William, the black fluffy dog, barked again.

  “I see,” Professor Fulbright said, tilting her head back and crossing her arms over her textbook. “Indeed, it is quite a shame that the young lady you asked out wasn’t interested, Mr. Woodward."

  Snickers and giggles resounded through the classroom, and the one of the two guys—Mira assumed that was Woodward—went red in the face. His friend just looked guilty.

  "However, that is not relevant to our current lesson, and I would greatly appreciate if you would kindly refrain from distracting your friend in future.”

  Mira’s frown, which had been deepening with each word that came out of her teacher’s mouth, contorted her entire face. It seemed that Professor Fulbright had gleaned that particular piece of information from William’s bark.

  How did she do that? It was just a bark.

  "Sorry, Professor Fulbright," both the boys muttered.

  The lesson went on normally after that, but Mira was absolutely fascinated by the fact that William had somehow acted as the professor's extra set of eyes and alarm. Nobody else in the classroom seemed surprised, however.

  Mira wondered if she could get away with asking Sophie and Jessica how Professor Fulbright had been able to get information from William's barks, but she didn’t want to come across as suspicious.

  Just like everyone else in class, she took down notes of whatever the professor tapped out onto the board and listened to what she was saying. Ridiculously, she was covering the same concept Mira was currently learning in Algebra II back in her own world.

  Mira always paid attention in class anyway, so it would have felt like just another day at school if not for the bizarre situation she'd been thrown in.

  Instead of a school bell to signal the end of a period, a tiny blue bird burst forth from the little doors of the cuckoo wall clock and sang a delightful little melody. It had the same sound effect as in the game when Daisy’s class would end during a scenario.

  After class, Sophie and Jessica waited for Mira to pack her things back into her bag before they left the classroom together. Jessica sneered as Daisy walked past them to the door but said nothing.

  Mira's next class was in classroom 409, but she hadn't had a chance to scope out the building layout yet—she hesitated to leave with her friends for fear of exposing her unfamiliarity with their surroundings.

  She lingered in the doorway even as her friends stepped out of the classroom, looking at her expectantly.

  "What's wrong, Blythe?" Jessica asked, tilting her head aside.

  "I ... Nothing," Mira said, finally joining them when she realized they weren't going to leave her behind without asking any questions.

  Sophie lowered her voice to a whisper, "Do you need to use the restroom?"

  Seizing the excuse Sophie had inadvertently provided her with, Mira instantly nodded. "Yes."

  “We’ll go with you," Jessica volunteered, “since there’s still some time before Embroidery II.”

  Sophie nodded. They flanked her as they began walking.

  “Great.” Mira smiled at her, tightening her grip on her bag strap so much her fingers began to ache.

  It looked like she wasn’t going to get any privacy for now, then.

  She fell back a little, intending to let either of them reveal the location of the bathroom to her. She had no clue where it was. A quick glance around her surroundings informed her there were no signs to direct her to the restrooms.

  It was when Jessica turned her head and looked curiously at her that Mira realized that maybe she’d messed up. The original Blythe clearly liked taking the lead and being the leader of her lackeys. Naturally, she’d want to walk in front of them as well.

  Without a word, Jessica stepped backward until she was a step behind at Mira’s side. Sophie did the same as though there was an established walking formation between them.

  Not knowing what to say without evoking suspicion, Mira bit her lower lip before setting a slow but steady pace. The only way ahead was down the straight, wide corridor. She could only cling on to the slim but desperate hope that she’d spot the restroom along the way. In the meantime, she had to appear confident like she knew what she was doing.

  She cast her gaze around while walking, trying to keep her head straight so it wouldn’t be obvious she was trying to get her bearings.

  Thankfully, the door to the restroom had a distinct restroom sign. The boys’ restroom was on the opposite side of the hallway. Mira went in, and her friends followed.

  Light instrumental music floated through the room, causing her to make the mistake of looking around in the glossy-tiled white restroom that wouldn’t look out of place in a fancy hotel. The solid, inky blue of the cubicles that lined the wall opposite the sinks contrasted sharply against the otherwise almost entirely white bathroom. There were warm, damp hand towels in little rolls stacked in a pyramid on a large, white ceramic plate, as well as dark blue boxes of tissue, on both ends of the long sink countertop. There were no speakers in sight.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Jessica caught her examining her surroundings and smiled at her through the mirror reflection above the sparkling white sink. Mira’s heart pounded in her ribcage, wondering if her marveling had been too obvious. Her eyeballs had definitely been about to pop out while she was checking out the place.

  “Is everything alright?” she asked.

  Before Mira could reply, Sophie, who had set down her bag on the counter space between two sinks, rolled her shoulders back and said, “Is it the music? They still haven’t changed it even after you put in the request for harp melodies.”

  Mira forced herself to scoff and flip her hair over her shoulder, hoping that they would buy it. The original Blythe did that a lot whenever she was interacting with Daisy. “That’s right. How difficult can it be to add something new to their playlist?”

  Jessica turned to face her this time, squinting. “Playlist?”

  Sophie also seemed bemused, but at least she was looking into the mirror and adjusting her jeweled hair clip. “What’s that?”

  Mira gulped.

  She’d messed up again. Of course they didn’t have things like playlists. But then how did they get music playing in the bathrooms? There wasn’t a live band here to perform for them.

  She cleared her throat. “I said, ‘How difficult can it be to add something new to their repertoire?’”

  Before they could question her on how it sounded nothing like what she’d said, she strode into the nearest cubicle and locked the door. She used the bathroom, noticing that the toilet belted out a delightful little tune upon being flushed. There weren’t any speakers in sight.

  She washed her hands in the sink, noting that the faucet ran automatically when her hands went underneath it. She’d never truly noticed how strangely modern some of the facilities in this faux-fantasy world setting was; Mira remembered there being an indoor swimming pool in this academy and an outdoor one on the rooftop. Both had been places Daisy could choose to visit in order to hone her stamina and strength.

  They left the restroom together.

  Once again, Mira was forced to walk ahead of them. She noticed that all the classrooms on this floor began with a ‘2’, which suggested that classroom 409 was on the fourth floor. There was a winding staircase just like the one she’d followed Magnus up before a little ahead of them, and Mira made a beeline for it. Neither of the two girls said anything as they ascended it, so she allowed herself to silently exhale in relief.

  They were halfway through the first flight of stairs when Jessica gasped. Mira’s entire body tensed.

  “I forgot,” she said, bringing her hands up to her mouth.

  Realizing that it wasn’t about her, Mira relaxed slightly. Jessica furrowed her brow.

  “I was supposed to tell my father,” she said, rummaging through her bag, “that I won’t be going home for the weekend. I completely forgot!”

  “Why are you staying at school?” Sophie asked, going up another step on the glossy hardwood stairs.

  As she pulled out a slim scroll with a hot pink ribbon tied around it, Jessica blushed. “Professor Easley agreed to give me extra lessons for the embroidery on my handkerchief.”

  Bewildered by her response, Mira stared at her like she had two heads. She somehow managed to keep her mouth shut instead of gawking or demanding answers to the questions that had formed in her head. Was the blush for Professor Easley? Did she have a crush on some teacher and was she feeding into that crush under the pretext of attending supplementary lessons she didn’t need?

  She looked back at Sophie, who merely nodded as though the answer had made perfect sense.

  Jessica unfurled the scroll.

  Instead of leaning over to peer at the lifelike bird—it was blue and fluffy, and it looked like a quaker parrot—that had been painted on it like she really wanted to, Mira inhaled a slow, quiet breath and kept her glance casual.

  The new questions that had popped up in her mind regarding the strange scroll were soon answered.

  “Daddy,” she said to the scroll. “I’ll be staying at Novalbus this weekend because Professor Easley’s going to give me those extra embroidery lessons I previously mentioned. I’ll come home next weekend! VocAvis to Simon Wilhelm.”

  Mira watched with amazement, trying to prevent her eyes from popping out of their sockets, as the blue quaker parrot came out of the parchment, flapped its wings, and flew out of the nearest window. She glanced back at the parchment, which Jessica was already rolling back up, and realized that it was empty now.

  While she recalled Daisy procuring a scroll like that in the middle of her fourth year during the game, Mira obviously hadn’t had the chance to witness how it worked in person. It was simply a small button on the top left-hand corner of the game screen the player could press to call one of Daisy’s contacts. They basically worked like one-way phone calls or verbal letters.

  The VocAvis scrolls were very expensive, and only aristocrats or wealthy merchants were able to afford them. Daisy had taken the one her missing mother had left behind in their home.

  The scroll with a pink ribbon tied around it in the nightstand flashed across Mira’s mind’s eye. She should’ve brought that with her.

  Disappointed by her own lack of observational skills, Mira shook her head to refocus her thoughts on what Jessica meant by ‘staying’ at school.

  In the game, Daisy had attended this royal academy as a boarding school. Her memory of the imperial carriage she’d ridden to school this morning came back to her—even though she’d recognized it as the same carriage Magnus had offered to Daisy in the game when it was time for her to return home for summer break, it hadn’t yet registered in her mind that most of the students here lived in the academy’s dormitory.

  As they climbed the stairs, Mira tried to jog her own memory for further information she might have missed out on. At the start of the game, the narrator had made it clear that boarding was optional and that students could travel from home every day if they wished. For the sake of convenience, most students chose to stay in the dorms during the school week. If they desired, they could return home on the weekends as well. Not everyone bothered, but some of the students did.

  Since Daisy’s hometown was all the way out in the rural countryside, with her father holding the title of a baron but only being in charge of a tiny fiefdom both physically and financially, she only ever returned home for summer break at the end of each school year.

  Befitting of its title as the royal academy, every student enrolled here had their own dorm room which they didn’t have to share with anyone else.

  She wondered why Blythe had chosen to stay home. If she’d woken up at in her dorm room this morning, she wouldn’t have had to endure a very uncomfortable breakfast with just Magnus in that large dining hall.

  They arrived at the fourth floor in a hallway that offered them the options of going left or right. With her friends still behind her, Mira scrunched her eyes shut before turning to the left and hoping it was in the right direction. Neither of the two girls said anything as they continued walking.

  Mira slowly let out a silent sigh, her eyes darting around to check the classroom signs on the many doors along the walls. She tried to keep her head straight so that it wouldn’t be obvious she had no idea where she was going.

  Classroom 425 … Classroom 415 … Classroom 424 … Classroom 414 …

  As the numbers decreased towards 410, she breathed a little easier. In her panic, she’d sped up to the skittish pace she’d go at whenever she needed to scuttle away from people.

  The number 409 entered her sight from the corner of her eye at the same time as Jessica said, “Where are you going? We’re here.”