I flew through the sky with the pink petal trailing me. Now then, where should I go? Down a narrow road, a crowd was going in and out of brightly lit shops.

A shop stood out amongst the others, Magical Items & Magical Necessities. Witches and wizards of all kinds were going in with nothing and leaving with an armful of small boxes.

I descended downwards towards the store and hopped onto the cobblestone in front of it. I motioned Leah’s petal closer, bringing her sleeping body into my eyeline.

I saw her fingers flex, holding onto her skirt.

Oh?

I leaned in close until I could smell that citrus scent once again.

“I know you are awake, princess.” I whispered.

Her eyebrow twitched, but she didn’t seem to want to end this charade.

“If you do not wake up, my love. I will have to make sure that you aren’t dead with some… of my own methods.”

She twitched again. I pucker my lips and without hesitation, blew wind into her ear.

“Ahh!” She yelled, jumping off the petal and covering her ear.

“Oh, you are up. Splendid.”

“You knew I was awake the whole time!”

“Indeed, I did and yet you still chose to play Snow White. Why is that?”

She fidgeted in place, making it painfully obvious that she was trying to come up with something other than the truth.

“I-it’s nothing.” she mumbled. “Hurry up and let’s get on with it.”

She spun on her feet and walked towards the shop. I watched as she waddled towards the door and pulled on the handle that wouldn’t open. She put her foot to the wall on the side and tried pulling again.

“Why won’t this bloody thing open?” Leah said, taking a few steps back to examine the door.

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“You need to get approval.” said a voice, coming from the sky.

I looked up to see a girl in our uniform floating down to us while sitting sideways on a broom.

She had that sort of rebellious look that I didn’t feel too greatly about. Her medium-length reddish hair bobbing as she landed. She hopped down to her feet and held her hand out to her broom. It shrunk down to pocket size and she tucked it into her uniform pocket.

“Approval?” Leah asked.

“Yep, like this.” The girl pulled out a small circular object and held it out to us.

I squinted at the thing between her fingers. It was a gold coin with the letters CC.

“You can’t enter any shop without the city’s currency and stamp.” She said, holding out her school ID with a stamp of the same letters on the back.

Leah gave her a suspicious look. “Quit playing with us, we have already entered one shop here. The Coral Glaze.”

“The Coral Glaze?” The girl held out her palm and a rolled up piece of parchment appeared.

She unfurled it and flipped it over to us.

“I knew it.” She said. “There is no such thing as the Coral Glaze within these walls.

I leaned in closer along with Leah. The paper showed an absurd amount of tiny dots moving within the layout of the map. Some moving fast, some moving slow. And some, like us three, who were just standing still.

“See here.” The girl tapped on the bottom of the page.

A rotating list of words naming every shop within the city. Each name that appeared on the list, showed a bright stationary dot on the map. The words switched in and out with each other in rotation.

I scanned through the map and she was right. In the obscure location where we went to, there was just an empty space between two of the buildings on the map.

“Haha. We may very well die within the day.” I laughed, holding onto Leah’s shoulder.

She swatted my hand away as she said, “Sigh, it is strange, but I don’t think we have the time to explore what happened to it. If we are poisoned then so be it, we will just have the Elder check us again. We have to return to the academy within three days. Meaning, we have to conquer the dungeon in that amount of time as well.”

The girl scanned over us and a grin appeared on her face. “Looks like you won’t be able to wait for the approval process then. I’ll let you two tag along with me on one condition.”

“And what’s that?”

“Let me be credited as well in defeating that dungeon.”

Oh, well isn’t she sly.

“I’ll be accompanying you as well so don’t think I just want you to say my name while I sit back on my broom.”

Leah began to open her mouth, “Bu—“

“You have our promise.” I interrupted, holding a rose out to the sly classmate of ours.

I glanced down to see Leah’s scowl piercing daggers into my soul. Is it weird that I enjoy this?

“Well, we have come to an agreement! Now then, let me take you to all the best spots for equipment. And by the end of the day, we will set foot in that dungeon. Oh, by the way, my name is Lucy.”

Lucy’s eyes sparkle under the sun. Definitely a beauty.