The office wall clock ticked. Each strike of the second hand hammered against the nerves of the black-haired, brown-eyed woman. Her fingers, with clumsily chipped nail polish, gripped the handbag in her lap, the synthetic leather creasing under the pressure. She had been summoned to the directors’ office at her daughter’s school. Sooner or later it was bound to happen, she thought. Maybe a fight, an altercation.

  Chappi’s call to the flower shop where she worked had thrown her off balance. She hadn’t expected trouble this soon. She had prayed in her own way that her daughter would keep herself in check: that she would control her reactions, hide her outbursts. A bead of sweat slid down her temple; she bit her lower lip, rehearsing excuses—lies that might justify any conduct from Feralynn.

  The door opened, and Astera entered.

  “I’m sorry to have called you so soon,” she said, her heels striking firmly against the marble floor. “Miss Blackwood.”

  “Please, call me Darina. I’m just a florist.” She laughed nervously, unable to feel worthy of her surname before the imposing elf who sat across from her. “I imagine something… happened with Fer, didn’t it?”

  Astera exhaled through her nose, measuring her with that blend of judgment and disciplined patience.

  “I’m afraid so. We summoned your daughter to a private demonstration with a senior student meant to guide her.” She omitted the essence, burying the truth beneath a bureaucratic veil, as she had done many times before. “But she proved… somewhat unstable.”

  Darina gasped, covering her mouth with both hands.

  “Gods… please tell me her partner is alright.”

  Astera noted sharply: the first reaction wasn’t about her own daughter, but about the other. The nuance stung like a thorn.

  “They’re both fine. It was an accident during practice. Your daughter is recovering in the infirmary. But I must be frank: she is the one who concerns me.” She crossed her arms, leaning back into her chair; the faint squeak of the wheels amplified the silence. “Emotional outbursts in students are nothing new. But in her case… your daughter is a pyromantic prodigy. I believe you understand the urgency, right?”

  The florist pressed a hand to her chest, relieved for an instant.

  “Yes… she’s always been… special.”

  So special she nearly tore her partner apart with her fists, right after fighting at her side. Astera thought, arching a brow.

  From the shadow behind Darina, Smiley emerged, his form first a black blot that gained color as it materialized.

  “If I may,” he began, his playful tone only barely veiling the weight beneath. “We’d like to know more about her past.” A theatrical chuckle, as though he already knew the story. “Oh, don’t mistake us: your daughter is wonderful. Purely and simply… curiosity.”

  He opened his eyes, the hollows of them lit with a white pulse shaped like irises, fixing on her with suffocating intensity.

  Darina swallowed hard. The air thickened, as though those empty eyes could strip her soul bare.

  “Um… well…”

  “Smiley.” Astera cut him off, steel in her voice. “Stop frightening her.”

  “My apologies.” The puppet bent in a fluid bow, floating to the side like an actor surrendering the stage.

  The atmosphere turned judicial. Two figures—one marble, one animated wood—watched her without blinking. Darina felt fear creep up her spine: fear that they might expel her daughter, brand her dangerous, unacceptable. She couldn’t allow it. Not in a world where sending her to a blanks’ school meant condemning her to bullying, or worse: to inevitable crime.

  She had promised herself a fabricated story, repeated until it rang true: a widowed florist, a difficult daughter, but not the mother of a monster. Never the wife of a man whose history she never fully knew.

  She drew a deep breath.

  “Feralynn didn’t have a good relationship with her father,” she began, placing lies like fragile stepping-stones over truth. “We went through great hardships in Soleria, years ago.”

  Astera leaned forward. Smiley kept silent, though his hollow gaze seemed to savor the half-lie.

  “Since we lost him, we’ve lived in shelters. It wasn’t easy for her.” Her voice cracked; tears welled up. Smiley, in a surprisingly gentle gesture, sent her a floating silk handkerchief.

  “Thank you…” she whispered, wiping her face.

  “She’s had to hide all her life, even her power. She feared being recruited. I… I have no magic, and in our camp, every mage was forced to fight. I just wanted my daughter to be safe…”

  Astera frowned. Something didn’t fit. The surname, the blood. She knew.

  "Seriously? Do you really have to cry now? " She thought, her empathy being fogged by the sudden accident in which the school's reputation would have suffered severe consequences. "Did you charm Blake with those crocodile tears as well?" Come on..."

  Smiley tilted his head, the carved grin fixed, but his voice dropped an octave.

  “Curious. Because the reports we receive from Soleria say otherwise…” He spun a card between his thin fingers. “They say there’s no record at all of her father, nor of her. Nothing. All vanished. As if they never existed in the first place…including you, Miss.”

  Astera didn’t interrupt, only pierced the woman with her gaze, cutting.

  “Mrs. Blackwood,” she said calmly. “We are not speaking of a common citizen. We know with certainty that Feralynn’s father was wanted in several territories. That he had blood on his hands.”

  Smiley leaned closer, his voice a whisper from some macabre carnival.

  “A dangerous killer. A criminal in the world of magic.”

  Darina clutched her handbag tighter, her knuckles white. The plan of the widowed florist trembled beneath the weight of those words. Silence pressed down like lead. She swallowed, lowered her eyes.

  Smiley raised two fingers. The snap cracked like a whip in the room, and a white gleam spread in ripples from his knuckles. The air thickened, as if the office had been plunged underwater.

  Darina felt a strange chill on her tongue, in her throat. She tried to speak to deny, to say anything at all… but the words twisted into raw truth before escaping her lips.

  “Smiley!” Astera struck the table with an open palm, her eyes blazing with fury. “You have no right to cast that spell in a parent meeting!!!”

  “Dear Astie. This is no parent meeting. This is an interrogation. And we both know truth cannot wait for some tears.”

  The elf clenched her teeth, but didn’t stop him. They needed answers. Darina gasped for air, desperate. She couldn’t stop her tongue.

  “I… I didn’t know everything! Blake never told me!… Always lied, always… withheld. He said…he said the present was all that mattered, that all he cared about was being with me and her!”

  Astera stiffened instantly. The name was a knife twisting inside her every time she heard it.

  Smiley let out a dry chuckle.

  “Ahh… our old star pupil. Your rival. My failed protégé.” He laughed softly, his voice dropping into a dark, grave tone. “A headache.”

  Darina, sobbing, continued as though shoved downhill.

  “When the war began… a bombing separated us. I was trapped among the refugees. Fer… Fer grew up with him. Not with me!”

  Astera felt the blood drain from her face. The wall clock beat louder.

  “She… grew up with Blake?” she asked, her voice barely audible.

  “Yes…” Darina sobbed. “He taught her to survive. To kill. To hunt people in the snows of Soleria. They spent years alone. Fer learned from him… what it means to stay alive in a dead country.”

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  Smiley leaned closer, fascinated.

  “Oh, little crow… of course. I knew it the moment I saw those red eyes. I recognize a killer when I see one…”

  Astera clenched her fists on the table. She remembered old duels at the academy, the boundless, ravenous ambition of that young man, the way shadows seemed to drink from his fire. She remembered his laughter as he destroyed opponents, his ferocity without mercy.

  Darina, unable to stop, stammered:

  “I don’t know what atrocities he committed before… he never told me. I couldn’t even find his body when he died… All I know is that when Fer came back to me… she wasn’t a child anymore. She wasn’t… innocent.”

  Tears stained the silk handkerchief. Smiley watched, thoughtful, his mask carved in that eternal grin, silent. Astera, meanwhile, leaned forward, her voice a blade-sharp whisper:

  “What else did she tell you about him? What did he order her to do?”

  Darina shook her head, prisoner of the spell.

  “Nothing, nothing! I never dared ask her everything. Every time I brought it up she denied it or shut me out. I… I didn’t want to insist! I feared… I feared losing her again…”

  An icy silence spread. Astera closed her eyes, fighting the nausea of memory. Smiley toyed with a deck of cards in his hands, humming darkly to himself.

  A thin golden thread rose like a serpent toward the woman, burrowing into her head. Darina froze as the thread began to glow. Astera didn’t bother shouting at him or ordering her companion to stop. She watched from the corner of her eye, worried.

  It was unusual. Astera had never seen him so unrestrained. He had never laid a single thread on a parent, much less on teachers—or even two students lying in the infirmary. She chose silence, watching as he erased the woman’s memory with every passing second.

  By the time the thread disconnected from the back of her neck, Smiley clapped once to wake her. The woman touched her head, a little dizzy, her vision still blurred.

  “Thank you for your visit, Miss Blackwood!” the puppet exclaimed in a polite, cheerful tone, arms spread wide. “There’s nothing for you to worry about with your daughter—we’ll take care of guiding her. Professor Romina herself volunteered to be her personal tutor at the school, to help with those little emotional flare-ups. She’s the best qualified person for the job!”

  “Oh…” Darina blinked several times, blocks of false memories stacking neatly in place. She didn’t understand why her eyes were wet. She wiped them, blaming the weather or some allergic reaction. “Thank you so much! And, um… I apologize if she can be a bit troublesome. She has a difficult temper.” She laughed, genuinely carefree now, as though she had completely forgotten she had been sobbing only seconds ago. “She got it from her father.”

  “Children, right?” Smiley let out a charismatic laugh. “We must be patient and guide them on the right path! Isn’t that so, Astie?”

  The elf massaged her forehead with two fingers, feeling complicit in ten memory wipes in less than a week.

  “Yes…” She coughed, clearing her throat. “Yes. We’ll schedule private practices with her to help manage her emotions. Don’t worry, at no cost to you. We’ll contact you if anything comes up.”

  Darina didn’t know how to thank them; she repeated “thank you” over and over, as if she’d just been given the most wonderful news of her life. The moment the door closed, Smiley raised his arms in mock surrender.

  “I know, I know… don’t get so mad, don’t throw another knife at me.”

  Astera’s sharp glare was enough. She rose to look out the window, her displeasure clear without raising her voice.

  “What about the two of them?” she asked, without looking at him.

  “Let’s see…” Smiley conjured a notepad and quill, then perched a pair of ridiculous tiny glasses on his mask. His tone mimicked that of an accountant rattling off losses and gains.

  “Heal our little ice princess? Checked. Heal and wipe the memory of our little assassin? Checked. Teachers’ memories? Checked.” He ticked off each item on the list. “Only one thing left, but I want your permission first.”

  Astera lifted her shoulders.

  “Huh. Strange, considering you’ve done everything else without asking.”

  Her sarcasm came out dry. She was angry, yes, but also powerless. Not just because she couldn’t alter minds like he could, but because she still hadn’t found the strength to look at the girl without feeling a knot in her stomach.

  Smiley removed his hat and let himself drift down. His wooden feet touched the ground softly, as soft as his voice.

  “My apologies, dear Astie. I want to believe you understand my reasons for being so… aggressive in my recent choices.”

  Astera lowered her gaze. Rain against the glass pricked at her conscience like needles. Never before had she wanted so badly to ask Smiley to wipe her own memories.

  “I don’t want it all to repeat…” she confessed, barely audible.

  “It won’t happen again.”

  Astera whirled, fury cutting through her patience.

  “WHY ARE YOU SO SURE?! DO YOU THINK PLAYING WITH PEOPLE’S MINDS WILL CHANGE ANYTHING?!”

  Smiley didn’t reply with jokes. Still, hat in hand, he held his silence. For him, the memory of that old classmate—the prodigy they had both lost—remained forbidden ground. The incident. The reports. The charred bodies of old friends.

  “I TOLD YOU, DIDN'T I?! I TOLD YOU WE SHOULD HAVE EXPELLED HER THE MOMENT WE KNEW SHE WAS HERE!”

  He did not like that idea in the slightest.

  “Expel her? You’ve seen what she can do. Do you honestly think any other school would have been able to contain her?”

  The question stole Astera’s breath. She swallowed her words. The only reason Miria Frostweaver was still alive was because they had intervened in time. Thinking of what might have happened at another academy—or worse, a blanks’ school—forced her to look away.

  She sighed in defeat.

  “She’s just like him,” she said with resignation. “Sarcastic, impulsive, malicious…”

  “No. She isn’t. Not at all,” the former professor shot back.

  “And what makes you think that?”

  Smiley set his hat back on, holding its fine brim with two fingers.

  “She has a mother who loves her. Blake never had that, and you know it. Better than anyone else.”

  Silence fell heavy, broken only by the patter of rain. Astera wiped away tears that slipped past her iron discipline.

  “What was it you wanted permission to do?” she finally asked, her voice raw.

  Smiley clasped his hands behind his back.

  “Cain’s Seal.”

  Astera’s eyes widened; she gasped in shock.

  “No. No. Absolutely not—”

  “Astera,” he cut her off, deadly serious. “It’s our only option.” He sighed, feeling weary. “Do you think I enjoy putting an arcane contingency seal, reserved for criminals, on a child? I never could put it on Blake. But she’s different. She doesn’t want to hurt anyone. You’ve seen her with her orange-haired friend… she’s wounded, she needs our help.”

  He paused.

  “I ask you not as a teacher, nor as a colleague. I ask you as a friend.”

  Astera rubbed her eyes hard, then covered her mouth. Every decision felt like a chess move where one mistake meant lives lost.

  “Fine…” she breathed out, as though invisible chains had dropped onto her neck. Relief came with a heaviness. “You have my permission.”

  Smiley straightened like a soldier, his voice snapping back into shrill cheer.

  “Yes, my general! Mission: Seal the demon girl approved!”

  Astera couldn’t help a grimace, almost a smile. Her companion always found ways to blunt the weight with absurdity.

  “Maybe you’re right… That seal only activates with extreme levels of rage in parole-bound mages.”

  Smiley nodded, delighted.

  “Exactly! She’ll keep sparking in class, but if she loses control… bzzt! No mana. Nobody gets hurt! Well, except her pride. But that’s better than filling morgue bags!”

  Silence settled. Decision made. Romina would handle therapy and anger management; the seal would protect everyone. Astera collapsed into her chair, exhausted, while Smiley watched her with a mischievous grin.

  “So then… what do you think of her?”

  “What? Who are you talking about?”

  “You know, it’s the first time I’ve ever seen you so tense in front of a mother. And you’ve reduced plenty of fussy fathers to dust with a single word.”

  A faint blush colored Astera’s face. She shuffled papers to hide it.

  “I don’t know what you’re trying to imply.”

  “Oh, come on! I could smell those jealous sparks,” he sing-songed, pulling glittering flowers from his coat as he spun on his toes.

  “I’m not jealous, Smiley.”

  The reply was sharper than usual. Her practiced hands arranged folders with a nervous tch.

  “I can’t believe he really went after some… some…”

  “Say it!” Smiley teased. “Nobody’s listening.”

  “Some damned human villager.” She covered her face, red. “Did you see the records?! She’s thirty-six, her daughter sixteen!”

  Smiley stroked his chin theatrically.

  “Hmm… seems Blake preferred them a bit… younger.”

  BAM.

  Astera slammed the desk.

  “HE WENT AFTER A TWENTY-YEAR-OLD BLANK HUMAN?!”

  Smiley rolled on the floor in laughter.

  “Of course! Because an elf his age, a prodigy, top of the class, daughter of a judge and an engineer… was too much for his fragile ego, wasn’t it?!”

  She growled, hearing Blake’s laughter echo in her mind.

  “Men…” she spat. “Human men.”

  Smiley still roared with laughter. She shot him a look of disdain.

  “If you’re finished, you’re forgetting something important.”

  Wiping tears of mirth, Smiley drew a long breath.

  “Yes… the disappearances.” He snapped his fingers and produced his personal notebook, plastered with cat stickers. “Soon the security drakes will arrive. The stone knights are already sharpening blades. I’ll top up Chappi and Choppi’s mana reserves. And discreet meetings with the ministry… ugh, those old geezers drag me back to the grave.”

  Astera nodded, solemn. She saw he was about to leave.

  “What did you see in the girl’s mind?”

  Smiley stopped dead, turned on his heel.

  “…Fire. So much fire and pain.” A chill ran through Astera. “And a serious crush on her little baker friend! Gosh! Her mind is a complete mess because of it! Ah, what is to be young and in love…”

  He snapped his fingers and vanished in a cloud of glitter and paper hearts.

  Astera was alone. At last.

  “Yes… love…” she echoed.

  She pulled from the drawer a scorched photograph of five young cadets in academy armor, smiling for the camera. All but one. All but Blake.

  “When I thought you were finally gone from my life… you leave me your daughter to guard.” She laughed softly—sad, and nostalgic. “Heh, good thing I never married you.”

  …

  …

  …

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