“Mm. Next… we should head—”

Adelaide lay draped over Mira’s back, eyes closed like a cat tasting rain, sensing the stone and water around them. After a breath, she pointed at one fork. Mira stepped that way without a word, quiet as a shadow on wet rock.

After that short rest, they followed the plan. Find the underground river. Adelaide led like a compass needle; Mira moved like a steady tide, obeying each tiny turn.

Watching Mira listen so well, Adelaide’s lips curled into a pale smile, thin as moonlight on a blade.

“I miss this… When you were little, you kept getting lost in the back garden. We used to hunt for the way out just like this.”

The Douglas Family kept a hedge maze out back, a living map of green walls and narrow turns. When Mira was first adopted, she wouldn’t speak to servants, so she hid among leaves and quiet paths. At nine, she was smaller than the trimmed hedges, a stray breeze swallowed by tall green.

Worst time, she stayed lost for hours, past dinner bells and fading sun. Adelaide found her curled in a shadowed corner, a tiny face ruined by tears, clothes smeared from failed climbs over thornless walls.

Back then, she looked like a little black cat abandoned in a rain barrel.

“You’d only walk if I held your hand,” Adelaide murmured, voice a warm shawl.

“I told you, I don’t remember.”

“But I do,” Adelaide breathed against her shoulder, soft as a lullaby. “I always will.”

Maybe it was fatigue, or the words struck like pebbles on still water. Mira’s breathing hitched, a tremor threading the calm.

Good. The air itself felt warm and close—ripe for mending. Adelaide could almost taste victory, like plum wine on the tongue. Give it time. She’d coax Mira back within reach.

But luck cut the thread. They found the right mouth of the river soon after, a black throat swallowing light. They pushed upstream, backs bowed against the current, like wading through a herd of iron-flecked beasts.

With water roaring and the spray tasting of rust and old blood, there was no room for soft words. Open your mouth and the river filled it; conversation drowned under the weight.

Still, that was fine. This forced half-solitude had cracked the shell. All she needed now was patience, a needle and thread.

A little goodwill here, a little warmth there, until Mira slipped into her palm again like last time… heh. Then she’d have another card to play, tucked up her sleeve like a silk fan.

“We’re here.”

Mira’s voice pulled Adelaide from her daydreams. She looked up. Far overhead, a pinprick of light glittered like a star. That was where they’d fallen.

“You said you had a plan,” Mira said, jade-green eyes steady as deep water. “Say it now. My earth magic can’t lift us that high. There’s no rock face to climb.”

She was right. The hole was a mouth in the sky, but the distance was a cliff made of despair.

Even the strongest earth mage in the world couldn’t bridge that gulf. Adelaide only shook her head, calm as a lantern flame.

“No need to overdo it. Just chant with me, Mira. A few lines will do.”

She slid off Mira’s back. Mira’s expression flickered, but Adelaide soothed her with a smile warm as tea steam.

“It’s okay. Your big sister won’t faint from a little stretch.”

To prove it, she flexed her aching limbs, then circled to face Mira and took her arms in both hands like a dance instructor arranging a partner.

“This is the first stance. Pair it with this line…”

She spoke as she guided Mira’s arms and waist, shaping odd poses like calligraphy strokes in the air. Mira didn’t resist, but her body moved stiffly, like old clay left in a cupboard, hard to mold.

Adelaide had to stop, again and again, to fix her posture, words pausing like birds between branches.

“No, this arm can’t bend. Point it straight at the sky—”

She looked up, and met Mira’s eyes.

Only four inches away, those jade irises filled her world, bright as lakes under spring wind.

She hadn’t realized how close they were. Focus had smothered the sense of distance. Posing her, she had drifted until their bodies almost touched.

A step closer and their chests would brush.

She sprang back like a shocked sparrow.

“A-anyway, that’s it. You can cast it like this!”

They’d been pressed closer when she rode Mira’s back, but face-to-face was a different battlefield. The heat was a live coal under her skin.

Adelaide couldn’t hold the gentle-big-sister mask with her face on fire. She turned away, gaze skittering like a startled fish.

And Mira? Adelaide peeked from the corner of her eye. Mira had already turned her back.

“yára amashite Aino, lúmë neldëa Tar-culu Isil— (O ancient gods of Amashite, O eternal third golden moon in the dark—)”

The chant rolled through the cave like a poem loosed on night air. Pale violet arcs jumped like grasshoppers, stitching themselves into a forming magic circle.

Adelaide couldn’t see Mira’s face now. She saw only a back line near-perfect as a drawn bow, and the flush on her nape and ears, red as pomegranate seeds.

She watched that back, and her eyes wouldn’t move, as if threaded.

Was the skin beneath Mira’s clothes blushing too, shy as dawn on snow?

“hundië úlanwa me hyanda — hundo hyanda! (Let the dazzling and boundless sky-thunder be my blade—Thunderblade!)”

Mana surged like a typhoon. Wind tore through the cavern, driving back the underground water and leaving a dry ring of stone. Overhead, the crack of sky went dark as storm-wool gathered in a heartbeat.

With a blast like a mountain splitting, white lightning speared down through the rent, struck the sword Mira held aloft, and did not fade.

It wasn’t ordinary lightning. The radiance clung, a skin of light wrapping the blade. It ran down the hilt and across Mira’s body like silk fire. Her golden hair danced in the storm, and the blush fled, leaving a war goddess standing in thunder.

Mira’s arm twitched. A white arc slashed the dark like a swan’s wing.

Another detonation. A distant stone pillar broke into two clean bones.

“...Where did you learn that spell?”

Mira turned. Suspicion rippled in her eyes like wind over jade.

“Found it in the library, by chance,” Adelaide said, face smooth as still water.

She wasn’t lying. She had learned it there.

In the script, the heroine would find a dust-covered book on a forgotten shelf. By accident, she’d pour magic into it, and hidden pages would bloom with lost ancient spells.

Once that plot beat triggered, the player could have the heroine learn a powerful spell every so often. A quiet gift from the writers to the lead.

Knowing that, Adelaide borrowed the book early. She made a hand-copy. She memorized every line like prayer beads.

Honestly, she hadn’t expected to use any of it. The book held no Blood Magic.

But now, those sleepless nights tasted sweet at last.

“Anyway, Mira, cast this every so often. The Academy will notice us fast.”

Mira’s eyes widened, understanding lighting like a lamp.

Adelaide didn’t want the Thunderblade’s bite. She wanted the sky-thunder the casting called down. They’d come back to this crack on purpose. It was their only known window to the sky.

Call thunder again and again, and someone would look up. That was their ticket out.

Sure enough, on the fourth strike, voices called from above, small as birds over a canyon.

Once they confirmed Adelaide and Mira were together, they let down rescue ropes like silver snakes.

The underground death-flag scare finally eased. Adelaide let out a breath she’d held like a stone. Then she saw Mira standing still, not tying in, not moving.

“Mira? We can leave now.”

Mira didn’t answer. She stared at Adelaide. Her gaze slid from head to toe, then stopped at Adelaide’s thighs.

Adelaide followed it down. The river trek had soaked her thigh-highs. Near the knees, the fabric had gone sheer, a blush of pink skin showing through like dawn behind mist.

Huh? Is she… worried about that?

No, that’s ridiculous. Right?

Just as Adelaide scolded herself for overthinking, Mira closed the space in two steps. She took off the coat she’d draped over Adelaide before.

“Eh?”

Mira crouched in front of her, hands slipping around Adelaide’s waist. She tied the sleeves behind her back, neat as a ribbon.

“All set. Let’s go.”

…

Adelaide looked at her “new skirt” and forgot what words were. She said nothing. She just followed, quiet as a shadow, and clipped into the rope with Mira.

After all the checks, Mira tugged the line in a steady rhythm. The rope answered.

Adelaide felt a tightness around her waist. Her feet left the ground. Weightlessness climbed her spine like cold fingers, and she shivered on instinct.

Fear of heights is etched in every wingless creature’s bones. She shut her eyes, refusing the sight of the floor falling away like a draining sea.

A few seconds later, warmth closed around her like a quilt.

She opened her eyes a sliver. She was cradled against Mira’s chest.

The rope kept rising. The fear melted, replaced by a heat that licked like a summer wind.

“Um… thank you…”

“Don’t get the wrong idea. It’s for safety.”

Adelaide rested in Mira’s arms and shook her head, a small, stubborn leaf in the current.

“Not just that… The skirt. Saving me from the Dreamfeast Spider. I still haven’t repaid you, Mira.”

“…”

Silence again. Adelaide braced for another cold wall. Instead, Mira leaned to her ear, breath warm as tea steam.

“If you really want to repay me… promise me one thing—”

Hearing that low, serious voice, Adelaide’s eyes flew wide, shock bright as lightning under her ribs.