She was right. The biggest event of the year, the Celebration of Worlds, was just around the corner, and it wouldn’t be much of a Celebration of Worlds without an open portal. That wasn’t all; magic was accumulating around Lapis for the event, and it needed to be used somehow. Connecting our world to others was important for this reason as well.
That said, opening the portal wasn’t something I could ever do. Though I helped my teacher with the event every year, the feat wasn’t something a mere apprentice could ever dream of pulling off.
“We’re gonna have to cancel it, I guess?”
“Then what will we do with the unused magic?”
“Maybe we could use it for a different event?”
“Many people wait all year for this event; you know that, Meg.”
“Yeah, hmm.”
I crossed my arms and groaned in thought, when my teacher looked up and said, “Well…we may need to call in a substitute.”
“And who’s that?”
“You’ll find out soon enough. For now, make sure you finish up all your assigned tasks by the day of the event. We wouldn’t want it being canceled for an unrelated reason.”
“Okay…”
Though I didn’t like being brushed off like this, I went back to my post and picked up where I’d left off.
Is it really going to be okay? I’ll have to worry about it later. For now, I need to get this work done.
“Yeah, sometimes people die, and things just don’t work out.”
“I’m not dead yet.”
The next morning, I woke up to an unexpected frigidness—or more like the frigidness woke me. I’d nodded off while finishing some paperwork, but the office was so cold that I could almost see my breath. Then I noticed the weight. My body felt heavy; it was a horde of familiars and Carbuncle huddled up next to me to keep me warm. If I didn’t end up getting a cold from sleeping in the study, it would be thanks to these little guys.
I looked over to the window, where White-Owl was sitting. Our eyes locked.
“Mornin’.”
“Hoot.”
“Sure is chilly today.”
I shook off my familiar-fur coat and picked up a bottle of magical herbs. Shivering, I brought the bottle into the next room, where I would use the herbs as fuel for a fire. The halls of the manor were as icy as its study in the early morning. The floor creaked with each step I took on its cold surface, and I could feel my body temperature lowering from my feet.
I powered through the trek into the living room, passed the girl sitting in the chair, and headed straight for the fireplace. There, I used magic to ignite a combination of firewood and crumpled-up newspapers.
“Whew, it’s freezing in here.”
Something occurred to me as I said this.
Wait, huh?
“Was there a girl just now…?”
“Hi.”
“Waaagh!”
I lost my footing from the shock, falling to the ground as the girl stood up from her chair.
“What are you doing?”
“No! What are you doing here?!”
In the next moment, I realized the girl looked familiar.
“Wait…”
Lush blue hair and pearl-white skin. A perfect, out-of-a-princess-movie face. Somewhat jarring red eyes.
It was the Witch of Blessings, Sophie—the witch I’d seen on television so many times and always wished I could be.
“T-Teeeacheeerrr!”
I opened the door into my teacher’s room and was greeted with “You’re loud this morning” by my teacher, who had turned to look over from her bed.
“Meg, please come and rub my back.”
“Y-you got it.”
Was it sad? I couldn’t really say no to my teacher, even at times like this.
“Wait! Before that!”
I smacked the bed.
“Th-th-there’s a ghost! In our living room! It looks like Sophie!”
“She’s already here? That was sooner than I expected.”
“Come again?”
As I questioned my teacher, I felt a presence behind me. Cautiously, I turned around…and there she was. The ghost of Sophie.
“Th-there it is again!”
Too afraid to think straight, I grabbed on to my teacher right on her waist where it hurt the most, and she let out what sounded like it could be her dying wail. “Graaaagh!”
“I’m here, Faust.”
She wasn’t a ghost. The girl from the video with seventy-something million plays I’d watched the day prior was standing here, in our old country manor.
“She’ll be standing in for you?”
I set a cup of tea down on my teacher’s desk for Sophie, and my teacher quietly replied, “Yes,” and nodded before taking a sip of the tea. “It’s a busy time of year. There are lots of requests being made regarding the festival. It’s a trade. In exchange for letting her stay with us for a while, she will open the portal in my stead. My back should be better by the end of the festival. It worked out for her since London is close to Lapis.”
So that was why she’d contacted Sophie, one of the Seven Sages. Needless to say, this wasn’t something that could usually be done on a whim.
“Sometimes I forget you’re one of the Seven Sages.”
“What’s that supposed to mean…? Listen, Meg. It doesn’t look like I’ll be up and about anytime soon, so I’ll need you to assist Sophie.”
“You want me to do what?”
I couldn’t believe my ears.
“Yes. You know everything about the town and the festival. You’ll be her assistant this year, as you usually are for me.”
“Uhhh…”
The girl genius witch needed my help? It was a good opportunity, but one that came with immense pressure. Were Sophie to be in charge of opening Lapis’s portal, it would draw attention from around the world. The festival would be busier than normal, which would only increase the likelihood of a mishap. If I somehow screwed something up, it would rub dirt in both my teacher’s and Sophie’s faces.
I was pretty terrified on the inside, which my teacher saw right through, prompting a grin on her face.
“Sophie is a genius. Learn everything you can from her.”
“O-okay.”
My teacher had a way of slamming me with the most troublesome tasks imaginable. I breathed a small sigh and turned to find Sophie looking at me. She had teardrop-shaped eyes, flawless pale skin, and silky blue hair. It was like looking at fresh snow. Sophie cut off my moment of being captivated by her looks by muttering, “I’d like to see it. The spot where I’m going to open the portal.”
“Oh, sure. You want to see the spot where you’re gonna work, eh? I’ll take you there. My name is Meg Raspberry, by the way.”
“Nice to meet you, Spberry.”
“It’s Raspberry…”
We were walking down the road along the river that took us to Lapis. There were clouds in the sky—it looked like it might snow—and a significant part of the river was frozen over. As I shivered in the frigid cold, it occurred to me that I was walking next to a celebrity.
The Seven Sages were famous, but Sophie was on a level of her own in terms of fame. Though the other six Sages were closer to scholars than celebs, Sophie was constantly on television and had many fans; she stood out the most.
The reason for her fame was her history and the type of work she did. A young prodigy, she excelled academically in the same way she did with magic, entering one of the world’s most prestigious universities to study physics at a young age. After graduating, she went on to become a performer who traveled the world instead of going down the research route. She used powerful light magic to create firework-like shows of magical explosions and flashes, often during magic parades, wherever she went.
Her unique head of blue hair and rare eyes were an oddity that was generally considered very beautiful, and it didn’t take long for her to gain popularity, to the point where not a day went by when I didn’t see her on television or web news.
She was the most famous person on the planet at the moment—a young witch prodigy named Sophie Hayter. I’d only ever seen her on a screen up until now, but there she was, walking right next to me.
“Wow, sure is a cold one today, isn’t it? It doesn’t look like it’s bothering you much, though. Aren’t you cold, Sophie?”
“Not particularly.”
As I asked her this, I thought about how her snow-like appearance matched perfectly with the weather, but I kept this thought to myself.
She and I were the same age, but there was something about how she held herself that surpassed her years—like a sort of presence. She had this aura to her, just like my teacher and Inori had to them, but there was something different about the vibe she gave off. I usually didn’t have a difficult time getting along with anyone, even if it was our first meeting, but something about her felt unapproachable. Like there was a wall between us. Maybe it was an aura unique to geniuses?