The waiter brought our lunches all at the same time. A plain sandwich was set in front of me, while the others received similar small dishes. Having not eaten for hours, I took a large bite into my lunch.
“I’m still bummed that they don’t have seafood here,” Em complained as she bit into her garlic bread.
“What do you expect?” Abby said. “This city can’t be farther from the ocean.”
“Then why don’t they got ramen here?” Ari said. “I saw a bunch of wheat fields at the edge of town.”
“Oh, can you just stop it with your obsession with ramen? This is a coffee shop! Why do you think they’d make ramen here!?”
I finished my sandwich as my teammates stopped complaining about the food. “Still, these dishes are pretty small for a full lunch meal,” I told them, continuing the list of complaints. “I probably should have ordered two sandwiches.”
I looked up at Abby, who had just begun to dig into her food. “By the way, why would the princess come to a place like this to eat? It doesn’t have lavish meals, and the tables don’t look fancy. I would assume she has her meals in the palace.”
Abby swallowed and answered me. “This place is both quiet and remote. It’s a good place to get away from attention. And there are four princesses, okay? Stop talking like there is only one.”
“So you just found her from that? I doubt it could be a coincidence we walked into the same coffee shop as my sister—I mean, the princess.”
Ari chuckled from my right after he finished his first stuffed sandwich and picked up a second one. “It’s all from her suit, you know? That thing can literally do anything for her.”
“Oh, yes!” Em added. “Abby’s suit is like a massive information hub!”
“Well, yeah. My suit is pretty useful, especially for this team. You better thank me for finding one of the princesses you call ‘your sister’ for you.”
“No, I—” I stopped, not wanting to start another argument. “Isn’t that illegal?” I asked instead.
Abby leaned in and toned her voice down. She gave me a look and replied with a smirk, “Does it really matter, Day? All I need to do is ask where a princess is, and the suit tells me. Can’t get easier than that. Want me to try it again?”
I leaned in on the table, interested. Does this mean she could help me find my sister (or sisters?) whenever she likes? If the princesses go out to places like this, then I might have a chance of meeting one of them again.
“Yes, please,” I said all too eagerly.
Abby smiled and put her fork down. Then, her red eyes turned blue. I had seen this a few times, but when I looked closer now, I finally noticed what she was seeing. Inside her eyes, blue windows and white text danced around as if a computer screen was in front of those pupils. Was it augmented reality? And with contact lenses?
After just a few moments, Abby stopped what she was doing, and one eye returned to the normal bright red color. “Okay, I got intel on three of the four princesses,” she told me, whispering as if someone was watching us. I nodded, urging her to continue.
"Princess Alaina, the girl you just met, is still returning to the castle in a carriage. She is avoiding the teleport center and traveling at a pretty quick pace, so there isn’t that large of a crowd as yesterday gathered.
"Princess Alexis, who we saw yesterday, is currently at the 17th Radius. Apparently, she is helping a large group of people build a flying machine. They don’t have those for cheap there.
"Princess Amber seemed to have left the city from the Northwest this morning with some guards, presumably to go hunting game. There were some sightings of a possessed demon bear a few days ago, so that could have something to do with it.
“As for Princess Audria, she is most likely still inside the palace. I can’t get access there, so I’m not sure what exactly it is she’s doing, but most likely she’s reading or studying since that’s her usual routine.”
Abby finished her report, and her other eye turned back normal. She sat back straight and looked at me with a smile emanating pride. “So?”
I was in awe at all that information she just shared. Could her suit really find all that in just moments? Could it do even more? “That’s… amazing… How does your suit do all that?”
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“Yeah, you see that, Day?” Em said to me. “Without Abby’s suit, we’d all be wandering around clueless!” She turned back to Abby. “But I haven’t seen you using it to find people before, so I’m curious about how it works too.”
Abby shrugged. “I’m mostly just operating while it works, but I’d probably guess that it searches through the surveillance database, ” she explained, not caring anymore if anybody could overhear her. “They got a pretty advanced 3D mapping surveillance system here, so I’m sure that helps.”
“Still… that could be very useful,” I said, thinking about my goal of reuniting with my sister.
“…and dangerous,” Ari added to my comment. “You could do some pretty terrible stuff if you got all that information. You saw how close you were able to get to the princess, right?”
“Hey, don’t worry about that, man. Thankfully, this suit is in perfectly good hands,” Abby said, putting her hand on her chest. “I’m never going to let anybody take this suit from me. There’s a reason my parents entrusted me with it.”
“Yeah, right. I’m still preeetty worried they could fall out of your hands.”
Em, completely misinterpreting Ari’s point, agreed. “We’ll do everything to help protect your suit, Abby! Right, Day?”
“Oh- yeah. Sure,” I answered instinctively. I turned back to Abby and looked at the suit on her body. The blue lines curving in and out in circles mesmerized me. However, all I thought as I answered Em was how this tool could help me meet with my sister, and I hated myself for that.
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The bells at the edge of the glass doors chimed again as we exited the coffee shop, our stomachs still half full. After walking for a while through the mostly empty streets, we emerged onto a main road. People walked around leisurely, chatting and checking out the many small shops that lined the side of the road.
A couple of fancy cars drove by slowly. I was intrigued but not too surprised when I saw that these cars had no wheels, but they floated gently above the road. Still, this futuristic technology magically blended in with the vehicle’s old-fashioned design, making it seem like it belonged in this medieval town.
Em walked up to Abby as we came out from the narrow and empty street. “Umm… can we go to the library here?”
Abby turned to Em with realization. “Oh, yes! You wanted to check out the grand library here, right?”
“Yes… I haven’t studied in a while…” Em replied, looking down at her feet.
“We should probably get going, then,” Ari said. “You got an entrance exam for that school you’re getting into, right?”
“It isn’t just some school, man,” Abby said with a glare. “It’s the Artius Magic Academy! It’s known across timelines!”
Ari shrugged. “Well, the Imperial Army is pretty well known, too.”
“Ha, yes. The army where you didn’t even get the position you wanted. Now, I’m sure you can get in, Em! You’re a prodigy when it comes to magic!” Abby rested her hand on Em’s shoulder with confidence. “Let’s go to the library then. We’ll help you get ready for the test. How about we go ace that exam tomorrow?”
Em looked up with shock. “Tomorrow…?”
“They only give a chance once every month, remember? We almost didn’t make it to the city on time! Or did you want to wait for next month? We can wait for it if you think you aren’t ready yet.”
Em thought about it for a while, then shook her head. “I’m taking the test tomorrow. I’ll be ready,” she said with determination.
The library was a cathedral in and of itself. It was as wide as the manor at the center of the city and almost stood as tall. The walls were made of aged stone bricks and had statues carved into them. People walked in and out of the revolving doors, sometimes carrying a book or two with them.
As we walked into the library from the bustling street, the atmosphere flipped completely. Inside, a wave of cool air came upon us, and our surroundings became dead silent. A wide carpet path stretched far ahead into the spacious room. At both sides of this path, tall shelves that almost reached the high ceiling were lined in an orderly fashion.
At the start of the carpet was a large circular desk where a few librarians sat. A couple of people coming into the library behind us walked up to the librarians’ desk to ask a few questions. We, however, strolled past the table and down the carpet.
After passing many stacks of shelves and millions of books, Abby finally led us to turn a corner into an aisle. I read the title of one of the books. “Mana Store: Volumes 70 to 79.” This must be the section with books about magic.
Em stopped and studied the shelves as well, taking out a book she was interested in. “Lesser Know Water Magic of the Ferrial Regions,” the title read. She flipped to a random page and began reading. Diagrams of complicated patterns covered the side of the pages, marked with symbols I couldn’t exactly understand. Then, when Em touched one of the diagrams, to my surprise, it started moving. These definitely weren’t the traditional books I was used to.
She was just about to flip the page over when Abby stopped her. “You know, magic in those temporal regions works a bit differently from how it works in your world.” She started walking down the aisle again. “Come on, I know where the books on Aquina are.”
Em nodded silently and looked at the cover of her book again. She raised it up to place it back to its original resting place, but I intercepted it. “I’ll keep hold of it for you.”
Her eyes widened in surprise, then she released the book and looked down and to the side, her face flushed. “Y—yeah… thanks,” Em said as she quickly turned and started down the aisle.
When I looked up, I saw Abby at the top of a tall ladder, sorting through books on a shelf that could even be on the second floor, if there was a second floor. She took a book out and read the title, “Priscan Mana Manipulation: Water Edition.” She looked down and held the book out. “Em, Aquina’s part of the Priscan Region, right?” She whispered loudly, minding the silence of the building.
Em tilted her head up and nodded. In response, Abby dropped the book, and Em barely caught it. Then, more books proceeded to fall from the top of the ladder, urging Ari to join in catching them. When the books stopped raining, Abby climbed back down to the floor.
“Water Edition, Fire Edition, Wind Edition, Earth Edition, Light Edition. It’s basically all you need for tomorrow. I’m sure it’s all just review to you, but get studying!”