Singingmind really thought she was gonna make it this time.

She had been chasing the kid they called Twigseethe around for almost two weeks now, and she’d finally found the girl's secret hideout. It was behind a bookcase in the third corridor on the second floor, between an empty classroom and what might have once been a science lab, and she was quite proud of herself for finally finding it.

The room looked like it’d once been a storage cupboard, but the classroom door has been bricked up, and what might have once been a maintenance hatch was now the only way in.

It was small, but it had a full-sized window and a real high ceiling, which made it feel larger than it was.

Singingmind had snuck a look inside, and the blankets and pillows littering the floor made it warm and inviting, despite the small size.

Twigseethe was one of the first years, but the students Singingmind had spoken to hadn’t wanted to talk about her, avoiding her questions. From what she could gather, the kid had gotten in on a magic scholarship, but none of the other students had seen her do any magic. She had done something in the first week that none of them would talk about, but that was more or less it.

Cowards, the lotta them. Singingmind was a fifth-year, and didn’t think much of the sort of students the school was bringing in nowadays. When she had joined the rules had been different, but somebody had died or something, and now all the younger ones were subdued and quiet, forbidden to use the magic that had gotten them accepted into the school in the first place.

It was weird, and she hoped it was just a phase. She had liked the school, when she first came here, but now... Well, the new system certainly hadn’t done much for student numbers, that’s for sure! There seemed to be fewer and fewer new-bloods every year.

Anyway, she had been following the kid around for a month now, because while all the others were merely cowed and fearful, this one was obviously incredibly unhappy.

That, and the fact that the magic flowed around her like water, much stronger than on anyone else Singingmind had ever met, other than herself of course. Like the passing of a huge fish in a shallow stream, she left trails wherever she went.

On top of that, she was wearing a Changed form, which none of the kids below fourth year were allowed to do, and Singingmind wanted to ask her how she’d managed to get permission. There must be quite a story there!

Unfortunately, there was only a week left before the new term started, and every attempt she’d made so far to get the girl to talk to her had resulted in a startled, frightened look, a Change and a fleeing on padded feet. She wasn’t sure the kid even knew she was doing it, and that was super worrying. She wasn't even forming a proper image before she Changed, making it up on the fly instead.

She had found two or three of her hiding places so far, and some rooms in the library that she never would have known existed otherwise! Exciting. The one filled with shelves containing nothing but the same, fifty years out-of-date textbook was pretty cool, half of them were still in their paper wrappings. She wondered if the author had donated it or if the school had actually wasted money on them, but she hadn’t bothered to look inside any of the books.

Who reads that shit! Not her, that’s for sure.

She still hadn’t planned out what she was gonna say when confronting the little wildcat, but she was confident that it would come to her in the moment. Her talent was with Change and Growth both, and she had decided that this gave her an imperative to help people improve themselves, or to help people out of a bad situation, and woof, was this kid in a bad situation. What was the school doing, to let her go like that… It never would have happened before.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

She didn’t want to spook the poor kid though. Best go slow.

-

Singingmind lurked around the corner, behind a shelf full of boxes and boxes of ancient-looking pencils, all coated in dust.

The kid was there now, sneaking out of her little room on bare feet, furred like a cat to keep her steps silent. Her eyes were golden with narrow pupils, and she had cat ears for hearing and a tail for balance. She was thin, and the other students had told her that she didn’t eat much. In one hand she carried a metal mask. Singingmind had seen it a couple of times before but had no idea what it meant.

She didn't confront her here. She had tried to surprise her once in the back of the library and had almost gotten clawed for her effort, so she would wait for the right moment.

She just wanted to talk to her, that was all. The other kids in her dorm had said that she was a spoiled crybaby, crying at night and sulking during class. She had gotten into fights initially, but repeated detentions and punishments by the teachers meant that that had stopped relatively quickly.

Singingmind fidgeted with her sleeve, watching. She wished she had known about this earlier. How did it get this bad?

She snuck along the corridor after her target, staying well back to avoid her improved hearing. The girl moved the ears like a cat would, twitching and rotating them to pick up the sounds around her. Now that she squinted closer, she thought the kid might have whiskers too, sensing the air for movement.

She resisted the urge to sigh, it would only give her away.

She had been doing this for a couple of weeks, following, watching, wanting to get an idea of her routine. So far it had mostly been trips to the library to swipe and return books, and then a night of reading. Once she had gone up to the rooftops and made eye contact with an owl for a good two or three hours, Changing herself feathers or adjusting her eyes without any clear Images.

Singingmind wasn’t sure what to make of that, some talent she had never heard of perhaps? Who knew, but she would find out, once she had the kid in a better place.

Oh, there was a change of routine tonight. Instead of stopping at the library, they continued upwards, onto the teacher's floor, stopping at every corner. A little harrowing, they would be told off if they were caught, but the school was almost deserted at this time of year.

Eventually, they got through that floor, the only signs of life some quiet talking and the sounds of laughter from an office. They bypassed that by taking a different corridor, the girl had obviously been here before.

Finally, they came out onto what must've been the highest rooftop in the school, a neglected garden atop the teacher's floor. The scrubby grass was littered with cigar ends and labels, nobody had cleaned up here for a while. Singingmind had never been here before, and looked around curiously, trying not to give herself away.

If Twigseethe knew she had a follower, then she hadn't shown any signs of it yet. The garden was sparsely planted and bare at this time of the year. Nobody had been up here for a while either, by the looks of it. There was no railing around the edge of the roof, just a small battlement, lightly pitted from rain. This part of the school was pretty new, and it hadn’t had time to break down in the weather yet.

She bit her lip, as Twigseethe walked towards the edge, leaning on the wall and staring out over the city and school terraces below. Was she going to jump?

Singingmind wanted to run to her, to pull her back, but if she was going to jump, she didn't want to startle her into it!

But she had to make a choice, she could see an image building around the girl, but she was too far away to work out what it was, just a huge mass of magic. Feathers? It felt dense, but light, like feathers, like the release of pressure in the air after a storm.

Twigseethe stepped up onto the battlements, staring into the air ahead of her, focusing on the image more than her precarious position, and Singingmind started to run forward, making her choice.

She would grab Twigseethe and pull her back. If they both fell, then hopefully they would hit one of the terraces below, and not fall the full six stories to the ground. It was a risk she was willing to take.

As she took the first running step, the image suddenly solidified around the girl, at the same time as she seemed to fall slowly forward. No single step off the edge, only a slight lean taking her away.

“No!” Singingmind ran forward, almost tripping in her haste, but it was too late. Grabbing at the edge of the battlement she narrowly avoided falling off herself. Staring down into the air below.

Far below her, the great white bird caught the air, holding in place for a moment, before giving a steady pump of its wings, rising up into the sky.

“Come back!” she shouted, one hand on the wall, the other in the air, as if she could somehow reach her and drag her back.

But it was over. Singingmind watched as the mask fell from the bird's face, a golden glimmer, tumbling and circling as it fell towards the earth below.

With that, she was gone.