I rarely saw dreams. Or, suppose I saw them as often as anyone did, but couldn't remember a thing anymore by the time I woke up. The impression left of my nights on my conscious mind was only a black, static void. A state no different from being dead, except for that small, detached part in the back of my skull that ever held vigil through the lightless hours, ready to cry wolf. But that was all.

  Was that wrong of me? Should I have been more troubled?

  Nothingness wasn't interesting to talk about but there wasn't any suffering. I wasn't like the many war veterans who had frequent nightmares that startled them awake, yelling through the dark hours. Was it sinful somehow, to not be haunted by guilt and old ghosts? Was it insulting to the dead, going to bed every night easily, without sparing them a thought?

  A killer should at least have the decency to carry some pain for her deeds, if she meant to insist on still being good inside. So I thought. Death was meant to hurt, regardless of who died, as long as it was a person. Because the only other thing that could destroy lives without feeling the weight of it were hellions and those people who were worse than hellions and most deserved to die.

  Was I one of that class?

  How should I know? I didn’t even want to think about it. It was unpleasant.

  I didn’t believe any person was fit to judge themselves, and I wasn’t an exception. Whether I was strictly good, or evil, I couldn’t say, but I knew at least one thing clearly enough: I didn’t want to be a monster. A genuine monster wasn't ashamed of being a monster, so that had to make me mostly human, right?

  Wanting to be good, but not wanting to put any special effort into it, and simply turning a blind eye to any unpleasant things in your life; I think that specific flavor of tunnel-visioned selfishness was the strongest proof of my humanity.

  But when put into words like that, it sounded pretty evil.

  Having no regrets, but still thinking about it all the time; being endlessly bothered only by how little you were bothered…In the end, what kind of person was I, even?

  Recycling such aimless thoughts and coming nowhere close to an answer, my consciousness expanded to a new day.

  ——“Good morning, Hope.”

  An effeminate voice spoke close by. I didn’t think the garage floor was a top meeting spot so early in the morning, but it felt there was often somebody else around.

  I reluctantly opened my eyes and turned to the side to see Ms Asia lying on the edge of the blanket, staring at me. There we lay, face to face on the floor between the autos, as the first rays of the sun swept over us.

  “So this is what it’s like to see dreams,” I remarked to myself. It was a novel experience.

  “Yes,” the vision of Ms Asia replied. “You're dreaming about your gorgeous aunt in the bed with you. What does that say about your subconscious?”

  “Maybe you’ll disappear if I close my eyes again?”

  I did close my eyes and tried to switch off my consciousness, but it wasn’t working. I remained wide awake. How did this person always manage to slip through my defenses?

  “Since this is only a dream,” the woman spoke, “I'm not embarrassed to say this: Thank you.”

  “Did I do something?” I mumbled and kept my eyes shut.

  “You talked to my sister, didn't you? I've never heard Liesebeth Ruthford use the word ‘sorry’ before in my life. But I witnessed that wonder last night. There's no way she would've come to see me of her own volition. Even when we were children and our parents ordered her to, she would never sincerely admit her mistakes or apologize. One time, she even sat a full night outside in the shed without any light in punishment for breaking my toy horse, when all she had to do to get away from it was say sorry. She vehemently argued the toy was poorly made, and it was the manufacturer’s fault, not hers. If anything, that part of her only got worse as we grew older. But, I suppose human beings are not completely beyond change…So. Thank you, Hope. It may seem like a small thing to you, but...it was not meaningless to me.”

  Ms Asia trailed off and seemed to be holding her breath for a time.

  “Your sister may be one of the most stubborn and most prideful women in the world,” I muttered, “but she's not evil.”

  I could guarantee it. You knew your own kind by the smell and the General didn’t have it. She was unmistakably the type who was burdened by her own choices and deeds, however necessary they were, and slept poorly at night. Being able to regret even the unavoidable and irreversible—being so wonderfully contradictory and empathetic and human.

  Ms Asia refrained from comment. But though I had my eyes closed, I could practically hear her smile. Eventually she spoke up again,

  “So then, Hope…Mind explaining why you’re sleeping out here on the garage floor?”

  “…”

  That question again?

  “Imagine my surprise when I sneaked into your room only to find you weren't in there.”

  Don't sneak into people's bedrooms.

  “It also took a long time to interrogate the truth out of Charlotte. It involved a lot of tickling in between bribery and thinly veiled threats.”

  Don't tickle maids.

  “So, why?”

  “I like fresh air,” I said.

  “Is it abandonment play? My sister is into kinkier things than I thought.”

  I bolted up. “That’s about enough sleep!”

  * * *

  I had big plans to take it easy for the rest of the summer, but after the first week of taking it easy, I began to wonder if there wasn’t more to life than this.

  “What’s the city like?” I then asked Ms Asia at the breakfast table one day.

  She nearly spat out her coffee.

  “You haven’t been there?”

  I’d stayed cooped up in the manor this whole time, studying or training or experimenting. That was life as usual for me. You couldn’t leave military bases without permission either, and I wasn’t going to be given leave, even if I requested it in writing. We weren’t in the army anymore, but breaking routine was hard. Except for this person, who seemed to live solely to break the expected.

  “Alright. Today’s a shopping day then,” Ms Asia declared in a tone that didn’t allow arguments.

  Wasn’t that practically every day for her?

  I glanced at the ever-present maid. What did the CI have to say about that? But Charlotte only smiled back at me.

  “An excellent idea! I was about to propose it myself, Miss.”

  Guess it was settled then.

  Shopping was a strange frontier for me. Having been treated as government property rather than an employee, I never received any pay for my time in the RA, which made it difficult to go on a spending spree. I did occasionally come across ownerless currency in the war zones, which was usually soon spent on food, as we could never have enough of that, so I did understand the basics of capitalism.

  With Charlotte and our chauffeur Nicholas along, we left for a drive through the wide streets of the capital.

  The vast behemoth they called “city,” which I’d spent long weeks staring at from a distance, now close enough to touch. For a while, we only drifted in broad circles amid the disorienting maze of grand houses, checking out major landmarks and sites of significance. Buildings rose tall all about us wherever we went and cast their long shadows over the smooth-paved lanes, and people swarmed on the sidewalks like termites on their hill.

  It was a sight that defied common sense.

  Fragile structures assembled on top of one another in rebellion against gravity, dizzyingly high, unguarded and exposed. Take but one piece out of that daredevil puzzle, and the residences would come crashing down as easily as castles of sand on an ocean shore, burying the unsuspecting people in a tsunami of rubble.

  The architects had to have been aware of the many weaknesses of their own work, but chose to build them just like so, and the residents took them as they were. It was as if the buildings were assembled only to be cast down spectacularly, and the inhabitants entrusted their fate to blind chance without making an attempt to change it. But that sense of fatalism was also what gave Canelon its beauty and grace. A great, frail flower of thin walls, lofty marble pillars, and glass, so transient and easily lost. But it wouldn’t have had half the appeal, had it been any more securely laid.

  People worshipped power, but at the same time, there was something about weakness that wordlessly appealed to us and seemed to give strength meaning.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  I stopped trying to make sense of it and watched the facades flow by from the auto window, the jungle of houses continuing forever into the morning glow.

  Ms Asia took us to a cloth store selling the strangest garments imaginable. I'd grown thinking the best kind of clothes were those that were hard to stab through, and didn’t rip when grabbed, but the selection here represented the extreme opposite philosophy. They had nothing but parts to catch onto, and some of those outfits weren’t clearly even meant to be moved in.

  My aunt offered me one odd garb after another, trading opinions with the maid and the store clerk, and I felt like a test subject in a bizarre experiment to turn a person as a weird sort of bird that was hard on the eyes. Finally, after much negotiating, I accepted a decently simple, white and airy cotton dress with lantern sleeves that covered my arms and the rings and was easy to move in. I was made to wear that for the rest of our itinerary. The dress was snug on the waist, drew attention to the bust unnecessarily, and felt like walking in public in your nightwear. But at least it was cool and breezy, and a fit choice for a hot day.

  Time flew by in this fashion show, so we left looking for lunch.

  The sun glaring down on us from a spotless sky, none of us had much appetite, so we sought a modest and tactfully furnished streetside cafe. They had small, round tables and chairs of matching style set out on the promenade under wide parasols, at which we could sit sheltered from the blaze and still feel a wind of sorts. A waitress dressed in a short-sleeved black smock with an extra short skirt and a laced white apron soon came out to receive us.

  “Welcome…” the waitress mumbled, drawing furtively close to the table. “Would you like to see the menu…?”

  Instead of handing out the stack of menu boards in her hands, the waitress used them to cover her face. Why? Even if the goal was to escape notice, her unnatural behavior drew only more attention. I thought her voice had a familiar timbre. Leaning back in my seat, I could spy short, pale locks past the list of drinks too.

  That was quite enough clues, even without a mana emission analysis.

  “...Emily?”

  With a heavy sigh, the waitress let her arms drop and showed her dejected face to us.

  “Yes. Emily here…”

  “Oh, what a surprise,” Ms Asia remarked. “What brings Master Magician to a place like this?”

  “Well, you know, haha!” The girl put on a flagrantly forced smile, avoiding eye contact with us. “I thought I should see life some more before the academy, so I got myself a part-time job at this very elegant establishment that happened to be hiring…Broaden my horizons! Ha, ha, haa!”

  “My, what an admirable attitude you have. Might want to take a page out of her book, Hope.”

  Why would I?

  When someone made you look bad by acting too good, the obvious counter move was to knock that person down a peg.

  So I turned to Emily with an innocent smile copied from Charlotte, and asked,

  “If the reason truly was so admirable, how come you were trying to hide just now? It's almost as if you had some other, less dignified motivations that you don’t want us to know about?”

  “Geh—!” Emily went stiff at the question, and a lively redness quickly rose to her face. “W-whatever are you insinuating, dear customer…?”

  “Nothing at all. But don't you want to go back home? There are still almost two months left until the start of the term. Your home was in Brume, yes? It may be a bit far, but you’d still have at least a couple of weeks to spend with your relatives and friends whom you might not see again before next summer. Don’t you want to be there with them when you get the good news? I'm sure they miss you terribly.”

  “Ugh…”

  “Or, could it be that you can’t? Now why would that be? You got all the way here to Canelon too, so you're a seasoned traveler already and know the way! Ah, I suppose the trip is a little too long to go on foot. So you’d want to rent a horse, or at least get a ride aboard an omnibus. Unless, with the increase in ticket prices in the recent years…”

  “—Yes, all right!” Emily finally snapped and threw her hands in the air, loudly yelling. “I'm dirt poor! I’m broke and can’t afford to go home! I wasted my travel funds, and had to find a job! Is that what you want me to say!? Why else would I have this ridiculous job, wearing this ridiculous outfit in summer heat!? When I’m supposed to be a Royal Academy student and a magician! Though I don't even know if I got in yet! But the pay is so crap, I can’t save enough for a bus ticket, so I’m stuck! I have to work to afford a crappy room and take leftover scraps to not starve! Do you think I love this!? Do you think I have no pride!? It’s so embarrassing, I want to die!”

  After spilling it all, the girl stopped to catch her breath, slumping her shoulders.

  So that was the case. The academy dorms were only available to applicants for the duration of the exam, and where they stayed after that until the start of the term was everyone's personal problem.

  “But why?” asked Ms Asia, soon recovering from the surprise. “Didn't I say to let us know if there was anything you needed? If you couldn’t go home, you could’ve just come to us.”

  Emily quickly waved her hands, flustered.

  “No, no! I couldn’t possibly—It's fine! The young miss saved me already before the test too, when I made a fool of myself. I can't just keep bugging you guys all the time. That'd be too shameless...”

  “What's the big deal? You two are friends going to the same school. Isn't that much only natural?”

  Friends?

  Were we?

  I glanced up at Emily at the same time as she looked back at me, appearing equally surprised by the concept. I'd known a lot of comrades and mentors and superiors and subordinates and people who were as close to me as brothers and sisters, but normal friends? I wasn’t so sure I even knew what the word meant.

  Emily soon dodged my look with a bashful, wry laugh and scratched her head.

  “Ahaha, I'm very flattered by the offer, but I doubt Hope thinks—”

  “Yes, that’s right,” I interjected. “I'm sad—no, mortified that you wouldn't say anything to me, your friend.”

  “Huh? But—”

  “Mortified!”

  “Uhh, sorry?”

  “Well, let's fix that now, shall we?” Ms Asia proposed. “I'm sure you'd rather spend your time training and preparing for school instead of beating the register in this heat. You can tell your boss you're quitting after today’s shift, and move in with us.”

  Emily’s eyes went wide.

  “Huh? Hold on, I can’t just—”

  “Charlotte, will you take Ms Troyard’s current address and go pick up her belongings later today with Nicholas? If her landlord wants severance money, tell them to bill me.”

  “Very well, milady.”

  “Wait! Wait just a—” Emily struggled to get a word in. “Is that really fine? Me going into the house of another magician and…”

  “Oh, we're not a mage clan or anything,” Ms Asia told her. “Hope’s the only witch in our family. You don't need to worry about that.”

  “She’s…?”

  “You'll still take our orders now, won't you? Can I have the menu?”

  “Aa, sure. Please take your time…”

  Emily obediently handed over the menus, the conversation having passed her by like a freight train, decisions all made for her.

  “Better give up,” I advised the girl. “The Ruthford house is one of the three Swords of the Kingdom. That's not because they're very good at listening.”

  “It’s your family we're talking about, right…?”