A couple of the guys closest to the classroom doorway greeted Daisy, beaming widely when she returned their greetings. As Mira looked around to understand the reason behind the abrupt change in the atmosphere, it became clear that nearly all the boys in the room were infatuated with Daisy. The female classmates, Sophie and Jessica included, who’d turned from whatever they were doing to look at Daisy wore similar expressions of disdain.

  Mira had forgotten how divisive Daisy’s popularity among the student body had been. Aside from the storyline and the choices required to go down various paths in the story, Waiting for Fireflies also put emphasis on its stat-raising aspects.

  She had obsessed over the activities she’d filled Daisy’s weekly schedule with, trying to efficiently maximize the stats required to get the ending she wanted for any given route. That, along with the many story scenarios that popped up whenever an event was triggered, meant that Mira had no time to spare thinking about how the female mob characters seemed to dislike her.

  Sophie rolled her eyes at Daisy, crossing her arms.

  “She’s been acting all gloomy since the start of school this week.”

  Mira made a note to herself that this week marked the beginning of the school year. She began her search anew for any clues of where she was on the timeline of the game. She pulled out one of the thin notebooks nestled between her binder and much thicker book.

  It was a basic notebook with the student’s name, year, and subject filled out in the multiple blank lines provided on the light blue cover.

  Blythe Ridge

  Year 4

  History IV

  She flipped it open as Jessica sniffed.

  “Probably just trying to gain the sympathy of our male classmates. So pathetic.”

  A quick flip through the front pages revealed that only three days’ worth of lesson notes had been recorded in the notebook. She checked the other notebooks, and they all had about the same amount of content. Mira came to the conclusion that she was still at the beginning of the game. Waiting for Fireflies had started in Daisy’s fourth year at the royal academy.

  “Pathetic,” Sophie echoed, nodding. “I heard her father’s taken ill. Isn’t she just using that to garner sympathy?”

  Appalled by their complete lack of compassion, Mira raised her head from her notebooks and frowned at them. Both girls, who had been gazing at her with a look of expectation, gaped at her.

  The original Blythe would have egged them on, but Mira knew that Daisy’s melancholic state at the beginning of the school year was due to the mysterious letters she’d found in her missing mother’s box of belongings in the attic just a few days prior. Of course, she also knew that Daisy’s father had become mentally unwell after the sudden disappearance of his wife, but that was also a secret. Officially, to everyone outside of the Willoughby household, he had simply come down with something and needed bed rest. That was how Waiting for Fireflies had started.

  There was no way she could, in good conscience, agree with the cruel things her friends had just said.

  “Did I say something wrong?” Jessica asked, genuinely appearing taken aback as she brought a hand to her chest.

  Mira shook her head once. “Don’t.”

  Jessica’s and Sophie’s mouths fell open. They glanced at each other before turning back to her.

  “Why not?” Sophie asked.

  Her confusion shifted into annoyance again when Daisy approached, trudging down the aisle between their tables. Daisy’s head was lowered, probably worried about her missing mother and her unwell father. She didn’t seem to be paying any attention to the people around her as she walked.

  When she began to walk down the aisle space between Jessica and Blythe, Jessica stuck out her foot just enough to be in Daisy’s path right as the latter was about to pass by them. Mira gaped as Daisy tripped over Jessica’s foot.

  Daisy let out a gasp upon realizing what had happened, but she was already falling forward. Sophie’s snickering from in front rang clearly in Mira’s ears.

  Without a second thought, Mira shot her hand outward to grab Daisy’s arm.

  Her friend Riley was a pretty clumsy girl and sometimes tripped over her own two feet, so she’d gotten used to catching her whenever she lost her balance.

  “Hey!” she said reflexively, keeping Daisy upright while she stumbled and Jessica withdrew her foot. “Are you okay?”

  Both of Blythe’s best friends stared at her like she’d grown a second head. It occurred to her that she’d behaved extremely out of character for Blythe.

  “Ye-yes …” Daisy choked out, turning to Mira with wide baby blues.

  They sparkled beautifully despite Daisy facing away from the light source coming in from the windows, a strange effect that Mira noticed wasn’t present in the eyes of any other person she’d met or seen so far. Was this the power of the main character?

  Daisy looked genuinely shocked.

  Embarrassed, Mira cleared her throat. Everyone in the classroom seemed to be looking at the little scene between them.

  “Well,” she said, releasing Daisy’s arm and drawing her hand back to herself. “That’s good.”

  Daisy hesitated, looking between Mira and Jessica, as if unsure what to make of everything that had just happened.

  “Thank you,” she said quietly before continuing down the aisle.

  A purple light flashed, followed by a green light.

  Stunned by the unexpected system message, Mira gazed at the table, and then back at Daisy, who had settled down at a desk in the back of the classroom. Her bag remained slung over her shoulder, and Daisy slumped in her chair as she stared at the top of her desk.

  “Why did you help her?” Jessica asked, glancing cautiously at Mira as though looking directly at the latter carried a risk of spontaneous combustion to herself.

  Thinking hard, Mira pressed her lips into a thin line. It was obvious that she needed to play nice with Daisy if she didn’t want to be exiled or executed at the end of the game—assuming Daisy got a romance or friendship ending with any one of the guys.

  “We should stop doing these petty things,” she said, falling back on the excuse she’d given Magnus earlier. “I don’t think my parents will be pleased if they catch wind of this. Besides, isn’t she having a hard time now? It doesn’t seem … nice.”

  Her friends gaped like two goldfishes.

  “But what about her being such an attention-seeker?” Jessica whispered, leaning towards Mira. “Isn’t that unbearable?”

  Her attempt at whispering was laughable; it was more of a theatrical whisper that anyone within three feet of her could hear.

  Mira turned her head back to see Daisy with her head buried in her forearms over her desk. Maybe she hadn’t heard it. She certainly didn’t recall this scene in the game.

  “It’s not relevant. Just stop, please. Leave her alone.”

  In the game, Blythe seemed to have massive influence over her two friends who admired her for her beauty and status as the crown prince’s fiancée. Whatever she asked them to do, they did.

  They seemed more concerned than mutinous about their best friend’s sudden change in mindset and attitude toward Daisy.

  “If you say so.”

  Jessica watched her carefully. Sophie kept glancing over her shoulder at Daisy and then back to Mira, as if waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  Relieved, Mira exhaled a silent sigh. “Thank you.”

  They both started, once again staring at her with huge eyes.

  She had to wrest down the urge to scream in frustration again as a new realization struck her. Of course she had to mess up again.

  In the game, Blythe had always spoken to her friends in imperatives, only expressing approval in the form of compliments and smiles after they’d done something nasty to Daisy. It had been implied their favor had been bought in other ways, such as guaranteed invites to the tea parties she threw at her estate and all sorts of little gifts like jewelry.

  Now that she thought about it, Mira couldn’t recall a single instance in which she’d seen Blythe thank them for anything. It could have happened off screen, but their reactions suggested that it didn’t.

  The good thing was that unlike Magnus, any doubts or misgivings they might have didn’t seem to didn’t seem to result in drops in favorability.

  Since they were Blythe's best friends, she might as well try to nurture that friendship.

  "You two are the best," Mira said, smiling sweetly at them.

  Green light.

  With some satisfaction, she gave the refreshed numbers a quick look over.

  "My!" Jessica giggled, covering her mouth with one hand. "I wasn't expecting to hear that."

  "Anything for you, Blythe," Sophie promised, looking genuinely touched.

  Well, that was easy.

  Maybe that one simple sentence had such a great impact because Blythe had been so stingy with verbal compliments.

  Mira tucked her notebook back into her bag. Aside from the notebooks and binder, there was a clear file with a sheet of paper in it. She pulled it out.

  It had Blythe’s name and her class schedule handwritten on it in beautiful penmanship. She checked her first class for today, which was Mathematics IV. The one after that was Embroidery II. She tried to memorize the location for that.

  Classroom 409 … Classroom 409 … Classroom 409 …

  All around her, she could hear the buzz of people talking as the classroom began filling up with more students.

  “How did your embroidering go last night?” Sophie asked.

  Jessica nodded eagerly, pulling her chair up to Sophie’s desk so that they were both looking at Mira. “Did you finish the handkerchief?”

  Mira cast her mind around for an idea of what they were talking about. There was a handkerchief in an embroidery hoop on the coffee table in front of the giant couple's portrait of Magnus and Blythe in her bedroom. Could that be what they were referring to?

  "Not yet," she said, hoping that she’d given the correct answer since she hadn’t taken a close enough look at the handkerchief.

  “Don’t worry,” Sophie said in a comforting tone. “I’m sure you’ll finish it in time.”

  Mira paused. In time for what? Was that something the original Blythe had to be worried about?

  Her initial reaction was to toss aside this strange piece of information she couldn’t connect to anything, but then the horror of this being her new reality set in again, weaving a chill through her bones.

  What if this was relevant to her new life as Blythe?

  Mira nodded, her brain working in overtime desperately trying to figure out what the embroidered handkerchief could be for.

  “What about you, Jessica?” Sophie asked, turning to their other friend. “Have you finished yours?”

  To Mira's confusion, Jessica blushed and looked down.

  "I'm still working on it," she said. "But I think it should be done soon."

  Why in the world did she blush at a simple question like that?

  It only strengthened Mira’s foreboding feeling that she was missing some information.

  Mira made a mental note to look more closely at the embroidery hoop when she got back to her bedroom later. She’d never embroidered in her life. The thought that it might be something important with a deadline made her stomach clench.

  She pinched the skin on the underside of her wrist. It still hurt.

  When the pain receded, her gaze refocused on her class schedule, which she’d still been holding onto. The class right after this one was Embroidery II. Could that be why she needed to finish the embroidery on time? Was it a homework assignment?

  A female teacher wearing a long, simple dress swept into the classroom with an adorable fluffy black dog trotting at her heels. Her shiny black hair was pulled back into a sleek, tight bun, complementing her no-nonsense look—her eyes were stern as she looked around the classroom. Her complexion was clear, but the faint lines on her forehead and near the corner of her eyes suggested that she was in her forties.

  “Good morning, everyone,” she said brusquely, setting down the large stack of papers in her arms down on the teacher’s desk at the front of the classroom.

  “Good morning, Professor Fulbright,” everyone chorused.

  Mira noticed Jessica and Sophie quickly taking a textbook and a notebook out of their respective bags. She followed suit, sliding the class schedule back into her bag while she was at it. There was only one textbook in her bag that seemed related to her current class, titled Mathematics IV, so she pulled that out alongside the corresponding notebook.

  After taking a quick roll call and checking off an attendance list, Professor Fulbright instructed them to flip to page fifteen of their textbook, which consisted of a concept she proceeded to go through with the class. As she spoke, she tapped the glowing board with her fingers and the exact words she spoke aloud appeared on the board.

  Mira stared.

  Now that she was reminded of it, the game did have some supernatural elements, such as Daisy having the ability to heal living creatures, which was one of the rarer natural-born abilities. The game didn’t go much into explaining the mechanics of how these worked, but it gave Mira the impression that they were this world’s form of technology.

  The black fluffy dog barked once, stamping its front feet as it did so. Professor Fulbright looked up from the textbook braced against her other arm.

  “Thank you, William,” she said, glaring in one particular direction.

  Mira couldn’t help but turn her head to follow the teacher’s gaze.

  On the leftmost side of the last row, two male classmates were quaking in their boots as they looked at Professor Fulbright.

  “Mr. Woodward and Mr. Irwin.” Her words were icy. “Is there something you’d like to share with the class?”

  Mira gaped before realizing she was doing it and then hastily closed her mouth.

  Professor Fulbright had been gazing at her textbook, and those two guys had to have been whispering because Mira hadn’t heard them at all.

  How in the world did she know who had been chatting with each other?