Art class went by without a hitch afterward, although Mira kept feeling Magnus’ gaze on her.

  When they were finally dismissed, several students quickly left the room with eager footsteps. A few others took their sweet time to begin putting away their belongings, clearly in no rush to go somewhere else. When Magnus brushed past them without a word, Mira stoutly kept her eyes on her bag and paintbrushes.

  Jessica, who had been waiting patiently for her to pack away her things, bent down to her ear and whispered, “Is everything okay? He didn’t even say goodbye to you.”

  She could not care less about Magnus’ cold shoulder or the original Blythe’s relationship with him right now. The original Blythe would probably have sought Magnus out regardless of his mood, but Mira had no desire to interact with him beyond what was necessary.

  “Yeah, it’s fine.” Mira zipped up her bag. “I think he needs some space. He wasn’t happy about what hap… what I did to Daisy.”

  The words tasted sour on her tongue. She certainly hadn’t wanted to do what she’d done, but she couldn’t just write it off as something that had happened to Daisy, minimizing the role she’d played in the incident.

  “That’s so mature of you.”

  It took every inch of her willpower not to grimace at Jessica’s look of awe.

  Daisy was already gone; she’d probably slipped out of the classroom shortly after Professor Newton’s dismissal.

  Mira had a free period after this, which Jessica apparently did too.

  “Well, let’s go,” she said, smiling at Jessica as she lifted her school bag.

  In all honesty, she had no idea where they were going. But she didn’t want to risk giving away the fact that she had no idea what she was doing by asking Jessica where they were going.

  Jessica smiled back and strode alongside her as they left the classroom. She said nothing about where they were headed, but from Jessica’s confident steps, she seemed to already have a destination in mind.

  Relief and anxiety mingled together in Mira’s chest. At least she hadn’t asked about it and revealed her cluelessness. She had no idea where the original Blythe would normally go for her free period. As a student, it made sense to visit the library, but she had a feeling that Blythe wasn’t the kind of student who dedicated herself to studying.

  Thankfully, she could follow Jessica’s lead since they were walking side by side. They talked about how art class had gone, how Jessica had been struggling with art for the longest time, and how Mira had seemingly improved greatly over the summer break.

  They stopped by the lockers once more in order to store their art supplies, then they left the blue building.

  Upon stepping into the white building on the other side of the huge courtyard, Mira could instantly hear the muffled sounds of battle cries and clanging swords. She glanced around for the source of the sound. The wide hall they were standing in was mostly empty except for a few students further down who were striding toward a set of dark wood double doors that led to what looked like a school gym entrance. The metal plaque next to them had the words ‘Training Hall’ on it.

  Mira remembered Daisy attending PE classes in the training hall during her days in Novalbus Royal Academy. She’d seen a few PE lessons on Blythe’s class schedule as well.

  Jessica walked along, unfazed by the noises. Attempting to keep a poker face on, Mira kept up with her.

  They went past the doors and up the stairs, where Mira followed Jessica through another identical set of double doors. They opened into a gallery with numerous rows of seats that overlooked the training hall below—male students in athletic gear sparred with both wood or metal swords while a teacher patrolled the perimeter and kept an eye on things. Mira didn’t see a single girl down there.

  There was a large square clock with a black face and white dial on the wall of the training hall, and another identical one on the wall of the gallery they were in.

  Quite a few of the seats were already occupied, mostly by girls who were squealing among themselves while peeking down at the guys who were sparring with each other. Shouts and grunts abounded in the enormous hall, rising up to the gallery.

  A hand shot up in the air, waving at them, allowing Mira to spot Sophie, who was seated in one of the front rows right in front of the safety railing along the edges of the gallery.

  “There she is,” Jessica said, nodding at Mira.

  Together, they made their way over to her, their shoes making satisfying clicking sounds against the polished wood flooring. After they settled down in the two empty plush seats next to Sophie, Mira waited for some kind of explanation as to why they were here. Was this what Blythe did during her free periods at school?

  She could tell that the other giggling girls were here to admire hot guys—she was no stranger to fangirling over anime characters back in her own world—but she couldn’t see why Blythe would want to be here. In the game, it was clear she only cared about Magnus, even though she did hate that Daisy grabbed the attention of the other male students as well.

  When Jessica put her hands on the railing and leaned her head over to peer down at the guys, a light bulb went off in Mira’s head. She was here for Clyde.

  Mira searched the hall with her eyes for their classmate, trying her hardest to recall his appearance. She had barely paid attention to his appearance during Beucian III earlier, too stressed out about having to partner up with Magnus for conversation practice.

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  “That’s a little obvious,” Sophie said, pulling a thick book out of her bag.

  It looked like a botany reference book. Sophie flipped it open to a bookmarked page before Mira could get a good look at the title.

  “None of them are looking up here,” Jessica retorted without turning her head.

  Using the opportunity to confirm her suspicions, Mira asked Jessica, “Where is he?”

  Jessica nodded, pointing to the left. “Over by the corner with Raphael.”

  She pretended to know who Raphael was, following Jessica’s index finger to the left corner of the training hall. A boy with short, brown hair that was slicked back was evading a sword attack from a taller boy with orange hair. It looked vaguely like Clyde, but because he kept moving, it was difficult for her to be sure. The guys were all too far away for her to pull up their profile information.

  Mira was a little amused that they were all here to support Jessica creeping on Clyde while he was … Was this a lesson they were spectating, or some kind of free period like Mira and her friends were having? She had no idea.

  Sophie had already buried her nose in her reference book, appearing uninterested in her surroundings. Several portions of the text on the opened pages were underlined with colorful ink, and she had a pen in her hand at ready for further underlining.

  Mira was a little impressed by Sophie’s tenacity. She really did have a career goal she was aspiring to. It inspired her to take out her own homework to do.

  Staring at the guys like the rest of the girls in this gallery were doing would likely be out of character for Blythe. It made more sense to do some work instead.

  Her hand trembled as she reached into her bag for her Beucian textbook. She only needed to care about getting any homework done if this was truly her new reality, but it hadn’t quite sunk in yet. The textbook was solidly real in her hands as she grabbed it.

  Shoving aside the dread that was creeping in again, Mira lowered her bag to the floor in front of her feet so she could comfortably put the textbook on her lap. She read the instructions on the activity page Professor Eagle had assigned them as homework, still amazed at the blend of familiarity and strangeness that arose in her brain when she read the Beryllian words. She could tell this wasn’t English, but somehow she could still understand it. Beucian used the same script as Beryllian, but the vocabulary and grammar were different enough for it to be obvious it was another language.

  She pulled out a pen to write down the answers on the page as she went along.

  “Hey, isn’t that the …”

  Jessica’s coconut-scented shampoo suddenly flooded her nose as her friend leaned in close.

  “Huh?” Her train of her thought interrupted without warning, Mira raised her head in confusion.

  Sophie had copied Jessica’s actions, both of them leaning in closer and looking down at Mira’s bag. “Ooh, it looks like it …”

  Mira reached down to get her bag, boggled by their behavior.

  “What is … oh.” The first thing visible from the opening of her bag was the fancy box of homemade chocolates she’d gotten from Blythe’s locker.

  Although her friends seemed to have recognized it, she couldn’t outright ask them what it was for.

  “Are we doing the taste-testing today?” Jessica asked, clasping her hands together hopefully.

  “Um …” Was it safe for eating? It was in Blythe’s locker, which suggested that it’d been there for at least a day.

  “I can’t believe,” Sophie squealed, “we get to be the first ones to try your homemade chocolates.”

  But her friends knew about it and seemed to be anticipating it. That was a good sign it was probably edible, wasn’t it?

  “Sure,” Mira said reluctantly, after a couple of seconds of being stared at like she was holding some kind of elixir in her hands. “Let’s, um, do some taste-testing.”

  She popped open the lid, allowing her friends to ooh and aah over the presentation of the chocolate truffles.

  “The shape is so perfect,” Jessica cooed, lifting the one she’d picked out—they all looked the same—and turning it around in the light.

  “And the dusting of the cocoa powder on it,” Sophie added. “So good.”

  Mira couldn’t tell if they were gassing up their best friend or just unable to stop bootlicking for a second. They hadn’t even tried it yet.

  She took one of the truffles herself. If it was somehow poisoned, she wasn’t going to be thrown into prison for attempted murder. At least if she was poisoned along with her friends, she could make the excuse that she didn’t know they’d been tainted.

  Bracing herself to potentially keel over, she pushed it into her mouth.

  She nearly spat it right back out, bursting into an explosive coughing fit. Salt. Her entire mouth was overwhelmed with dark cocoa and salt. Mira covered her mouth with her hand, eyes watering as she tried to dig around in her bag for something she could spit the ‘chocolate truffle’ out in. It was so salty it was beginning to hurt.

  “Oh, no!” Sophie frantically whipped out a napkin and thrust it into Mira’s hand. “Are you okay?!”

  “What’s wrong?” Jessica stroked her back with her free hand.

  Mira spat the entire lump out onto the napkin, folded it up and wiped her mouth on a clean spot.

  “Don’t eat it,” she said miserably, actually relieved that they’d wasted all that time praising the chocolate instead of tasting it. “I … I mistook the sugar for salt.”

  Technically, it was the original Blythe who did that, but whatever.

  Sophie and Jessica froze. Slowly, they put the truffles back into their dividers in the metal box.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry, Blythe.”

  “No, I should’ve been more careful.” Mira faced Sophie, full of guilt. “Sorry about your handkerchief. I’ll …”

  She waved both hands in front of her. “No, don’t worry about it! I have so many of them anyway. You can just throw it away.”

  For a split second, she’d forgotten that they were all rich kids. Of course Sophie had more than enough spare handkerchiefs. Relief surged through her. She’d just been about to offer to wash and clean it before returning it to her.

  “I’ll give you another one,” she said, thinking that the daughter of a duke should have plenty of handkerchiefs to spare as well.

  “No, really! It’s just a handkerchief!”

  “Okay …”

  “Don’t stand on courtesy with us, Blythe. You’re so polite today.”

  “Yeah, just be your usual self.”

  Which is, what, demanding?

  Standing up, Mira quickly scanned the area for a trash can. She found it tucked inconspicuously into one corner, all flat sides in a dark blue color. A small circular flap on top was the only thing that gave it away as a trash can. She dumped the rolled-up handkerchief into it.

  “I have an idea,” Jessica said when Mira returned to slump down in her seat. “Why don’t we use the student kitchen together? We could help you keep an eye on the process. I know you prefer having your own chef …”

  “No, that’s a great idea,” she replied weakly, wondering what exactly those chocolates were for. “But maybe next time.”

  Jessica didn’t push. “Yeah, of course.”

  “You know I don’t quite have the flair for cooking,” Sophie chimed in, “but I can definitely be there as support.”

  She smiled at them both. “I really appreciate that.”

  A fresh wave of shrieks came from the group of girls on the other side of the gallery. Thankful for the distraction, Mira looked over. They were all babbling at each other, excited about something.

  “That was incredible!”

  “He’s so skillful!”

  More praises about some amazing guy with fantastic swordsmanship skills streamed out from them.

  She peeked down to see people giving one guy with bright cherry red hair in the middle of the hall a wide berth. He held a wooden sword in his hands, leveled at his chest. A track jacket dangled off the tip of the sword. In front of him, another guy had fallen to the ground on his behind, his arms at his side propping him up in a sitting position.

  Even as Jessica and Sophie expressed their amazement at the incredible feat, Mira couldn’t stop thinking about how that red-haired guy looked incredibly familiar.