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The dormitory common room was relaxed, for a Saturday morning. Students discussed the undead with more favor than they paid their projects, although the anxiety around such a topic had lessened some in recent days.
Light streamed in through the common room’s generously sized stained glass. All was quiet, until a clatter broke the silence.
Alia Sunmender, the latest transfer student, was… strange, to the student body. Her features were dim, her ears rounded, her eyes lacking shine— fingernails too dull, not to mention how boring their hair was.
“I look like a clown!” She yelled out as she almost crashed into the space, sliding on the hardwood.
“Yes, you do.” Someone replied without looking.
Suzie was the first to look up. Alia’s slightly oversized robes snagged on the coffee table as they rushed towards her, and she winced when she almost tripped.
She straightened, adjusting a cushion as she glanced at her.
Alia’s hair was still duller than earth, but at the roots, a bright cyan had begun to emerge, just noticeable enough to be startling. Her right eye, too, had fallen into a pale crystalline-lavender, almost silver. Wordlessly, she tugged at her ponytail, letting out a distressed squeak in Suzie’s direction.
“Oh!” Suzie exclaimed, trying to sound neutral.
Alia blinked back, either ready to scream, or perhaps just cry. Suzie smiled nervously.
Finally, she deflated, dropping her arms to her side before bursting with energy again, tugging at the ends of her hair once more. “What is this?! What do I do?! My hair’s turning bright blue!”
“You look… nice?”
“Nice?! Nice?! I’m a Diviner and my hair is turning bright blue!”
“Cyan, actually.”
“Am I dying?” Alia suddenly asked, freezing mid-tug. “Should I tell the headmaster?! Should I tell the headmaster I can’t do hero stuff anymore because I’m turning into a really really bad—“
Suzie stood, and grasped Alia’s wrist before she could rush off in a panic.
“You’re not dying. Calm down and stop yelling, please?”
“If I’m not dying—“ Alia paused, trying to catch their breath. “Then what is wrong?”
The other students in the common area were either used to these sorts of displays by now, or they were politely pretending not to notice. Suzie exhaled slowly.
“Well, I… don’t know. But your hair is turning a much more normal color. Wendy has a similarly striking purple. I’m sure…“
“You could shave it.” Duncan, who had apparently been watching the whole time, suggested, walking into the room with an energy potion he perhaps shouldn’t have been drinking at fifteen. Suzie considered throwing her textbook at him.
“Don’t do that.” She said, sweetly.
Alia shook her head. “I really don’t want to do that.”
“You should totally do that.”
“Alia, don’t.”
“I’m not going to!” She shouted. Duncan snorted.
“…Maybe go talk to the Headmaster after all?” Suzie suggested. “But I can take a good guess that this is just mana doing its job! It’s not like it’s unusual…”
She paused, then shrugged in a way that suggested conceding. “Well, okay, it sprouting up like this is a little unusual.”
“I should have a word with mana about color coordination…”
Duncan scoffed. “Headmaster Ambrose will give you a fable and say it’s an answer, or tell you you are the answer. You’d have better luck getting real answers out of Ceren.”
Alia nodded. Suzie stood.
“I wasn’t being serious, I don’t think—“ Duncan started, but it was too late. He groaned and followed them outside.
They found him meditating under the gazebo in Unicorn Park. Alia hesitated to break his concentration. Suzie began to say something, but Duncan…
Well, he threw a small skull at him.
Ceren did not jolt. In fact, a single flower bloomed to stop it before it even entered the gazebo. The flower retreated the moment the little skull dissolved.
He stood, smoothing his robes and stepping down onto the grass.
“Sorry.” Suzie apologized, putting her hand on Alia’s shoulder enthusiastically. “We have a situation!”
With a nod that said just about everything, he glanced down, and, in the same almost-neutral, almost-surprised tone that Suzie had taken earlier, he gasped.
“Oh! Alia, that’s different!”
“Duncan said I’m dying.” Alia responded, too chipper.
“No I didn’t!”
“This is quite the opposite of a sign of death…” Ceren said, leaning down slightly to inspect the top of Alia’s head. “I can tell you with full confidence this isn’t dangerous at all.”
“You’ve only completed like, second tier physical theurgy, fairyboy. You’re not anywhere close to being a doctor.” Duncan interjected.
“Please.” He whispered, barely replying to Duncan.
Suzie turned sharply and punched Duncan in the arm, not hard. Ceren briefly closed his eyes and ignored it.
“You won’t have to wait for your hair to grow for it to change hue all the way.” He continued. “Your roots have changed first, but there’s simply too much of it already shifted for you to have only just now noticed. It most likely happened overnight.”
Alia nodded seriously.
“As for your eye…” Ceren muttered, leaning down slightly to get a better look at it. “Turn your head left?”
She did so.
“Right?”
Again, she moved her head.
“Hm. That’s weird.”
“Eh?”
“Look directly at me again?”
She looked back, slower this time. Ceren raised a finger and very carefully tapped it to Alia’s nose. She sputtered. He chuckled.
“Your eyes… shine strangely. Or, rather, they don’t at all. I’d noticed it before, but.. it’s noticeable now that your right eye has lightened.”
He stood straight once more, adjusting his hood. “The good news is that you’re most certainly on the mend.”
“The mend from what?” Duncan muttered, slowly.
“…You know, Duncan.”
“I know the Book of Secrets created a huge lightning storm when she touched it—“ He started, before snapping his head to look at Alia. “You said you were from like, outside existence or whatever, but… what, did you hurt yourself?”
Alia didn’t respond, not for too long.
“I just got tired.” She finally whispered.
“But, um—“ She started, voice brightening. “If my hair is changing and stuff, does that mean I get the other stuff too?!”
Ceren blinked. “Ah?”
“Like the—“
Alia paused, holding her hand up to his face. He blinked again, grabbing and inspecting it on instinct.
“Like the nails!” She declared.
“Yours and Suzie’s and everyone's are super tough and kinda sharp looking— oh, oh, and so are your teeth! They’re like fangs! When does that start?! And your ears, they’re pointy! I wanna be sharp too!”
Slowly, Ceren lowered her hand down. “Well, ah, I suppose there’s no real… precedent. But we can assume that those things… aren’t tied to how much mana one has within them. In fact, I’ve never… I cannot say I’ve seen ears like yours, Alia.”
Alia took her hand back, cautiously moving it towards her head to brush her hair over her ears.
Suzie stepped a little closer.
“Well, you didn’t say never, did you, Ceren?”
“I did not say never, no.”
Duncan stepped back, a hand suspiciously trailing near his mouth. “…She really thinks they look that neat…?”
“Would it— would it make a difference if I say my mama—“ Alia’s voice caught, and she dug her heel into the grass. “My mom was from here?”
“Oh?” Ceren hummed, curious.
“How’d you… come to that idea, Alia?” Suzie asked.
“Nightchant, Gryphonbane, Grimwater, Ashthorn, Pixiecrown… Sunmender.”
Duncan stared. “Yes? People have surnames.”
Alia shook her head. “No! I mean, yeah, but— on Earth, it was like— Smith and Williams and Johnson and Davis and stuff. Dad never talked about his family. He said Sunmender came from mom.”
“They used to…” She trailed off, head dropping low. “Make fun of her. My neighbor used to say she was one of those ‘girls who think stars can talk’. One time I did a presentation on people I looked up to, and I got all the stuff about her I could find, and— Jackson never stopped picking on me. I mean, he picked on me for other stuff too—“
“Picked on you?” Duncan asked, halfway to not wanting an answer. “Like, what, he kept choosing you for something?”
“No, picking on is— like what you do, but he means it and he wanted me to cry.”
It would take him a moment to recover from that. Suzie was too concerned to be smug at his folly.
“I did overhear Professor Wu in the infirmary when you arrived.” Ceren said. “She said she was looking for traces of your surname. I have not heard anything since, but… I wouldn’t lose heart. They could be closer than you realize.”
“Dad’s back home.” Alia whispered. “I don’t know what I’ll do when I have to go home.”
From seemingly nowhere, Duncan sneered. “What?”
She paused, turning towards him.
“No, seriously.” His voice was somehow sarcastic and far too weighted for who he was. “Say that again. Please.”
“I don’t… know what I’ll do when I have to go home?”
“Who said you had to go home?” He continued, nearly cutting her off.
“No one, but—“ Alia tried.
“Okay, tell me this, Ambrose’s favorite—“ He took a breath, too fast, too confident. “How did you get here?”
“I told you, there was a portal.”
“Where?”
“In… in the woods, I was walking to school, it’s kind of a long walk— what are you trying to say?!”
“I’m saying you ran into the forest and jumped into a portal.” He said, matter of fact and cold. “You, who supposedly came from a world that, against all known logic, exists without magic. You ran. You ran through something you’d never seen before.”
Alia didn’t move, and Suzie started to step in front of her.
“You ran away from home.” Duncan scowled, voice lower and no less softer.
Ceren started to say something, but it dissolved before he could even open his mouth.
“Do you truly believe your father is looking for you?”
Suzie took a sharp breath and glared at Duncan with something between disbelief and understanding.
“Not that he can find you, of course. No mana would mean that there is no way to trace the portal, not that it would matter, since nobody there knows what magic is.”
Alia didn’t react. She wasn’t sure she could. Somehow, she replied anyway.
“In the stories, they always… your parents always call and you find the tunnel back, or the nice witch sends you home, or…”
She trailed off. He only shrugged.
“I’m almost certain this isn’t a story. So, I suppose you’re stranded here. Oh well.”
“I think that’s enough.” Suzie muttered. Duncan gestured with a hand, halfway admitting.
“I’m just being frank, really, I don’t— I apologize, all right? But you’ve already run. Sure, I suppose you would feel guilty, but it wasn’t… your fault. Did you know what a portal was? Did you know it would do that?”
“I—“
“No, you didn’t, because you’re an Earthling or whatever-have-you. Yes, you ran, clearly, but you didn’t expect to arrive here.”
Alia’s gaze fell.
“Duncan.” Suzie took a breath. “That was… too far.”
“No, no—“ Alia blurted out, shaking her head.
Ceren froze, watching her hair tousle. It seemed bluer than it had when he first looked at it.
“It’s okay.” She said, voice somehow lighter. “I ran and I made a mistake and I can’t go home. He’s right. But Professor Balestrom says I’m smart. So…”
“So it’s not like you won’t be successful.” Duncan nodded. “See? You’re learning already. You might be a halfway competent wizard someday. Maybe even as good as Suzie.”
Suzie sputtered. “Was that a compliment?”
“I don’t know. Think about it. Are we going to do something with our Saturday, or not?”
Ceren smiled apprehensively. He wasn’t quite sure if he’d truly helped.
“If you have any more questions, I’m always willing to—“
“Yeah, yeah!” Duncan was already walking away. Alia followed. Suzie gave Ceren a proper nod of gratitude.
“Suzie, have you shown Alia the thing you can do with the clouds? The shapes or whatever?”
“I’m not very good at it…”
“I wanna see, I wanna see!”
The commons smelled like fairegrounds kettle corn and sunset humidity.
Suzie watched the pond, her chin propped up on her knees. The tree against her back rustled with afternoon wind. Beside her, Alia shifted faintly, burying her face into the grass. She’d stopped thinking about Earth entirely— Suzie didn’t blame her. She truthfully couldn’t wrap her head around the concept herself.
Her eyes drifted towards Duncan. He was standing on one of Rainbow Bridge’s walls, staring at the sky. Daylight purple had faded into evening red by now.
Somewhere further down the cobbled streets, she heard Nolan talking louder than usual, most likely to a new student. She didn’t catch all the words, but she heard Professor Cyrus’s name and conviction. They always butted heads, but at the very least they both still trusted the people who kept the city safe.
The lights from inside the Headmaster’s office turned on. The professors used to stop working at sundown.
Slowly, she let out a sigh, and her gaze trailed towards the sky. She’d gotten better at sneaking around the undead. Unicorn Way, at least, had remained secure. She knew Professor Balestrom was looking for a more proactive solution.
A thought scared her.
What would they do if Malistaire came back to the city? Not to cause more chaos, not to rip away another school from the circle, but something more impossible—
To apologize.
Alia had said that every story ended in the hero going home. That wasn’t so in the Spiral, to her. She’d never heard of a story so certain in that way.
Every story she had heard ended with something brighter. Villains who apologized might be scolded, but never exiled. The lost hero might have strayed too far, but not without finding a golden path. Transformations did not end if your legs still wobbled. Unicorns may go unrescued for a long time, but not forever. A will-o-wisp only deceived to tease you, and happy endings did not come in the middle of the story.
That did not mean that the middle of the story was something to be afraid of.
So maybe, Suzie hoped— and dare she did, since there wasn’t much else worth doing— maybe he would apologize.
But if not, there would be other things. Someone could arrive in a bright outfit with a too-friendly voice. Or maybe a great light would simply come from the sky and power their spells tenfold.
Any manner of anything had been able to happen since she was a little girl. Malistaire’s power was great and terrible, but so was the fable of the Everwinter.
And the Lady Nightstar had blessed Grizzleheim for a reason.