumas.

Liquorice was a student of Hypnos and Hades. It was hard to tell whether she was a good or a bad person. Students of Hypnos always acquired a peculiar reputation, but they weren't known for being evil. On the other hand, students of Hades were infamous for their bad behavior. Thus Yew didn’t know what to expect from a person, who simultaneously attended the schools of Hypnos and the school of Hades.

"And then I want the Silver Fish Eye," Liquorice said, and Yew woke up from his thoughts.

"Wait, just how many items do you need?"

"Just one to graduate, but I can take as many as I want. Why?" she smiled at him like an innocent kid looking forward to a birthday party.

Yew got pale, "you're not planning to rob the school of all its artifacts, do you?" he worded his biggest worry.

"Of course, no," she responded naturally. "I don't need so many magical items, just six or seven will do."

"Six or… seven?" Yew began to regret that he agreed to help her. He knew that he couldn’t change her mind about stealing artifacts, but maybe he could change her mind regarding her target. "Why did you choose Hecate? Wouldn't there be more amazing artifacts in other schools?"

"I didn't choose it. We had a lottery among all the students of the ninth year, and I drew Hecate. I was hoping to get Hera or Zeus, but well, I guess I'm not that lucky," she said with a sigh.

The school of Hera and the school of Zeus certainly had more amazing artifacts than the school of Hecate, but their security was also on another level. Even the most professional thieves wouldn't dare to challenge it. And yet, Liquorice sighed like a kid, who didn't get the biggest piece of cake, and had to force herself to be satisfied with the second biggest piece of cake.

Yew sat quietly staring at her in disbelief. For him, it was the first time meeting someone from Hades, but it was also the first time meeting someone, who had no awareness of danger nor sense of fear. Liquorice was so different from normal people, that Yew felt as if he was talking with an alien from another planet. Even Chervil, whom he saw as weird compared to the rest of the mankind, appeared very normal in comparison with this gal from the school of Hades.

"So? Where is the Sweet Dream Strawberry?" she moved her face closer, trying to peek into the guidebook that Yew kept open on his lap.

"It's in the clinic office," he answered, "which is located next to the fighting arena."

The school of Hecate had its own medical center used by both the students and the faculty. The clinic was used to quickly treat students’ minor injuries or common health problems. It was also used to provide first-aid and prepare patients for a transfer to a fully-equipped hospital in the city of Sheepcrown in case of major health concerns.

Inside the Hecate clinic, there was the so-called clinic office, which was a small room, where the medical personnel kept their documents. Near the entrance to the clinic office, on a wall an artifact known as the Sweet Dream Strawberry was displayed for every visitor to see.

"It will be hard to run away with it, even if you steal it," Yew was still hoping that Liquorice would change her mind, and he wouldn't have to become her accomplice.

However, Liquorice wouldn’t change her mind no matter what. "Don't worry about small things. Just show me the way," she said as she stood up from the bench, waiting for Yew to do the same.

He did stand up, and slowly began walking west, in the direction of the fighting arena. On his way there, he silently prayed in his heart that no one familiar saw him walking together with a student of Hades, even if they didn't know that she was a student of Hades.

After walking around the large building on the arena, they arrived in front of a midsize building, which looked no different from an average classroom building. The clinic was standing right across from the entrance to the fighting arena. Above its front doors, it had a big symbol of a green snake wrapped around a red sword - a universal symbol of the world of medicine.

Green symbolized medication, most of which were made from herbs. Red symbolized life and blood - the source of life. The snake symbolized poison or disease, and the knife symbolized the defeat of the snake, in other words, the defeat of the sickness and return back to health.

Just as Yew expected ahead of time, the place was crowded with adults and older students, which is why he didn't feel too comfortable approaching the clinic building. Normally, it was rare for younger students to visit the clinic, but later years, especially eighth and ninth years needed medical help almost weekly.

Ergo, all students in the area around the clinic were much older and Yew was oddly sticking out. Liquorice, on the other hand, smoothly blended in with the crowd even with her unusual dress style.

Yew was actually surprised to see so many students of later years gathered in and around the clinic. The place was so much busier than Yew originally imagined, and he quickly wanted to get away from there, before something were to happen.

"Wait for me outside," Liquorice said using mind-teaming. "After I'm done, we'll move to the next one."

After Liquorice left him, she headed straight for the clinic entrance, Yew turned around and began slowly walking away. For a moment, he thought about just leaving the place and coming back once she was done, but he didn't have any time to do that plan. Because as soon as he decided it was a good idea, Liquorice mindteamed him again, "Got it," she almost sang the words out of happiness. "I'm coming out right now. Be there in a second."

Yew sighed. He was glad that he was leaving the clinic area so soon, and he felt relieved that nothing happened. From a distance, he looked at the main entrance to the clinic expecting Liquorice to come out any moment, and she did come out with a big smile on her face. However, right behind her, another person came out, whom Yew already met before.

Liquorice quickly approached him and waved in front of Yew's face, who stood frozen like a stone statue. The boy stared at Cypress, who came out from the clinic right behind Liquorice.

Cypress quickly glanced over at Yew, then at Yew’s companion, who was much older than the boy. Without changing his countenance, the guy turned his head away and walked in his own direction together with other classmates from his ninth year.

Cypress acted as if he didn't know Yew at all - as if he had no interest in a little boy, who was oddly sticking out from the crowd of older students, but Yew would never believe, that the older student didn't recognize him.

"Hey, why aren't you responding?" Liquorice asked, ready to pinch his nose.

Yew moved his head away from her hand, and looked at Liquorice, feeling all tense. He was scared, but he knew that as long as she didn't get caught, he shouldn't have to explain himself, so he decided to quickly help her complete her robberies. "Uhm? What was next?"

"The Silver Fish Eye," she said, still interested in what caused Yew to freeze like that.

Yew began to quickly walk away from the clinic. Once he was out of sight of the clinic visitors, he began looking through the guidebook for the next artifact. However, just as he found the entry for the Silver Fish Eye, a loud alarm rang behind them coming from the direction of the clinic.

In the next moment, long lines of gold began forming right above the center of the Hecate schoolground. They grew in length, crossing each other, and forming something like a cage around the school of Hecate. Afterward, even more alarms began to sound from all the directions, and extraordinary colorful mists began appearing above the buildings, and spreading all over the sky like a large cloud covering the sun.

Liquorice didn't waste a second. The very moment, she heard the second alarm, she went running in the direction of the gate. Already in the run, she cast a spell on her shoes to grant herself more speed, then added another spell that allowed her to jump higher and further than normal.

Something like a wall began to grow up from the sidewalk. Liquorice jumped above it, and while in the air, she added another spell to strengthen her legs. After she landed she ran even faster than before, and to a passerby she looked just like a colorful blur zooming through the schoolground.

All teachers stopped their classes, and came outside, and whoever saw Liquorice immediately began to cast one spell after another to stop her run. One teacher turned the ground oily but she slid through it like a pro skater. Another teacher tried to slow her down by casting a spell to create ropes around her legs, but she turned the ropes into dried flower stems that shattered like crackers. Yet another teacher turned the ground into a swamp, but she jumped over it, then used a black fog to shroud the whole area. Nobody saw in which direction she ran off. By the time the fog was removed by the teachers, she was no longer present anywhere in the vicinity.

The teachers began to gather, passing infos to each other. Some teachers remained in place calming down the students and clearing up nearby damage to the school property, while other teachers better suited at catching thieves ran in the general direction of the school gate.

Yew stood frozen in the exact spot he stood before Liquorice ran off. He still held the guidebook open on the page with the description of the Silver Fish Eye. He was in a state of shock and panic at the same time. He didn't know how to react. He didn't know whether Liquorice was caught or not. He was terrified, what would happen to him, if she got caught. And he was even more terrified, what would happen to him, if she wasn’t caught.

"That was close," Liquorice's cheerful voice sang in Yew's head.

"You got out?" he responded with curiosity.

"Barely made it in time before they locked down the schoolground," she explained, "but I'm not safe yet. I assume they'll try to chase me, so I need to hurry back to Hades. Talk to you later!" she ended the message and cut off the mindteaming connection, while Yew just stood there in the middle of a road.

Several teachers ran past him, trying to catch up with the thief. None of them paid any attention to a first year student just standing and doing nothing.

Then large blue arrows began to appear on the white roads, and a loud voice of the chairman spoke echoing around the schoolground, as if there were speakers all around, "all classes have been canceled. It is not an emergency, but there will be no more classes today. All students from the first to fifth year are to return back to their cottages immediately. The blue arrows on the roads have numbers. Follow the arrows with a number of your schoolyear, and you will arrive at your village."

Yew looked down at the road, where he could see large arrows numbered from one to five. The teachers nearby ordered the younger students to leave classrooms and follow the arrows on the roads. Soon, all the students between the first and fifth schoolyear stepped out of the buildings and began following the arrows.

Yew also began following the arrow with a number one, and after walking for a while, he met up with other students of the first year. They were led toward the cottages, but the arrows didn't continue all the way up to the cottage village. Instead, it ended in the vicinity, but the students knew where to go from there.

"Hey, Yew," he heard someone calling his name, and he stiffened up. Slowly he turned around to see Spruce making his way through a crowd of first year students. "So good to see you," he said after he approached his friend. "Where's Aspen."

Yew shook his head sideways, "I don't know. We weren't together."

"Do you know what happened? Did you see anything?" he inquired, and Yew shook his head once again. Spruce sighed, "nobody knows, and the teachers wouldn’t tell us anything."

"What did professor Cacao say?" Yew was interested to hear even a tiny detail.

"He said that classes have been cancelled, and it was like, you know, half a minute before the class was over, so everyone was really surprised. And we had a test, I don't want to redo the test. I tried really hard, you know," Spruce changed the topic away from the class cancellation to the test. "If I have to do it again, I'm sure, I'll only get a worse score."

The two of them began walking in the direction of their cottages. Spruce was complaining about how the whole situation was only going to lower his already low scores, and Yew kept quietly pondering on what happened and how it was going to affect him from now on. He imagined the worst case scenario of being expelled from the school, and he deeply regretted getting involved with Liquorice Ash, and the whole school of Hypnos.

Due to the incident, the school of Hecate changed completely within minutes.

The students of sixth and seventh years were allowed to help search the schoolground, if they wished to do so. However, they weren't allowed to get in a fight, if they found the thief. Their job was to search and report to the teachers anything, which could be related to the theft of Sweet Dream Strawberry. The eighth and ninth years students could help search outside of the schoolground, but within a specific distance of two kilometers. And the students who didn't want to participate had to go back to their cottages.

However, even after many long hours of search, nothing was found and nobody was caught. Even the chairman became certain that the criminal had successfully escaped the Hecate schoolground. She called off the non-emergency evacuation. Thus late in the afternoon, all the students could once again freely walk around the schoolground.

The word of what happened traveled from person to person. Posters with the face of Liquorice were posted on the buildings all over the school, with a description of the incident. Her face was a quick sketch based on the reports from the witnesses, but it was quite accurate. Liquorice stood out a lot with her unusual makeup and clothing, so many people remembered her appearance quite well.

Linden took one such poster, and brought it back to the cottage in order to show the perpetrator’s face to Yew, who refused to go outside, claiming that he wasn't feeling well. When Linden entered the bedroom, Yew was hiding under his blankets. Linden took off the blankets, and presented to his roommate the poster with the face of Liquorice Ash.

Yew looked at the description underneath the image, which immediately reminded him of the event, which he already wanted to forget all about. Then he looked at the description above the image: A student of Hades has successfully stolen a rare magical tool called the Sweet Dream Strawberry from the clinic office, today on the thirty sixth day of Veuf. If anyone has seen this person, please report to a teacher.

"That's amazing, you know," Linden said with a lot of enthusiasm. "Every year, a student of Hades attempts to steal something from Hecate, but usually they go after trivial items. This way it takes more time for the faculty to realize that something went missing, and the thieves have more time to run away."

"You look happy," Yew, on the other hand, looked gloomy.

"Oh, I'm just amazed," Linden was more happy than he has ever been before, "the last time, a student of Hades tried to steal something important was twelve years ago, and they failed. The last time they actually succeeded was almost fifty years ago. At that time, Hecate lost a precious tool called the Swan Stone Wind."

"I see," Yew just realized the gravity of Liquorice's success, and comprehended that as an accomplice, he was certainly in big troubles. He began to worry about his own future, and he wished really hard that nobody would ever find out that he helped her. But just then he recalled Cypress Sea.

"You look pale," Linden’s voice sounded a bit worried.

"I'm tired," Yew responded and put the blankets back on top of his head.

"Hmmmm, ok. Then rest, I'm going to make some snacks for myself in the kitchen. Do you want some?"

"No," Yew responded from underneath the covers. He wanted everyone to just forget about the event with Liquorice. He wanted to turn back the time, and never meet Liquorice in the first place. He wanted the stolen magical item to reappear right where it was in the Hecate clinic, and he wanted everything to just go back to the normal daily routine.

"Ok, let me know if you change your mind," Linden said before he left the bedroom.

Yew kept trying to forget all about the heist, and go to sleep, but he couldn't. He couldn't stop imagining all the worst case scenarios. He couldn't stop fearing a punishment, even though he didn't even know what punishment was served for assisting a thief.

He couldn't stop thinking, and he couldn’t think about anything else.

With his mind and heart filled with anxiety and fear, he didn't even realize, when Linden went to bed. The time went by, and he didn't even realize when the hour passed midnight. Terrified to the very bones, Yew’s eyes were still wide open and his body was still very awake and quivering but not from any cold.

“Awake?” he heard a voice resonate in his mind, and he jolted as if someone poured ice water over him.

“Cypress?” he unconsciously said the name of the person, who saw him with Liquorice earlier today.

"You always surprise me," Cypress said.

And all of Yew’s thoughts immediately turned blank. His mind was no longer thinking, and his body became stiff like the body of a bound criminal awaiting an axe to inevitably fall at his neck.

"She was a student from Hades, right?" Cypress’s voice was calm, but there was no answer from Yew. “Yew?”

"Am I suspected?" Yew eventually asked in a voice full of despair.

"You're not suspected of anything," Cypress stated clearly.

Upon these words, Yew felt a great moment of relief fall upon his body.

“There were some people, who remembered seeing that woman talk with a kid,” Cypress continued, “but unlike her, the kid was too average looking to remember, so they don’t even have a good description. Some witnesses even remember the kid as a girl," he explained the situation in details.

“Did you tell them anything?” Yew gulped down his saliva, afraid of an answer.

“Are you afraid, I’ll snitch on you?”

Yew didn’t answer that.

“I am a man of intelligence. Only fools run around snitching on everything they see. Besides, I am quite amazed. I didn’t know you had relations with the school of Hades.”

“I don’t,” Yew said.

Cypress laughed. “Okay, okay. Let’s say you don’t. Anyway, I won’t tell anyone what I saw.”

"Thank God," Yew decided that he needed to visit a temple and properly show his gratitude to God and all the saints for saving him from the consequences of his potentially criminal acts in hope that the Heavens wouldn’t undo their current merciful verdict.

After calming down, Yew had a strong desire to find out what had happened when the school realized, that a robbery had taken place, but before he asked his question, Cypress spoke first.

"You had nothing to fear in the first place," Cypress stated, "you're only a kid, and you’re much younger than her. Naturally, nobody among the teachers would suspect you of anything. All the teachers are certain that she used magic to control some poor first year student. So, if you simply told the teachers that you don't remember what you were doing, that would just confirm their assumption and they would let you go."

"Really?" Yew asked but he already believed Cypress’s words.

The boy sighed with an even deeper feeling of relief from knowing that there was nothing to fear, even if he had been found out. However in just a second his countenance of relief disappeared and his face paled, as he realized that his future was in the hands of Cypress, who held the proof of his criminal association with Liquorice, and could use it against him.

Yew felt imprisoned, but he was too afraid of consequences to take any action.

In a merry voice, Cypress spoke, "I knew my eyes weren't lying to me. So how many connections around the world do you have? Excluding myself, of course."

"Eh?" Yew was surprised, because that was not the kind of statement that he expected to hear from Cypress. "No, this is a misunderstanding. I don't know her," he began, but he didn't plan ahead of time, so he stopped and wondered what to say next.

"Yes, yes, you don’t know her," Cypress said, amusement clear in his voice. "But I’m not asking about her. I’m asking a more general question." He waited for Yew's response, but the boy remained silent. "You still worry that I’ll report it?"

"If I don’t obey your commands," Yew completed the sentence according to his own speculation. “Because I’m your helper.”

"After what I saw today, you deserve a promotion," Cypress said. "So first and foremost, I apologize for underestimating you. And second, as of now I promote you from my helper to my friend."

Instantly Yew was shocked and speechless, and not sure whether this was a joke. Or was the guy actually serious?

"Too happy to speak?" Cypress asked him with amusement still in his voice.

"I don't believe you," Yew responded harshly.

"Why not?"

"Why would a powerful noble and an heir of the Sea household see me as a friend?"

"Not a friend," Cypress corrected, "my friend," he accented each of the two words.

"What do you mean?" Yew couldn't understand what was going on through the mind of the older student.

"A friend is a nobody that you get along with, because it’s convenient for the time being," he explained, "but you're not a friend. You're my friend."

"I still don't understand how that makes a difference."

"I see you as my equal," Cypress stated.

Once again Yew couldn’t find any words to respond.

"To be frank, it's harder to explain than you think,” Cypress continued, “but there aren't that many first year students at Hecate, who have access to books from the fifth year and even less of them have connections in other schools, such as Hades."

"I told you, you're misunderstanding," Yew tried to get the older student to accept his explanation. “I only met her today, and I don’t know anything about her.”

Cypress ignored Yew’s explanation, and continued with his own point of view, "I have one more reason, why I want to get along with you: I trust my intuition,” he accented the word «trust». “Ever since our first meeting on the train, I had a feeling that you’re far more than what meets the eyes."

"Are you drunk?" Yew couldn't find a good reason for Cypress to suddenly change his personality like that.

"Maybe I am," Cypress didn't deny Yew's nonsensical hypothesis, "anyway, let's meet tomorrow afternoon. I'll let you ask all the questions you have."

Cypress's voice suddenly turned into silence, and Yew felt somewhat upset that Cypress cut off the mindteaming session without hearing Yew's answer. The boy didn’t want to meet, but he also didn’t want to contact Cypress just to tell him that.

In the end, the difference of age between them was too big, and Yew understood that unless he got stronger one way or another, Cypress would continue to order him around. He sighed, while thinking about how hard it would be to change his current situation, without getting himself into more troubles.

If he contacted other students of Hypnos, maybe he could get some help, but then he'd be indebted to them, and that would win nothing for him. Either way, he’d be indebted to someone.

He couldn’t change his predicament for the better, so it was a wise choice to make no changes, but remain vigilant for an opportunity to improve his situation.

However, he did notice that he had helped Liquorice, and she owed him. If he wisely used this debt, maybe he could get out of his debt to Cypress. However, he didn’t know anything about Cypress, and he knew even less about Liquorice. Furthermore, Liquorice was the cause of his troubles, and Cypress was a master at exploiting any opportunity in front of him. Neither one of them would be easy to handle by a boy, who just began his journey toward maturity.

While thinking of tactics and strategies to solve his problems, Yew fell asleep. He didn't even know why he woke up at the time of the sunrise the next day. Normally, he didn’t wake up that early, especially when he stayed up so late the day before. To his surprise, Linden was already up and out of the bed, and there was no sight of his roommate anywhere in the cottage.

Yew dressed up, ate a quick breakfast, and without knocking on Spruce's cottage, he left for the city. At the tram station, he looked at the big map attached to a thin wall like at a painting at an exhibition. He found a tram that went straight to the temple in the center of the city of Sheepcrown.

He boarded the tram once it arrived.

On a Sunday morning, the trams were half-empty, and there were plenty of free seats to choose from. Most citizens of the city, as well as most students of Hecate, were still soundly asleep.

When he was a kid, Yew wondered why most people didn’t work on Sundays. He asked his mom, who told him the same story that was passed on for many generations. From the story, he learned that God created the world in six days and then on the seventh day he rested. Because of that story, the number seven was associated with rest and celebration.

On the seventh day, people rested unless their work couldn’t wait until the next day.

It was a good sign, if something ended before the seventh day, or if something was completed before the seventh month. It was also considered to be lucky, when a new building took six years to build, leaving the seventh year for celebrating the accomplishment.

However, it was equally a bad omen, if something new was started on Sunday. Almost all the people believed that any new work started on Sunday would never succeed, and any unfinished work completed on Sunday would never bring any profit.

When the tram arrived at the stop near the temple, Yew got off, and turned toward the temple, which stood across the street. The street was small enough for only one tram to pass through. So, as soon as the tram left, Yew crossed the tracks and arrived on the sidewalk on the other side of the street.

Walking onto the templeground, he passed through the main gate, whose doors stood wide open on both sides. Unlike the last time, when the temple was full of people coming for a blessing, this time the outdoors were empty except for two cats roaming around the entrance.

Yew stepped forward on the sidewalk, which led to the main building. Afterward, he headed on the path then up the stairs into the temple. He pushed the heavy doors, and walked inside. With just one step in, he felt the atmosphere change completely. It felt as if he had entered a different world.

He had visited the big temple in the city of Owlway, when he was smaller, but it was always during the daytime, and on important holidays, when the place was always busy and brimming with people.

This was his first time visiting a temple so early in the morning. Without crowds of people swarming the whole place, the temple gave off a completely different aura.

No lamps were turned on. The sunlight coming in from the eastern windows glowed through the colored glasses and painted images on the dark mahogany wood of the opposite wall.

Three separate groups of candles were arranged around the center of the room. These tiny twinkling lights gave off an eerie but comforting feeling. The shadows of furnitures and ornaments around the candles danced to the tune set by the burning flames, like a majestic piece of spiritual artwork.

The temple itself was mostly empty of people, except for the clergy who were kneeling in the front row half-hidden in the morning semi-darkness by the frames of the old wooden seats.

However, the sounds of the place struck Yew as the biggest difference between this and all his previous visits. Without the noisy chatter of visiting folks, conversing on a diversity of topics unrelated to spirituality, the temple felt still, like frozen drops of dew on a green leaf in the morning sunshine.

Coming from the direction of nuns, there was one uniform chant, like a harmonious sound of nature. From the distance, the chant sounded like the waves of an ocean, moving back and forth at a regular interval with an occasional large wave coming at an odd moment from the direction of monks, but surprisingly the sound of this large wave harmonized with all the other sounds, as if it was always meant to be an inseparable part of the main melody.

Three visitors came in, while Yew was standing near the entrance. One patriarch sat in the second row, and joined the chants, which he must have known by heart after hearing them all his life. A young woman with a baby sleeping by her bosom, sat in the fifth row, listening to the chants in silence.

Yew moved from the spot and went to sit down in the last row. He observed and listened, while he recalled his mom’s lectures about gratitude: “Always be thankful for what you receive from God,” she told him. “You never know what life will bring, so never pass a chance to thank the heavens.”

Yew’s plan for today was simple. He was going to visit the temple, quickly offer a short prayer, and leave. However, upon seeing such a spiritual scenery, his decision to leave wavered. Right now, he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to leave this place at all.

When the chant came to an end, all monks and nuns stood up at the same time, and exited the room through the single doors located on each side of the room. Monks left through the door in the right wall, and nuns left through the door in the left wall.

Yew didn’t leave, even though the morning chant had ended. He was still sitting and staring at the huge veils covering the small area in the center of the temple. He knew that the statue of God was kept inside, and most people weren't allowed to come within the area covered by the veils.

Yew wasn't curious what was behind the veils, because he already knew. In the village of Catriddle, there was a small shrine, which also held the statue of God. Likewise, the grotto was covered by veils, but Yew had already seen that «statue of God» multiple times. The truth was that there was no statue.

When for the first time, Yew took a sneak peek inside, he thought that someone must have stolen the statue of God, because there was nothing inside the shrine’s grotto. He ran to his dad to let him know about this, but his dad laughed out loud, patted him on the head, and explained to Yew that the statue of God didn't disappear and it can never be stolen, because it cannot be seen with human eyes, or touched with human hands.

On that day, Kapok took Yew back to the shrine, and while showing him the empty grotto, where the statue of God should have been, he told Yew that the statue of God can only be seen by those, whom God allowed to see it. Afterward, Yew checked inside the grotto many times, in hope that one day he might be able to see the statue, but he had never seen any statue in the grotto.

While Yew was recalling events from his past, an elder monk came up to the center of the room, and pushed aside the veils, uncovering a door beneath them. With a key the monk unlocked the door, and left them wide open, while he walked away.

Yew moved to the center of the last row to get a better view of what was behind the door left open by the monk. Just as he expected, he saw the shrine. The overall shape was similar to the shrine in the village of Catriddle, but the decorations and ornaments were different. And just as he expected, there was nothing inside the grotto, where the statue of God should have been.

Disappointed, Yew remembered the reason for his today’s visit. In his own words, he thanked God for protecting him from school expulsion, and for keeping his part in the heist a secret. Just in case, he also apologized for helping in the robbery. He didn't know whether it was a sin or not, but an apology wouldn't hurt.

The monk returned back with a bucket of water and a sponge, and he began to wash the side of the shrine.

Having nothing else to do in the temple, Yew got up and began walking out. On his way toward the exit, he looked at the polished stone tile decorations on the walls of the temple. Each stone tile was so smooth and shiny that it reflected the scene like a mirror.

The shrine reflected in the polished tiles looked almost the same. Only the colors were a bit different on each stone surface. Orange tiles had an orangish tint. Black tiles had a blackish tint. Blue tiles had a bluish tint, and so on.

Reflected in the stone tiles, Yew saw the monk finish his cleaning. Afterward, the man took out the bucket and the sponge, and left them outside of the veiled area, while he searched for a key in his pockets.

In the meantime, a shine appeared on the stone decorations, which overlapped with the position of the grotto, exactly where the statue of God should be.

Assuming the shine to be from sunrays or another source of light, Yew moved to the side to get rid of the shine in order to see a clearer reflection. But the shine didn’t go away. Instead, it began to take the form of a white circle, similar in appearance to a sun on a cloudless day, or to a full moon on a cloudless night.

As the circle finished to form its definite shape of a flat ball of pure white light, Yew began to think that maybe it wasn't just a gleam of light on a reflected surface. He quickly turned around and looked toward the shrine, just to see the moment when the monk shut the door, locked it, covered it with the veil, and left, carrying off the bucket and the sponge.

Too late to see anything, Yew faced the exit. However, the reflection on the stone tiles hadn’t changed. It clearly reflected a scene of a white circle floating in the center of the grotto of the shrine. Yew wanted to turn his head around once more to verify that the shrine was indeed already covered by the veil, and should no longer be reflected in the stone tiles. However, just before he turned his head around, the white circle emitted such strong blinding light that Yew instinctively closed his eyes.

When he reopened his eyes, the tiles reflected the veil covering the area with the shrine at its center.

Somewhat spooked by what just happened, Yew quickly left the temple with his heart pounding fast.

He walked through the colorful rain of leaves falling on the templeground without paying any attention to the tree branches dancing in the wind above his head. He shivered from the cold air, so he crossed his arms on top of his jacket, which did little to warm up his body.

Like most people, Yew was glad that it wasn't raining. The month of Veuf had only two types of days. The first type were dark, cloudy, and rainy days. The second type were sunny days with a clear sky, but these were also chilly. Once in a while, a wind joined the team, making the rainy days more rainy, and the cold days more chilly.

The twenty eighth day of Veuf was the second type. The sky was clear, and there were almost no clouds, but it was also windy. And although the wind had been calm, when Yew was entering the temple, after he exited, the calm wind turned into a strong warrior cutting through jackets with its freezing air like a swordman with the icy blade of a sharp sword.

As Yew walked forward, a strong gust of wind blew a big pile of colorful leaves straight at his face. He used his hand to protect his eyes from the onslaught, but when it didn't do much against the great number, he turned around and let the leaves hit his back, while he waited for the attack to stop.

When the wind finally changed his target, Yew ran away from the street and toward the closest tram station. He hid there among other passengers, who were awaiting their ride. Hiding behind a group of adults, Yew certainly felt safer from the powerful lashes of the wind.

He took a comforting break from his battle against the weather, once he was inside the tram, but the fight was far from over. He still had a long walk from the tram station to his cottage.

Neither he nor anyone else in the city of Sheepcrown expected such a strong wind to arrive so suddenly. The sunrise was so peaceful and there were no signs of the weather turning so windy so suddenly.

Somehow, Yew managed to return back to his cottage, although there were several times on his way, when the wind knocked him down to the ground, and he had to get up, if he didn’t want to end up buried under the leaves.

Yew was glad that Linden, being his usual self, wasn't home. It wasn't even past the noontime yet, but Yew began feeling sleepy. He understood the reason. He woke up too early to be refreshed after the nightsleep.

He took a shower to warm up his body, which still remembered the sensation of assault by the icy cold daggers of gusty air. Then he took off his clothes, and without wearing his pajamas, he hid under the comforter, where he closed his eyes and slowly he began to drift away into sleep.

Cypress wanted them to meet in the afternoon, yet it was still early in the morning. Ergo Yew had plenty of time to catch a nice long nap until then, and even if he overslept, it would be natural, considering how long he stayed awake the night prior.

He was almost asleep, when he heard Cypress's voice. "Today's meeting is canceled," the guy mindteamed.

Yew smiled upon the news.

"Let's meet next Sunday," Cypress added.

Yew murmured «yes» in response and the older student disconnected.

Yew was glad that he didn't have to go anywhere, when such a cold wind was raging outside. He wondered whether it was due to his morning prayers. Because if that was the case, then maybe he should visit the temple more often.

Right before falling asleep, Yew agreed with Linden’s opinion, that people should go to sleep whenever they felt sleepy regardless whether it was daytime or nighttime.

Before the week came to its end, the school of Hecate got over the heist done by the student from Hades. It was the news of the year, but even so, after just one week of non-stop talking about the subject almost everyone got bored and focused back on their own studies.

The Sweet Dream Strawberry, was officially documented as a stolen item, in order to discourage any transaction in case the magical item ever happened to make its way to a merchant.Of course, there was also an award to anyone, who found it, but looking back into the history, no one hoped to ever see it in their lifetime. Items stolen by students of Hades rarely resurfaced in less than two hundred years after they were stolen.

Classes also returned back to their normal schedule on Monday, just two days after the heist. The tests from Saturday were canceled at the last minute, but the teachers still counted the scores of those, who turned in their tests before the alarm started. Those students who didn't finish, received an alternative option to do another test on Monday, with slightly different questions.

Spruce opted out of the alternative option of taking another test. By the time the alarm went off, he had already completed all the answers, so he preferred that the teacher counted it, instead of him taking another test.

With one day of delay, Cacao Bark announced the results on Tuesday. For the first time since the beginning of the school year, Spruce received more than fifty points, or to be more precise, he received fifty one points.

It didn't attract much attention, because he still scored the lowest in the class, but to Spruce, who wanted to raise his grades, this was already an outstanding achievement. Furthermore, he began to believe that Beech was in fact, a good tutor, even though his tutoring style was so odd.

Spruce quietly celebrated his first victory, with a content smile on his face.

Meanwhile, Yew had his head filled with different thoughts. He couldn’t stop thinking about that day, when he helped Liquorice. He replayed the events of that day over and over again, and the more he thought about it the more he regretted his actions.

In just three days, he came up with hundreds of alternative scenarios of how he could have acted that day to avoid getting himself involved. And yet no matter how many solutions he came up with, none of them could change the past and fix the present.

That Tuesday night, he ended up dreaming about stealing strawberries from a patient in a clinic. He was stealing together with Liquorice, but then the patient got up from the bed and looked at them. Yew looked at the patient, who turned out to be Cypress, and that’s when he woke up. Afterward, he decided to forget all about the event, because he didn’t want to have any more weird dreams.

Somehow, he managed to keep himself busy with other things until Sunday morning of the thirty fifth day of Veuf. Although Cypress canceled the meeting last week, he didn’t do it this week. The older student had already contacted Yew the day before to tell him the meeting location, and the time.

Yew looked at the bed next to him, where Linden was sleeping like a log. Last night, his roommate went out somewhere in the evening, and said that he wouldn't be back until morning. It was already past the morning, so Yew wondered when did Linden return and for how long he had been asleep.

Yew didn't want to get out of bed, so he turned around, and remained in bed. He tried to go back to sleep, but he couldn’t. The meeting with Cypress was in the afternoon, so there was no reason to hurry, but the more he tried to tell himself to calm down and go back to sleep, the more restless he felt.

While trying to fall asleep, he began remembering the conversation he had with Cypress after the heist. He furrowed his eyebrows, when he recalled how the older student called him "my friend". Up to this day, he couldn't tell whether Cypress was serious about that or was he mocking Yew. However, today was the day when the two of them got to make things clear, or at least that's what Yew hoped for. He sincerely hoped that Cypress would finally believe that he has no connections with the school of Hades.

In the afternoon, Yew reached his destination earlier than the appointed time. He arrived at the front entrance of the Northern Park, and looked around. He didn't see Cypress anywhere, so he decided to wait, but just as he began to look for a place to sit, the older student talked to him via mindteaming.

“Are you on your way?” Cypress asked.

“Already here,” Yew responded.

"Then go right up to the bench," Cypress said.

Yew knew which bench Cypress meant, because he was looking at one right at that moment. He looked around, but he still didn't see the older student.

“Follow the path to go around the mountain. Don’t take the turn before the mountain, but turn to the path on your right after you pass the mountain. Then go northward until you reach the river.”

He followed the directions, which led him through the Northern Park, then through a hamlet inhabited by older students.

“Is it far?” Yew asked Cypress, who was still connected, even though he wasn’t saying anything.

"Keep going," Cypress said.

Yew ignored the surprised stares of the third year students around him, who wondered what a first year student was doing in their village.

"Keep going until you pass through the village," Cypress continued to give him the directions.

Yew wondered, how far he would have to walk. Besides, if Cypress wanted to meet by the river, he should have just told him to meet over there. Why meet at the Northern Park and walk for so long?

“Because I often pass the Northern Park to get there,” Cypress responded. “That’s the same route I take, so it’s easy for me to explain it to you.”

Yew stopped walking, “you heard my thoughts?”

“Yeah, coz we’re still mindteaming.”

“But that was private,” Yew started walking again.

“Then you need to do a better job at separating your own thoughts, when mindteaming.”

“How do I do that?”

“Reverse logic of mindteaming.”

“I don’t understand.”

“In order to mindteam, you need to be emotionally and mentally connected to the person, so if you do the opposite, you don’t get connected.”

Yew furrowed his eyebrows, trying to understand.

“In other words, don’t think of me and don’t feel toward me, while you’re talking in your mind and I won’t hear it,” Cypress rephrased his earlier statement.

“It’s impossible not to think of you, when I’m thinking about you.”

Cypress chuckled. “It is.”

Yew didn’t like the response, so he decided not to talk anymore. He also tried not to think anymore, but that proved more difficult. Moreover, he made a decision, that he had to practice keeping his thoughts secret, when mindteaming. Later he was going to ask Aspen to help him practice that.

He arrived at the wall surrounding all the hamlets. In the wall, there was a heavy old wooden door. He passed through it and stood on the other side of the wall, on the bricked path next to a fence one meter tall, which blocked access to the river cliff.

"Go toward the bridge," Cypress said and cut off the mindteaming.

Yew looked left and right, trying to find a bridge. He spotted one on the left side and began walking in that direction. When he got closer, he saw Cypress standing on the bridge. Yew walked up to the gate, opened it, and walked onto the bridge. There, he stood face to face with Cypress, but not knowing what to say or do, he stayed still without uttering a word.

Cypress didn't seem bothered by a lack of a greeting, and instead of words, he simply nodded his head to acknowledge the younger student. Yew did the same in return, then Cypress led the way, away from the school and toward the forest on the other side of the river.

Yew walked behind Cypress, but the guy didn’t enter the forest like Yew expected. Instead Cypress turned left, and walked alongside the river for another ten meters before the two of them arrived at a pathway, which was almost hidden by the bushes growing around it.

Yew followed Cypress up that pathway. After ten minutes of walking, they encountered a fork on the road. The path split up into two.

They went left. Twenty minutes later there was another fork, where the path split into three. This time, Cypress went onto the rightmost pathway. Yew was careful to remember which path they took. He expected more forks, but from then on the pathway led them straight up the hill.

When they were almost at the top, from afar Yew could see a grand villa hidden among the trees, but he didn't ask about it. Instead he looked at the sky. The evening was slowly approaching, as the sun got nearer and nearer the horizon. If the conversation with Cypress were to take too long, he might be returning back at night, which worried him.

"I don't want to go back late," Yew said to Cypress walking in front of him.

"You can spend the night here," the guy responded, and pointed at the villa, which could be clearly seen at the end of the pathway.

"I didn't tell anyone that I'll be gone for the night," Yew took a look back at the pathway.

"Nobody cares," Cypress approached the staircase in front of the building, climbed it and turned around to face Yew. "You don't live with your parents anymore," he said while standing with his back to the front door on top of the staircase, looking at the boy standing still on the pathway uncertain whether he should proceed or not.

Yew looked at the pathway leading downhill. Slowly he turned around and walked up the stairs. From atop them, he could see the scenery above the trees growing in front of the villa. In the distance, he could see the Hecate schoolground, and all of the city of Sheepcrown. He could also see the sun, announcing through its position above the horizon, that the evening was there, and that anyone who wanted to return home before sunset should set out already and be on their way back.

Yew turned his head around and looked at Cypress, who was standing by the front doors, waiting for him. When Yew took a step closer, Cypress put both of his hands on the front doors that had no knobs. He pushed on the heavy doors, which slowly opened inward with several creaks from old hinges. After Cypress opened them a bit, the doors began to move on their own, and spread out in front of them.

"Come inside," Cypress said and walked in.

Yew walked in, and passed Cypress, who pushed one of the doors toward closing. The other door also began closing. Cypress took his hand away, and Yew watched the doors close on their own, as if they were automatically designed to do so.

"This villa belongs to the chairman of Hecate," Cypress explained. "It has a magical spell on the doors, so only students, who possess strong magical talent can open the doors," Cypress looked at Yew, "Later I want to see whether you can open them."

Yew realized that Cypress had no idea that he had registered as a magicless student. Cypress, who had been mindteaming with him all this time, was already certain that Yew was a magic-talented student like him.

This discrepancy between Cypress’s knowledge and Yew’s secrets made Yew worry. He didn't want people to know about his magical talent, and yet the knowledge about it was spreading like news about a bargain sale.

Cypress went straight into the living room. There, he lit the fire in the fireplace by snapping his fingers. While Cypress was standing, watching the fire swallow the wood, Yew sat down in an armchair located about two meters away from the fireplace. After a while, Cypress added a big log into the fireplace, then he turned around, and sat in the other armchair across from Yew.

They sat in silence.

The fire in the fireplace slowly warmed up the room, which wasn’t even that cold to begin with. It was also the only source of light that Cypress turned on. There was a chandelier on the ceiling and lamps on the counters around the living room, but Cypress left them turned off, and Yew didn't want them on either. He liked the atmosphere of semi-darkness created by the departing daytime.

Yew was looking around at the furnitures, which were faintly illuminated in red from the colors of the sunset entering through the tall windows. He was observing and admiring the beautiful designs, the decorated walls, the carved ceiling and the wooden floor. Also the doors and the windows were finely crafted out of the best quality materials.

The villa of the Hecate chairman was truly a unique and majestic piece of architecture, hidden in the deep wilderness of Mother Nature.

Yew wondered, when Cypress was going to begin talking, but Cypress was simply staring at Yew with a smile. And this interaction between them continued for quite a long time.

Yew speculated whether the chairman of Hecate ever came to this villa, or was it standing alone without anyone ever visiting. It looked too clean to be abandoned, but it had quite a bit of dust gathering around, so it surely wasn’t used often. Yew glanced at Cypress Sea, who looked as if he was feeling at home.

Yew wanted to walk around and take a better look at some of the furnitures, but he wasn't sure how Cypress would react, if he just got up and walked away.

The older student was certainly sitting quietly across from Yew, and he patiently observed Yew with a light smile on his own face. For Yew, it was hard to read what Cypress was thinking right now, but the guy certainly had a lot of free time.

Unlike Yew, Cypress appeared relaxed and serene, like a lion observing a pack of zebras knowing that he didn't need to hurry, because whenever he wanted to, he could always catch one of them.

When Yew turned his face toward the fireplace, Cypress did the same, but with the corner of his eye the guy was still watching the boy. As the sun outside got lower and lower, the living room got darker and darker, and even though it wasn't nighttime yet, the last sunrays had all but disappeared. The fireplace remained the only active source of light, but it was too weak to illuminate all of the room. So only the area around the fireplace was dimly bright, while everything else was shrouded in the darkness of the approaching night.

No words were spoken for a long time. Eventually Yew concluded that Cypress wasn't going to say anything until Yew started the conversation. It meant that Cypress was giving Yew the freedom to choose the topic.

Yew glanced at Cypress, and realized that the older student was really cunning. He didn't give Yew the freedom to choose the topic without a reason. He knew that, if Yew wasn't careful with what he said, he could spill an important info between the lines, and Cypress would deduct the rest.

When talking freely, it was much more challenging to keep the secrets safe. Yew would have preferred, if Cypress just asked him some yes-no questions.

Cypress already proved to Yew that he was good at reading hints and seeing through the lies. Thus Yew was certain that, if he included anything indirectly related to Hypnos in his speech, the older student would quickly guess the implication, and from there he could predict the connection between Yew and the school of Hypnos. Yew knew that he couldn’t explain how he met with Liquorice. He also couldn’t explain how he got that textbook from the fifth year. He couldn’t talk about anything related to Hypnos, so he decided to talk about something else.

"I want to know my biological parents," Yew said looking straight into Cypress’s eyes. He knew that Cypress had access to all the books in the library of Hecate, and he wasn't going to let such a chance pass.

"Your parents?" Cypress repeated. "Are you living in an orphanage?"

Yew shook his head, "no, I'm living with my adopted parents."

"Then why not ask them?" He put his right elbow on the armchair and leaned his face on his right hand curled up into a fist.

Normally when people had questions regarding their biological parents, they would go directly to their adopted parents to hear the answers.

"Because I don’t think they’ll tell me," Yew was frank with his feelings, but that didn't explain his family situation at all.

"Mind to explain?" Cypress asked cautiously, expecting Yew to refuse.

Yew brought up his right leg and put his chin on the knee. "I grew up in the Sky household for as long as I remember. There are documents in the house that prove that I was living with them, when I was two months old, but there are no documents to prove that my mom gave birth to me."

"Then maybe your dad remarried?" Cypress immediately came up with the most likely explanation. After all, it wasn't unusual for a single parent, who lost his or her partner in an accident or due to an illness to seek the company of another single parent.

Yew shook his head, and looked away. "If it was something minor like that, there would be no reason to change the official records. My official records have been altered to the point, where there is no reason for me to doubt them as my parents."

"Then how did you find out that you were adopted?" Cypress was more and more interested in Yew's story.

Yew looked at the flames in the fireplace, "it was an accident." In his mind he recalled the day from his past, "I really wanted a magic book and I had my mom buy me one. My parents have no magical talents, so naturally they told me that I won't be able to use that book."

"Hmmm, but you're in Hecate, so you already told your parents…"

"I didn't," Yew interrupted him. "I signed up as a magicless student."

Cypress was left speechless.

Yew didn't think that it was such a shocking thing that he was hiding his magical talent, but Cypress was already thinking way beyond that statement.

"Magicless?" the guy repeated the term, "you mean you learn magic on your own? Without a teacher’s supervision?"

"Um, yeah," Yew began to realize the reason why he made Cypress speechless.

Cypress looked back at Yew with an enormous amount of curiosity in his eyes, and something more, something that reminded of parents' eyes gleaming with high expectations for their offspring. "You're more awesome than I originally thought," he said calmly, but Yew could hear a note of astonishment in his voice.

"Ugh, thank you?" Yew took Cypress’s statement as a compliment.

Yew didn't realize the impact of his own words, but Cypress had indeed realized the vast talent that Yew was hiding behind his humble responses and meek appearance. At that time, more than before, Cypress began to think of many different ways he could benefit from his acquaintance with Yew, who was inevitably destined for greatness. Or at least, that’s what Cypress believed based on the boy’s amount of talent.

Yew, on the other hand, felt a shiver run down his spine. He looked at Cypress, whose eyes felt like two arrows pointing right at Yew. The boy didn't understand why, but he felt like a fly caught in a spider's net.

"So your adopted parents never told you about your biological parents?" Cypress returned back to the main topic of their conversation.

Yew nodded.

Cypress knew that keeping the info about biological parents a secret was something done to protect the children. Typically info about biological parents was kept away from children, if their biological parents have done something very evil. In which case, Yew would have to wait until the age of twenty to research his biological parents, but depending on the severity of his parents’ crimes, the info may be difficult to obtain.

"So you came to Hecate to search for clues about your biological parents, and while doing so, you made connections with some interesting people," the cheerful way Cypress described Yew's relationship with Liquorice made it clear to Yew that the guy had nothing against associating with the school of Hades.

Yew digested Cypresses’s last sentence in his mind. In fact, that connection had nothing to do with his search, because it was caused by him being a student of Hypnos, which wouldn’t have ever happened if not for Aspen’s slip of a tongue. So Yew wasn't sure whether he should confirm Cypress's last statement or not.

However, just then, Yew changed his mind and concluded that his connection to Liquorice may as well be related to his search. He wouldn't have met Liquorice, if he never joined Hypnos, and he wouldn't have joined Hypnos, if he never met Aspen, and he wouldn't have met Aspen, if he didn't go to Hecate, and he wouldn't have gone to Hecate, if it wasn't for the purpose of finding out his biological parents, so in the end, Yew concluded that there was a connection between Liquorice and the search for his parents, a very distant connection, but nonetheless it existed.

Yew nodded in confirmation, and Cypress looked satisfied with the response.

"How much did you find out?" the guy asked.

"Nothing," Yew responded. "I was hoping to look through the records in the Hecate library, but I don't have access."

"If you mean the records of all the Hecate students, then that's restricted only for ninth year students and the teachers," Cypress quickly realized what Yew was after.

"Yeah," Yew sighed and then looked at Cypress with hope.

"So you want me to help you," Cypress smiled in a sly way.

"If possible," Yew said carefully.

"That's a lot of records, and there's no definite proof that your parents attended Hecate," Cypress stated as he stretched out. "That gal from Hades was a magus, and a very skilled one."

"That could have been magical tools," Yew offered another alternative, but Cypress shook his head in denial.

"Magic created with magical tools is different. There are a lot of differences.”

“Like?”

“Too many to list. You will learn about them in the next nine years of attending Hecate."

Up until this point, Yew was sure that Liquorice was using some magical tools, but after Cypress declared that it was magic from a magus, he realized a possibility, which he hadn't thought of before. If his parents were criminals, as he had been assuming all this time, then it made more sense that they went to the school of Hades. If that was true, then his parents' names wouldn't be listed in Hecate's records of its students.

"You just realized that your search in Hecate may be futile," Cypress expressed Yew's thoughts.

"Yeah, I did," Yew acknowledged and lowered his head.

Cypress waited a long moment, before he spoke again, "I have a sure way to find out the identity of your biological parents."

At first, it was as if Yew didn't hear him, but a moment later the boy quickly raised up his head and looked at Cypress with eyes wide open, "how?"

"Trade secrets," Cypress answered with a smile, "but it's not for free," he added before Yew could say anything.

"I don't have a lot of money. I'm still a kid," Yew pointed out the most obvious fact.

"That's fine. I don't need any money. Besides, it’s fine if you take your time to pay me back," Cypress said and locked his eyes on Yew. "My price is simple. I'm looking for someone, so if you ever happen to meet him, let me know about it. If you promise me this much, I'll give you all the info I can collect about your biological parents."

Yew was relieved that the price for the info wasn't anything hard, and it did make sense to trade info for info, "so what's his name? I won't know whether I met him or not, if I don't know his name."

"Sure, I'll give you his name, but before that," Cypress’s face took on a serious countenance as he gazed deep into Yew's eyes, "do you know anyone from Hypnos?"

Upon hearing the question, Yew's face paled immediately. Right from the beginning of the conversation, he decided to keep Hypnos a total secret. He never mentioned it, afraid that anything he would say could reveal too much. However, now that Cypress asked him about it, he feared that the older student already knew everything about his affiliation with the school of Hypnos, and Yew began to wonder where and when he made the mistake.

"Maybe," Yew knew that denying wouldn't do him any good. It was too late for that, but he didn't want to spill his secrets so easily.

Cypress smiled, "so you know someone." Then he added, "that's good. It'll make things easier."

Yew gulped, afraid of what Cypress meant by that statement.

"The person I'm looking for is a graduate of Hypnos," Cypress explained.

Upon hearing that, Yew calmed down. He took a deep breath, and reviewed all, what was said up to this point. He realized that his suspicions were wrong. Because of his fear, he assumed the worst case scenario, and unwillingly revealed something that he wanted to keep a secret. However, what was done was done, and before he spoke again, Yew took a long moment to think.

"I know someone from Hypnos," he admitted but in order to control the flow of info, Yew chose to be as ambiguous as possible.

"Oh?" Cypress looked like he knew what Yew was planning.

Yew, on the other hand, couldn’t tell Cypress’s intent at all. "Why would you look for a graduate from Hypnos?" Yew realized that the easiest way to keep secrets is to avoid answering questions, so instead of waiting for Cypress to ask him, he asked instead.

"I'm looking for my older brother," Cypress’s honest response surprised Yew, who didn’t expect to hear the answer to his question, and while Yew was still taken aback by Cypress’s truthfulness, the guy asked another question, "how did you meet someone from Hypnos?"

The question that Cypress asked immediately put Yew in high alert. The boy couldn't talk about Hypnos anymore than what he had already said, so there was no way he could give an answer, unless he lied, which involved too much risk.

"What happened to your older brother?" Yew responded to Cypress's question with his own question.

Cypress slowly smiled wider and wider, until he was grinning like a Cheshire cat.

It was the first time, when Yew saw such a countenance on the older student's face, and it confused him. The wide grin didn't fit Cypress Sea at all. He was the heir of the most powerful magical household of nobles, and not a joker performing for a circus. And yet Yew couldn't associate that smile with anything else. Just like a joker's grin, it was playful and full of some mysterious joy.

"My older brother was a second year student of Hecate, when he got the invitation from Hypnos. My father told him that if he doesn't graduate from Hecate, he'll be disowned. Yet secretly he still accepted the invitation from Hypnos. Years later, when my father found out, he immediately disowned my older brother, who disappeared altogether and nowadays, nobody knows where he is."

Cypress described the story in the most natural way, and Yew suddenly lost any feelings of strangeness between them. Instead, he felt like he just heard a story told him by a good friend. "I see," he summed up and lowered his head. He felt kind of bad from hiding so many infos away from Cypress, while the older student was so open about his sensitive family matters.

"You're thinking that he's dead?" Cypress asked.

"Eh? No!" Yew answered right away and then regretted saying anything.

"He's not. My mom planted a lifetime tree for each of us. His tree is still doing perfectly fine," Cypress explained and looked at the fire, "We just don't know, where he is."

"Aren't lifetime trees reserved for royalty only?"

"Not really. The seeds are otherworldly expensive. Most people cannot afford them, so typically only members of royal households have the trees in their gardens," he looked at Yew, "Do you want one for yourself? I could get you a seed."

"No, thanks. I don't need it."

Cypress laughed. "Anyway, I explained my connection to Hypnos. So what about that friend of yours from Hypnos?"

"Ah…" Yew didn't even think about telling any more about Hypnos, but it was already too late. He realized that Cypress just now shared with him a private secret and it wasn't fair unless Yew responded with at least one of his secrets. However, talking anymore about Hypnos could lead to troubles, so he decided to be truthful about it. "Sorry, but I promised that I won't say anything."

"Hypnos is indeed a mysterious school," Cypress didn’t look surprised. "Well, that’s fine," he could certainly push Yew for some info, but instead he stroked the hair on his head. His voice sounded agreeable. "I don't need to know that anyway. What matters is that you know someone from Hypnos. Since you know him, you can go and ask him about my older brother."

Yew could already see where this was going, "so you want me to get info about your older brother, who went to Hypnos?"

Cypress nodded. "It doesn't have to be a lot. Just bring me back anything you can find, and in exchange I'll tell you who your biological parents are."

"How long will it take you to find out about my parents?" Yew wanted to know how much time he could spend searching for Cypress's older brother.

"I can have the documents relating to your parents as soon as tomorrow, but I won’t show them to you until you get me info about my older brother. Once you find out something, mindteam me and then we'll meet here again to exchange what we know."

Yew didn't know whether he should feel amazed or terrified at how quickly Cypress could get the info about his parents. On the other hand, he realized from Cypress's definite tone that there was no room for bargaining and, if he wanted the info on his parents, he had to get at least some info about Cypress's missing brother. "By the way, what is your brother's name?"

"Ginkgo. Full name is Ginkgo Khangdaeng Matapal Sea," Cypress snapped his fingers and his older brother's name handwrote itself in red ink in the air between them. "He looks a lot like me, except he’s older. This year he's twenty five yrold."

"I cannot promise you anything," Yew said to make sure that Cypress knows about his limits. He was still a kid and he didn't know all of Hypnos students or graduates.

However, Cypress responded as if he didn't understand. "You don't have to promise anything. I know what to expect from you."

"You're expecting too much," Yew snapped back immediately, realizing that Cypress’s expectations were too high. He could end up disappointing the older student, which could get in the way of him getting any info about his biological parents.

"It seems like you still haven't realized your own potential," Cypress said playfully, and Yew stood up.

The boy was getting angry, because he knew himself well and he was sure that Cypress was over-expecting. How could he, a mere kid, accomplish something that even the best detectives in the world would struggle with? Finding a missing person was a task of highest difficulty, and Yew knew that.

After standing near the armchair for a while, Yew looked into the hallway, whence they entered. Cypress knew that the boy was thinking about leaving.

"I truly want to see, whether you can open the front door, but going back right now is not a good idea," he said to the younger student.

"Why?" Yew turned around looking questioningly.

"We're in quite a remote place here. You saw the path that got us here. Maybe you didn't realize it because of the bushes, but there was a steep ravine on one side. If you accidentally stray away from the path, at best you'll break some bones, at worst… you guess."

Yew hadn't realized that the path was that dangerous until Cypress explained it. There were indeed a lot of bushes around them, and it was difficult to see beyond the bushes growing on each side of the path. Thus the possibility that Cypress wasn't lying was quite high. Besides that, it was always dangerous to walk around the forest at night.

The boy looked at the sky on the other side of the windowglass. It was certainly too late to walk around in a wild terrain, regardless of whether he knew the path or not.

"So where do I sleep?" Yew adapted to the situation.

"In a bed, of course," Cypress pointed toward the staircase. "There's plenty of bedrooms upstairs and all of them are ready to use. Just pick whichever one you like, but the one with a crimson baldaquin and a green rug is my favorite, so unless you want to challenge me to a magic duel, don't pick that one."

Without saying anything else to the older student, Yew walked toward the staircase. As he began climbing up, he heard Cypress wish him a "good night", but he ignored the utterance and didn't respond. There was something about the older student that he just disliked, and he couldn't tell exactly what it was.

Upstairs, he picked the bedroom in navy blue colors and rugs whiter than snow with blue mini stars randomly scattered on the fabric. He took off his shoes, and went to sleep in his daytime clothes. He didn’t have pajamas, and he didn’t want to take off clothes in order to be ready-dressed in the morning.

The bed was much more comfortable than he thought, and its fragrance of fresh linen soon put him to sleep.

Downstairs, still sitting in an armchair, Cypress was deep in thoughts. Getting the info about Yew's parents wasn't difficult. His aunt worked in the World Records, so she could access any info about anyone. However, he wouldn’t just request info about a nobody for no reason, so he didn’t plan to do anything, until Yew brought him news about Ginkgo.

The World Records, where Cypress’s aunt worked, was a name for a huge library owned by the Imperial Family, which stored infos about all the people, who have ever existed. It was a trustworthy source of data, and one that included many secrets, unknown to the public.

For average people, just requesting a simple look into their own parents' records would require a good reason, valid documents, many applications, loads of signatures, crazy fees, and months or years of waiting for the permission to access, which could still be denied in the end due to a minor error in the submitted papers. In which case, the whole process would have to be started all over again with the same uncertainty of its success.

However, for Cypress, whose family have worked for the Emperor in many departments, accessing the World Records was as easy as mindteaming with his aunt, giving her a quick explanation, specifying the name, and voila. He had access to all the info about any individual on the planet.

And it was precisely because he knew how fast he could get info about Yew Sky and his parents, that he didn't do it right away. The boy was still too young. Even if he knew someone from Hypnos, it would still take time for him to investigate.

Cypress presumed that Yew would ask his friend from Hypnos, who would in turn ask other graduates from Hypnos. The question would travel from mouth to mouth until eventually it would reach the person, who would have a vague idea about Ginkgo. Afterward that basic info would travel back to Yew, who’d contact Cypress. This course of action was simple, but it could still take months, if not years.

Cypress understood the power of connections, and he wasn't stingy about knowing as many people from as many environments and backgrounds as realistically possible. And yet he had to be honest with himself, that for all those years, he wasn't able to meet anyone from Hypnos.

He hoped that Yew would tell him how he met someone from Hypnos, and based on that knowledge, Cypress could come up with a method for finding Hypnos graduates, but the boy kept his encounter a secret. Furthermore, he firmly stated, that he had promised someone to never talk about it. Therefore, Cypress had no intention to pry any deeper into the topic.

He knew that a forced attempt to hear a secret is more likely to create distrust and wariness in Yew, and less likely to help in the long term. Thus Cypress let Yew keep his secret for now, knowing that all secrets naturally sooner or later reveal themselves.

He recalled Ginkgo from his memories, and he wondered what Ginkgo was like now. The last time he saw his older brother, was just before he started the school of Hecate. Ginkgo could have changed a lot in the last nine years.

While thinking about his older brother, Cypress felt his eyelids get heavier and heavier. Understanding that it was time to sleep, he went to his favorite bedroom. Right before he lay down to sleep, he set up a charm on the pillow to wake him up at the time of sunrise.

Exactly as he wanted, his own charm shook the pillow under his head when the first rays of sun appeared on the distant horizon. He sat on the bed, looked at the window with a grimace on his face, and yawned. It felt as if he had just fallen asleep a moment ago, and yet it was already the time to wake up.

After getting dressed, he went to the other bedroom, where Yew slept. He had the intention to tell the boy that it was time to wake up, if he didn’t want to be late for school. However, after seeing Yew happily dreaming about something, he decided to let him be. He was only a first year student, so he wouldn't get scolded too harshly for being late to class.

Cypress left. Time passed, and Yew woke up.

The boy didn’t wake up right away. He stayed in the comfy bed with his eyelids closed, lost in the pleasurable touch of the soft comforter, until he heard someone calling his name.

"Yew! Yew! Yew Sky!"

"Yeah?" he spoke out his response in a sleepy voice.

A voice in his head shouted again.

"Yew! Where are you?!"

Yew immediately recognized the voice that was mindteaming with him. "Aspen?" he responded as he sat up on the bed. He got a quick look around the room.

It was no longer morning. It was already daytime.

"You're late for class!" Aspen yelled.

"Uwah, sorry!" Yew jumped off the bed, and began putting on shoes. "What time is it?"

"The time for History class. We're already near the classroom!"

"What?! Oh crap," Yew didn't know how he could have overslept so much, so he decided to blame the overly comfortable bed for this predicament.

"At least, you're alive," Aspen said and Yew could feel a sound of relief from the tone in his voice, "I've been trying to contact you since the moment Linden told me that you didn't return last night. Will you make it to class?"

"Not possible," Yew said after he put on his shoes, and went toward the staircase. "But I can make it to Process."

"Don't bother then," Aspen responded. "Linden just now told the teacher that you're feeling sick, so you're good for the day."

"Really?" Yew felt relieved that his problem had been fixed before it even started. He began walking down the staircase.

"Yeah, so take a day off, but you better come back tonight. I'm curious what you've been doing," Aspen's voice sounded more worried than curious.

"I'll explain it later," Yew stepped off the last bottommost step of the staircase, and recalled all that Cypress talked about the previous day. "I also have something I will need your help with," he added.

“The class is starting, so meet you later,” Aspen disconnected right after his final word.

Standing in front of the staircase, Yew looked around the living room. He didn’t have to go back right away, so he walked around the villa. He checked out different rooms, visually scanned the contents of different shelves, and looked inside many cabinets and drawers. None of which had anything, which would incite his interest.

Obviously Cypress’s presence was gone altogether. There was no trace of the older student anywhere in the villa. Yew was all alone, but that was a good chance for him to get a thorough look at the chairman's villa.

However, almost all the drawers in the villa were empty, except for several ones, which contained old fabrics and clothes. Most cabinets had nothing but china, and most shelves had nothing but old sets of multivolume dictionaries and encyclopedias. Other than that, Yew found figurines and porcelain dolls on the shelves, while the remaining cabinets contained candles, wine glasses, and flower vases.

After checking out every corner of the chairman’s villa, Yew decided to go back home. He headed for the front doors, recalling what Cypress said last night. He slowly approached the doors, and set both of his hands in front of him with the intention to push the door. He wondered how much he would have to struggle before the door would open for him. However, exactly at the moment when the tip of his finger touched one of the doors, both sides swiftly flung wide open outward.

Upon seeing the doors spread themselves apart, Yew wondered whether he should tell Cypress about it or not. Last night, it looked like Cypress had to actually exert himself in order to open the doors, so Yew wondered why it was different for him.

After thinking for a while, he concluded that it happened this way, because he was exiting instead of entering. He assumed that while one needed magical talent to enter, there was no such prerequisite for exiting. Surely Cypress must have known this. After all, he left Yew all alone inside the villa, so the older student must have known that Yew would be able to open the doors on his own.

When the Process class ended, Spruce and Aspen bought their take-out lunches in the cafeteria, and carried them to the cottage forty four hundred thirty six.

Linden, on the other hand, headed directly home without buying any food. He arrived at the cottage long before his classmates, and greeted Yew right after returning with a question, "so how was it?"

Yew, who didn’t go to classes, because he overslept in the chairman’s villa, was sitting on a sofa. He was looking through the textbooks to check what he missed from today's classes. He looked at Linden uncertain of what his roommate meant. "How was what?"

Linden sat in the armchair. "That's what you should know. Where did you stay overnight?"

Yew didn't know how much he could tell others, because he never asked Cypress about this topic. He never thought that he’d ever have to talk about his meeting with the guy to anyone. Was it even okay for them to meet each other? Was it allowed by the school? What would anyone think if they heard that a first year student and a ninth year student had a secret meeting overnight in the chairman’s villa?

Yew spent a very long moment thinking what to tell his roommate, but in the end, he couldn't come up with any plausible excuse, so…

"That's private," he said and Linden laughed right after he heard that.

"Nothing's private in this world," Linden pointed out. "There's always someone or something watching, whether you realize it or not," he pointed a finger up, implying all the divine and spiritual beings that the world was always full of.

Even if people didn’t see spirits, the spirits always saw the people. Yew knew that, but he also knew that spirits rarely if ever revealed their knowledge to the living.

Linden kept on pushing Yew to tell him what he did overnight, but the more Linden tried to make Yew talk, the less Yew spoke. However, Yew knew that he had to explain himself one way or another, so while he didn’t say anything out loud, he was thinking hard.

Some time later, they heard the front door of the cottage opening, and Spruce walked into the living room without stopping at the entry room. "Linden, you should have at least waited for us," he complained.

"Change your shoes," Linden looked down at Spruce's feet, "or I'll make you wash all the floors."

Spruce went back into the entry room. Meanwhile, Aspen, who had already changed his shoes, walked in, carrying his lunch in a bag.

"I'm glad you're fine," the fellow student of Hypnos mindteamed Yew, but aloud he said, "why did you skip the classes?"

"Exactly!" Spruce returned back from the entry room, and raised his voice at Yew. "What happened to you? We came this morning, and Linden said that you didn't return last night, and you didn't come to class. You just disappeared without a word!"

Aspen sat down on the sofa next to Yew, but Spruce remained standing.

"Sorry," Yew apologized.

"I was going to report it to the teachers, but he… Can you believe it?” Spruce pointed at Linden. “He said that we shouldn't worry about you, because it's not our business.”

Linden rolled his eyes and smirked.

“And he lied to the teachers that you're sick!" Spruce went on explaining what happened, while Yew was in the chairman's villa.

Yew looked at Linden, and felt an enormous amount of gratitude toward his roommate. If Linden hadn’t done that, then who knows what other problems would befall Yew as he tried to explain to the teachers his absence.

"Thanks for that," Yew said toward Linden, who smirked even more.

"You're thanking him?!" Spruce was shocked. "What if something happened to you? What if you needed help?!"

"But that wasn’t the case," Yew pointed out right away.

"Fine then, I was worried for nothing," Spruce was mad. "Next time, you go missing, I won't ever bother looking for you, even if you get kidnapped by monsters." He grabbed a chair next to Yew’s desk, turned it around and sat on it with his hands crossed on his chest.

"Sorry, Spruce," Yew didn't like to see his friend angry, but he didn’t know how to alleviate the situation while still keeping his secrets. "I didn't plan to stay overnight. It just got late, and it was safer for me to stay there."

"So where were you?" Spruce asked.

Yew couldn't find the right words to answer that question. He still didn’t finish thinking what he should say and what he shouldn’t say.

"He went to a pub to drink some vodka," Linden answered for Yew.

Everyone knew that wasn't the truth. All the boys also knew, that it was the same absurd excuse, which Linden used every time he went out somewhere late at night.

"Fine, I get it," Spruce said in defeat. "If you don't want to talk, I won't ask anymore."

"Thanks," Yew sounded as if he was apologizing.

Spruce turned around and headed into the entry room.

"Hey, Spruce. I'm really sorry," Yew got off and walked after him, "you don't have to leave."

"That's not it," Spruce said as he took his outdoor shoes. "I have classes," he said, changed into the outdoor shoes, and looked at Yew, "see you later."

"See you," Yew responded and watched his friend leave through the front door.

All of them assumed that Spruce was heading to the Exercise class. Spruce was the only one, who knew that his class was a private tutoring with Beech Meadow. It was his own secret, which he hid from his classmates. It was also a reason why in the end, he decided to accept Yew’s secret.

Yew went back into the living room, and looked at Linden, "how did you know that it wasn't anything serious?"

Linden shrugged his shoulders, "I didn't."

"Then why did you lie to the teachers?" Yew was surprised.

"Because there was no reason to raise a fire alarm, if there's no fire," he responded, putting his hands behind his head and locking his fingers.

Aspen looked at Linden with a bit of disbelief in his eyes, but he didn’t say anything.

Yew sat down onto the sofa and looked at Linden, "so you would lie to the teachers, even if I went missing?"

Linden closed his eyes, "if it was obvious that something happened to you, then no, I would report that to the teachers, but if there was nothing to suspect anything suspicious, then why should I shout 'fire, fire' over a bit of smoke?"

"Going missing for a whole night, and not showing up in the classes the next day, is not a bit of smoke," Aspen pointed out.

Linden opened his eyes and looked right at Aspen.

"Spending more than half a day dilly-dallying around the cottage, like a kid waiting for grandma's arrival made me certain, that he had some appointment or something else coming up in the afternoon," Linden pointed at Yew as he described the events from the previous day.

Yew did recall that yesterday, throughout the day, he wasn't able to concentrate on anything. He kept thinking about his meeting with Cypress, and even though he never said anything about it, Linden must have realized from his behavior.

"A-ny-way," Linden said, taking a break between every syllable. "I got back to my cottage, and found my roommate safe and sound, so I'll be off," he got up from the armchair and headed into the entry room.

"Where are you going?" Aspen asked.

"To drink vodka in a pub," Linden answered as he put on outdoor shoes, and threw a jacket over his shoulder.

The situation couldn't be more convenient for the two students of Hypnos, who shared secrets that they needed to talk about now.

“He actually cares about you,” Aspen said right after Linden closed the exterior door. “He left the classroom almost running, and headed straight back to the cottage. I bet he was worried.”

Yew looked at Aspen, not sure how to react to this news.

Both of them waited in silence, to make sure that Linden wouldn't come back to get something, which he might have forgotten. They didn’t want to be found out, while talking about their secrets. However, after many long minutes, neither Linden nor Spruce returned.

Yew got off the sofa, and looked out through the window behind the sofa. Outside, there was nobody except for the old thick bushes growing side-by-side.

"So what happened last night?" Aspen began their conversation. His countenance was more serious than usual.

Yew returned back to sit on the sofa. "How much do you know about Cypress Sea?" he went straight to the most difficult topic.

"The heir of the Sea household," Aspen defined the name, "how is he related to this?"

"It's a long story, but there's something I want to know, and he can get the info for me on one condition: I need to get info about his older brother," Yew explained briefly.

"But it doesn’t involve me?" Aspen sounded hopeful, but it also sounded as if he wanted to clarify that he didn't want to get involved.

"Not directly," Yew denied Aspen’s worries. "But a bit, maybe" he added. "Cypress's older brother is a student of Hypnos. To be precise, he's a graduate of Hypnos. His name is Ginkgo Sea, and he's twenty five yrold. Maybe you know something about him?"

"Everyone in the world knows about him," Aspen stated as a matter of fact, and Yew looked confused. "Ginkgo the Adventurer," he spoke the name together with the title, "everyone knows about him."

Yew looked through his memories. Indeed, the name "Ginkgo the Adventurer" did sound familiar to him, and he certainly heard it before. He thought hard and then he recalled the time, when he visited his maternal grandparents. On every visit, he used to hear about Ginkgo the Adventurer from his grandfather.

Ginkgo was a famous graduate of the school of Nike, and a man with a mysterious background. Nobody knew his family name, and even though many reporters tried to uncover his identity, nobody was able to find anything about his past. However, other than his past, he was among the most famous people in the world.

He was often described as the best adventurer, according to pretty much everyone, who knew anything about him. He freely travelled the world and ventured out to the most dangerous places.

Of course, Ginkgo’s fame wasn’t without a reason. Multiple times, he travelled to places, where nobody had ever returned from. But unlike his predecessors, Ginkgo returned safe and sound. Furthermore, from each adventure he always brought back items impossible to find anywhere else in the world, thus unceasingly proving his ability to overcome death over and over again.

Yew's grandfather was a fan of Ginkgo the Adventurer, and every time Yew visited his grandparents, he would hear about every single one of Ginkgo’s adventures. Yew’s grandfather never met the man in person, but he never missed any reports about Ginkgo from the news, which was where he took his infos from.

In the beginning, Yew found his grandfather’s stories interesting, but after hearing the same story for the nth time, he didn't want to listen anymore. He acted like he was listening, but in his mind he was thinking about something else, and the existence of Ginkgo the Adventurer had slipped out of his mind until he heard Aspen’s words.

"But Cypress is looking for a Ginkgo, who graduated from Hypnos," Yew pointed out the inconsistency between Ginkgo Sea and Ginkgo the Adventurer.

"He's a graduate from Hypnos," Aspen responded.

"How do you know?" Yew wanted to be beyond certain, before he passed this info to Cypress.

"I read about that one situation in a magazine. A man was talking with his friends about how Hypnos doesn't exist, when Ginkgo was passing by them. And he stopped just to tell them that Hypnos is a real school, then went on without getting involved in any conversation. Supposedly it happened more than once with other people, but most of them never reported it as they never considered it anything of importance. But think about it, why else would Ginkgo bother to affirm that the school of Hypnos is real?”

Yew wasn't satisfied, “maybe he’s just searching for it. He’s an adventurer.”

“If he had any interest searching, he’d look into it, but that never happened. When Ginkgo begins looking into something, everyone knows about it. Whatever he’s searching for or researching, immediately turns into a hot topic, because Ginkgo cannot hide with his fame.”

“But maybe…”

"His past is one big mystery,” Aspen interrupted him. “He never talks about himself. He uses unusual skills that no one else knows. There are just too many hints that he's a graduate of Hypnos."

"Yeah, but in the end it's just a possibility," Yew was gloomy.

"Then let's ask Chervil," Aspen came up with a new idea.

"Did she meet Ginkgo before?" Yew didn't think it to be possible, but he needed some definite proof that Ginkgo the Adventurer was Ginkgo Sea, the older brother of Cypress Sea.

"Who knows?" Aspen shrugged his shoulders. "But I can just tell her that you're a big fan of Ginkgo the Adventurer, and you want to meet him. Even if she herself has no contact with him, she may still contact other students of Hypnos, who can contact other students of Hypnos, and so on, until the message gets to someone, who knows Ginkgo personally."

Yew wondered how plausible was Aspen's plan. He didn't know how many students there were in total in the school of Hypnos, but the lower the numbers, the higher the possibility that they knew each other.

"Okay, let's go with this plan for now," he agreed after a thoughtful moment.

"Should I contact Chervil, or do you want to do it on your own?"

"I'll do it," he said and concentrated. Mindteaming was becoming easier and easier for him, but he still needed to concentrate a bit to start. "Chervil?"

"Yuppie-yeah?" the older girl responded via mindteaming.

"I wanted to ask you a question," Yew started and wondered what to say next.

"Sure, awahhhh…" Chervil made a loud yell of being hurt and their mindteaming conversation was forcefully disconnected.

To Yew it felt as if someone used scissors on his thoughts, and he shivered. With a pale face, he looked at Aspen, "she just screamed, and the connection was broken.”

Aspen didn't spend a lot of time thinking, "I think she has a class right now," he said. "If a teacher caught her, that would explain her scream."

"Do teachers hurt students a lot?" Yew asked, even paler.

"Of course no," Aspen responded. "Teachers are like parents. You can get hurt more, if you ride a bicycle,” he stated then added, somewhat curious, “have you never been punished by your parents?"

Yew recalled how his mother would hit him with the towel, when he was causing troubles. It didn't hurt at all. It was only a bit annoying. The towel, which she quickly wrapped into a roll, soon unraveled after several hits, and the beating would have to end. Yew wasn't afraid of that kind of punishment.

His father was a bit more scary. When Nettle's towel beating no longer stopped Yew from misbehaving, she would complain to Kapok. Upon his mother’s complaint, his father would visit him with a big fat leather belt and give him a strong whooping on his buttocks. That certainly did hurt, but it was still nothing in comparison with that one time, when he was riding a bicycle downhill, and fell off of it, scraping the skin of his hands and legs.

This was how he also understood the common proverb that «even though parents' love hurts, falling off a bicycle hurts even more». A discipline was something that existed in every house. Naturally, there would be nothing odd about it, if it also existed in a school.

"But she screamed," Yew pointed out what worried him the most.

"I wouldn't worry," Aspen said, and stood up. "Just contact her again in the evening, and ask her what kind of punishment the teacher did."

Yew gulped at the thought of contacting her again.

"Anyway, I'm off to do my homework," Aspen raised an open palm to gesture goodbye to Yew, who responded in the same way, then he left Yew alone in his cottage.

The boy didn't feel like contacting Chervil later on, but he didn't have to. Not too many minutes after Aspen left, she contacted him from her side. "Yew?"

"Are you fine?" he asked immediately.

"Me? Oh, that?" she laughed. "No worries. A teacher called me to her office for a disciplinary talk, just the usual boring stuff. Earlier she caught me mindteaming in her class, that’s why. And she was actually done, when you contacted me, but got ass-pissed when I started mindteaming with you in her office, so she slapped my hand with a ruler.”

"That sounds brutal," Yew imagined one of the wide flat wooden rulers, that the teachers always had in their classrooms, suddenly landing on his hand.

Chervil laughed even more, "I guess to you kids it must sound like that, but it's not that horrible. By tomorrow, it won't hurt at all, and I also got a free excuse to skip classes. I complained that it hurts so much that I cannot move my hand, and now I'm on my way to infirmary, at least officially."

"You cannot move your hand?"

"No, dummy," Chervil raised her voice, "my hand is perfectly fine. What I mean is that I got to skip my classes today, and this time it won't be marked as skipped, but as an excused absence. Anyway, forget about it. What did you want to ask me?"

"Do you know Ginkgo the Adventurer?" Yew said what he wanted to ask before.

"Everyone knows him."

"No, I mean, have you ever met him?"

"No, why?"

Yew took a deep breath, "I want to meet him." There was no better way to verify whether he was Cypress's older brother other than to ask the man himself. "Aspen thinks that he may be a graduate of Hypnos, so maybe some students of Hypnos know him."

"Hmmm… good question," Chervil agreed with Aspen’s way of thinking. "I'll ask around. Maybe someone does know him."

"Thanks," Yew responded.

“Anything else you want to ask me?”

“No, that’s all. Sorry for bothering you, when you were busy.”

“No biggie, it was only a talk with a teacher,” she said and laughed.

Yew didn’t see Chervil’s countenance, but from the tone of her voice he could tell, that she meant every word she said.

"I'll take the fruit basket," said the beautiful woman and took the basket that was standing on the counter in the kitchen.

Two cooks, who were almost done with the lunch, were too busy to respond, but they clearly heard her.

The woman slowly walked out of the kitchen, carefully carrying the basket with the fruits. She looked down at the four yrold baby boy tightly clutching the bottom of her long dress.

Little Spruce always kept his whole body glued to his mom's dress whenever he didn’t feel safe. When he felt safe, he walked by her side holding only a piece of her dress in his tiny hand. And whenever he felt scared, he immediately hid underneath his mom’s dress like a chick hides under the hen.

Seeing that her son was only clutching her dress, while walking by himself, Marigold Hail of Fire felt relieved as she moved forward at a slow pace to help Spruce keep up with her. After arriving in the dining room, she put the fruit basket onto the table in the dining room.

"Madam Marigold!" an elder servant woman shouted from another room, and quickly walked into the dining room. "We cannot find Sir Pine anywhere."

After she said that, two other servant women showed up behind her.

Marigold shook her head and said, "I'm sure he's together with the gardener."

"But we cannot find the gardener either," said one of the servant women standing behind the elder servant.

"Did you check the attic?"

"Who would go to the attic, when it’s so cold in there?" the matriarch said.

Marigold looked at the snowy scenery outside the window.

The matriarch pondered for a moment, before she turned to the younger servants, "go and check the attic."

The two women immediately ran toward the staircase and climbed up.

"I told him so many times," Marigold sighed.

"Men will always be men," the elder servant said as she approached Marigold, and put her hand on Marigold's shoulder. "Do you need any help?"

"I don't, but the cooks should be done soon."

Before the matriarch could respond, they heard loud quick footsteps of servants running down the stairs and in the next moment they both entered the dining room.

"We found them."

"Both were together."

"They were in the attic."

"They're coming down."

The two women spoke at the same time, but since their sentences were short, it was almost as if they arranged to speak interchangeably. No sooner than they finished their report, Marigold heard another heavier set of manly footsteps coming down.

While chatting with the gardener, Marigold’s husband was descending at a much slower pace than the servants. When the two men arrived in the dining room, each one was holding an empty beer bottle.

"I asked you so many times," Marigold said in an upset, but sweet voice as she put her fists on her hips. She didn't look angry, but truly disappointed.

"It's only beer," Pine responded. "It's impossible to get drunk on beer," he added.

His wife shook her head, and said, "at least not before the meal. How many times have I talked with you about this?" She looked down at the boy by her side, “you’re giving your son a very bad example.”

"Don't worry, don't worry," Pine responded cheerfully as he approached the table and moved out a chair from underneath it, "just sit down and wait here with Spruce. I'll help our kitchen pros bring the dishes."

After Marigold took the seat offered to her by her husband, Pine grabbed his son and seated him on the chair next to his mother.

The young boy didn’t like being separated from his mom’s dress, so he fought against the opponent, but from the beginning he had no chances of winning. He was forcibly put on a chair next to his mother, and as soon as his father let go of him, he caught his mother’s dress, and tried to climb over to her lap, but when she began to pet his head, he calmed down and remained seated on the other chair.

The younger cook came out from the kitchen carrying a large pot of soup.

Seeing that, Pine hurried into the kitchen. The young cook put down the pot on top of the underplate that had been prepared ahead of time. Meanwhile the gardener took out three chairs next to Marigold on one side of the table and offered them to the servant women. As they sat down, Pine came in with the elder cook and brought more dishes onto the table.

"Where's the butler?" the elder servant asked.

"I'll go get him," the gardener quickly offered and left the dining room.

The elder cook once again returned to the kitchen and brought back two small side-dishes, right at the time, when the gardener returned with the elder butler, who was walking with a cane. All men sat on the other side of the table, across from the women, and Pine led the short prayer.

"Why is father sitting there?" Spruce asked, pointing at his dad.

"Because this side is for men, and that side is for women," his dad answered.

Spruce looked at his dad, then at his mom, and asked, "I'm a woman?"

Everyone at the table laughed at the innocent child, who had yet to learn about the world.

"No, you're not," his mom responded. “You’re a man.”

"So why I don't sit there?" Spruce pointed at his dad.

"You're not a man enough to sit on this side," Pine remarked with a smile and others also smiled. "But once you become a real man, I'll let you change sides."

"Okay," little Spruce looked more than happy at the idea that one day he'll be able to sit next to his dad.

After the lunch ended, the servant women stood up first and began to collect the plates. Marigold also tried to help them, but the elder woman stopped her, "Madam Marigold, you don't have time. Please go and get dressed. Aren't you going out with Sir Pine this afternoon?"

Marigold opened her mouth to say what she was thinking, but Pine spoke before her, "you help everyday. Once in a while it's okay to take a break. And I don't want to go for a family walk after nightfall."

"I don't take that much time to prepare," Marigold responded to her husband, while the servant women took the plates and went into the kitchen.

"Yes, yes, I know," her husband said. "Just go get ready."

A bit displeased, Marigold stepped away from the table, and immediately Spruce cried after her.

"Leave him with us," Pine said as he approached his son.

Marigold waved a bye-bye to her son and left for her bedroom.

"Mama!" Spruce cried out, and tried to run after her, but his dad was holding him back by his shirt. "Mama!"

The servant women returned, and immediately understood the situation. The elder woman approached the boy with kind words. "Your mama is busy now, but she'll be back soon." She tried to take the boy into her arms, but Spruce kicked her and even louder he yelled, "mama!"

Upon seeing the kick, his father abruptly turned him around and put his big hands on the boy's shoulders, "no kicking family members, understood?" he said strongly and loud enough that it scared Spruce into silence.

"She's not family. She's a servant," whispered Spruce, who just started to understand the world a little. He was still too young to know all the things, but certain things were already obvious even to children of his age.

His father took the boys' hand into his palm, and with his other hand, he slapped Spruce’s tiny hand.

At first, Spruce looked shocked. A moment later, the pain in his hand became clear. He twisted his face in sadness. His eyes turned into water wells and tears began to flow down his cheeks as he was screaming as loudly as he could, in hope that his mother would come to his rescue. However, no matter how long he screamed, no help came and nothing changed around him.

The servant women stood still nearby. The servant men sat at the table, and his father was still holding his hand and squatting down in front of him, patiently waiting until the show was over.

Realizing the futility of his screams and tears, Spruce began to calm down. When he no longer made any noises except for occasional sniffing, his father spoke up, "family is not only blood relatives. Family is everyone you take care of, and anyone who takes care of you."

Unwillingly the boy nodded. His father let go of his hand, and rubbed him on the head.

Afterward, Spruce quietly waited on the chair for his mom, while the servants cleaned up the table, and washed the plates in the kitchen. The cooks also went to help. Only the gardener and the butler were still sitting by the table and holding a conversation about the bush near the gate, which had grown too big and was blocking the entrance.

When Marigold finally returned in a completely different dress, with her hair tied up in a bum, Spruce immediately ran up to his mom, and clung to her leg like a bee to a jar of honey. In her hands, she carried a long leather coat and a wool hat.

"I'm ready, but you?" she asked her husband.

"I have my coat ready," he said as he stood up and walked toward the entry room. She tried to follow after him, but Spruce was blocking her from walking.

"Could you hold my coat," Marigold asked one of the young servant girls, and after she passed it to her, she bent down and hugged her son. When his grip became weaker, she lifted him up and carried him in her arms, as she went toward the entry room, and all the servants followed to see them off.

By the time they arrived in the entry room, Pine was already ready to go. Seeing how Spruce was glued to his mom, he sighed and offered to hold him, while the servants dressed the baby boy into a warm jacket and a wool hat.

The boy was unwilling to let go of his mom, so it took a bit of force to transfer him from his mother's arms to his father's. However, still remembering the futility of his screams, Spruce didn't cry. Instead, he showed his disapproval with his totally unhappy countenance.

After his mother put on her outdoor shoes, the coat and the hat, the three of them were ready to go. They stepped out of the house, and just as they were heading to the property gate, a carriage arrived at the gate and a man ran out.

"Pine Sharinga Titoki Fire?" the man from the carriage asked as he saw them.

"Yes," Pine handed Spruce to his mother, then walked up to the messenger to hear the news. However, instead of news, he received an envelope, and as he saw the stamp on the envelope he furrowed his eyebrows.

The messenger quickly went back into the carriage and rode away.

Pine walked up to his wife, "sorry, but I won't be able to go today."

"Is this that urgent?" Marigold asked.

"Yes," he answered and walked back toward the house.

The servants, who saw the whole thing, quickly acted, and soon afterward the two young servant girls, the younger cook and the gardener were wearing coats and outdoor shoes.

Just when Pine walked into the entry room, he saw them all dressed up and smiled. "Enjoy the walk," he wished them, then went toward his study room.

The four servants headed out toward Marigold, who put Spruce down on the ground, and together they went out for an afternoon walk.

The mansion of Pine Fire was located by the mountainside, and even though it was already the month of Faev, the snow was still covering the higher grounds. They began to walk up the pathway, but they didn't walk directly on it, because the path had nothing but mud. So to avoid getting their shoes stuck in there, they walked alongside the path on the green grass and wildflowers.

"Madam Marigold, we shouldn't go any further," the gardener spoke as they arrived at an area, where snow still covered most of the land.

"You're right. It looks dangerous up ahead," she said, and turned around ready to head back home. Then she saw a bush with beautiful violet flowers growing no more than ten meters away from them. "Oh wait," she said, "let me grab those. They’ll make for a beautiful bouquet."

“Maybe I should go instead?” the younger servant asked.

“No, it’s fine. I know this area better,” she looked at her son. “Spruce, stay here for one minute.”

“I don’t want to.”

“I’ll just get those, and come back super quick, so don’t move from here.”

Spruce didn’t say anything, but the servant women held him from moving, so he had no choice to begin with.

Marigold headed toward the flowers alone. There was a ravine in the vicinity, and she knew about it as did all the servants, because they had travelled by this place many times on summer days, when there was no snow on the ground.

Marigold looked at the ravine and at the snow around it. Of course, she wouldn't step anywhere near it, but she clearly remembered where the cliff ended and she travelled around it. As she was passing on the snowy ground, suddenly the ground under her feet moved and everything fell down the steep mountainside.

The servants standing at the pathway were terrified at what they saw. The younger servant woman put her hand on her mouth. The other one tried to run forward, but the cook quickly grabbed her, and held her on the pathway.

"I'll get Sir Pine," the gardener said and ran back.

"Mama?" Spruce didn't understand what happened. The servant woman took her hand off her mouth, knelt down and hugged the boy. "Where's mama?"

Spruce didn’t understand the reaction of the servants. He saw his mom walking toward a bush, and suddenly she disappeared from his sight. He didn’t know where his mom went, but it wasn’t the first time he lost sight of his mom. Surely, his mom would show herself again after some time.

"Madam Marigold?" the cook shouted out as loud as he could, but there was no response.

They waited. Pine soon arrived riding a gryphon. The creature had the body like that of a lion, but its head was like an eagle's. With its powerful wings, it flew down the ravine carrying Pine on its back. Not too long afterwards, it came out carrying Pine, who held unconscious Marigold, and it flew back toward the house.

The younger servant girl took Spruce onto her arms and walked back, hoping that everything would end well. After a while, her hands got tired, and the cook took the boy and carried him all the way to the house.

When they entered the living room, it was filled with silence.

Marigold laid on the sofa with her body covered by a blanket. There were wounds on the side of her head. The elder servant, who was sitting on a wooden stool by the sofa, had already wiped away the blood and dirt with a moist handkerchief from her face.

Pine sat on the chair deep in thought. The elder butler and the elder cook sat on another sofa in the other corner of the living room, and the gardener stood by the fireplace.

The young cook let Spruce down, and he immediately ran up to his mom, and clutched the blanket.

Upon seeing no reaction, the servants, who returned together with Spruce, comprehended the situation. The little boy was the only person in the room, who didn't understand, and nobody wanted to be the first to tell him.

"Is mama sleeping?" Spruce asked the people around, and the women began to weep.

"She's dead," his father said.

"Why is she dead?" he didn't understand the meaning of what he heard.

His father looked up at the portrait on the wall. It was a beautiful photo of a gal in the garden full of blooming apple trees.

"Because the kindest people always leave too early," Pine answered his son's question, and the servants bit their lips. No one wanted to remind him about Blueberry's death, but even though none of them mentioned it, he could never forget.