Elsa arrived at Lilith’s dorm right on the dot, the corridor still as a strip of moonlit water.

When the elf knocked, Lilith had just stepped from the bath, steam curling like mist, a heating crystal chasing the wet from her white waterfall of hair.

“Coming!” The Little White Dragon padded over in her pajamas, pitter-patter like raindrops. She rose on tiptoe, peeked out, saw it was Elsa, opened up, and beckoned her in.

“Good evening, Miss Lilith. Am I too early?” Elsa lingered at the threshold. She hadn’t meant to catch Lilith fresh from the bath, skin dewy like a pastry just out of the oven, heat still rolling off her. Polite as moonlight, she declined with a smile. “I’ll wait out here. Once you’re ready, I’ll take you to the observatory.”

A pinch of embarrassment pricked first; then Lilith looked back at her cramped room. Nowhere to change without being seen. She swallowed the awkwardness and let Elsa wait in the hall. “Uh—okay. I’ll be quick.”

Heart beating fast, the Little White Dragon darted to the wardrobe and snatched up clothes like a sparrow collecting twigs.

Elsa didn’t wait long. Lilith came out dressed, hair dried and tumbling to her waist like a pale river, steps quick and a touch flustered.

She wrapped herself in her Holy Cloak. Blue and white, it flowed over her small frame like a hush of snow, hiding whatever lay beneath. Elsa didn’t care what she wore; this White Dragon was already delightful to the eye, a spring of sweetness at dusk.

“Teacher’s waiting at the observatory. I’ll take you now.” Elsa moved ahead, and Lilith followed like a leaf chasing the wind.

Regret brushed first; then Lilith spoke. “Sorry. I lost a little time.” The bath had been bliss, warm water hugging her like a cloud. By the time she reached for her hair, Elsa was already at the door.

“It’s fine. Night hasn’t fallen yet. He probably just set out.” Elsa’s voice was a soft lamp. “He always calls people half an hour early. If you arrive on time, you wait on an empty platform for thirty minutes, and then he strolls in.”

Lilith nodded and quickened her tiny steps, the Little White Dragon hurrying like a bead of dew rolling down a leaf. She didn’t want to be late.

They made it on time after all.

The observatory stood not far from her dorm—about twenty minutes at her pace. At the threshold, Elsa waved goodbye, and left the Little White Dragon to go in alone.

For the first time in a while, Lilith picked up her Astrolabe. The marble staff was cool as river stone in her arms. She knocked on the closed stone door.

“Enter.” Mr. Joseph’s voice sounded from behind the slab, dry as old paper.

“Good evening, Mr. Joseph.” A curl of nerves rose first; then the Little White Dragon stepped in and bowed to the elven scholar.

“Good evening, Miss Lilith.” He was holding a thick book. The title, carved in Old Draconic, caught her eye. She knew that book; it was a textbook from the Dragon Territory.

“It feels a bit too shallow for you,” she said, honest as starlight.

“Of course it is,” he smiled, setting it aside. “But I wanted to see how you began to know the Star Canvas. If we agree on the ground floor, we can build the rest.”

“You’re right.” She exhaled and nodded. The field was split like a river into many channels. Without a shared bedrock, words slipped past each other.

“Then start your stargazing. Ask me anything.” He led her to a half-open platform with a colossal telescope she’d never seen before.

“So beautiful.” Wonder bloomed first; then she stood staring. Asterios had insisted on one’s own power. For her initiation, he’d given her a small monocular for a while, then had her layer Star Energy on her eyes to see. This was her first time facing such a refined, beautiful instrument.

The telescope stood taller than a person, its main barrel bigger than Lilith herself. An aquamarine lens burned like frozen sea, flecks of Star Energy glinting within—old starlight poured in over time, sleeping there like embers.

The Little White Dragon braced on the bronze frame and climbed onto a leather stool. She fiddled with the seat until her short legs could reach the pedals that commanded the great body.

On her left sat a lever and a stick. She pulled the lever. A small tray popped out on her right with a springy click.

“That’s for your star charts,” Mr. Joseph reminded her, voice a quiet bell.

Lilith nodded and laid out the charts she’d drawn in the past.

She pushed the joystick. The huge telescope swung its barrel like a slow whale turning. She aimed at the ink of night and pressed her eye to the eyepiece.

Blackness filled her view at first, like a shuttered well. She didn’t rush. Patient as a monk, she eased the stick and tapped the pedals, focus breathing in and out.

Soon the Little White Dragon caught a thread of white starlight—a lone star, bright as a pin. It flared with cross-shaped rays, sharp in the dark. But it formed no constellation and belonged to no true pattern of the Star Canvas. It was a mask the Star Canvas wore to hide its face.

Even so, she remembered it. A decoy to most, but a milestone to her.

“From that cross-star, up to the left—the first star you can see…” She swung the barrel and settled on a point of blue, cold and clear.

The Void Command Seat. The constellation that resonated with her bones.

Only, tonight, something felt off.

In the past, it took the shape of a feather—the same as the mark on her lower belly. It was the eyelash of the Star Canvas, the fringe of that colossal eye.

But tonight the Void Command Seat had changed. At its core, the stars still wrote a feather. Yet all around, new lights had sprouted like frost, points that hadn’t been there before.

A chill ran first; then Lilith realized something was wrong.