Balma-Saat, the lake, knows my pace.

  It opens when I speak and chant a name.

  It takes me to places I never thought,

  to explore a realm where I belong,

  and don’t.

  —Berdorf, E. Poems of a Wingless Princess. Unpublished manuscript, Summer

  Eura had picked up a bad habit: she kept drifting back to Balma-Saat.

  Once, she only came for Koimar's whims, dreading every step toward the water. But now her feet found the lake without thinking, as if something in her saat tugged her here. Not even the memory of the Elven King’s beating, a place in her mind she tiptoed around like a plague pit, was enough to keep her away.

  She should have been afraid. She wasn’t.

  Balma-Saat felt… connected. As though some thread beneath the surface recognised her and hummed in return. The Ormsaat spoke to her.

  She didn’t understand it, not fully, but the moment she stood beside the water, a quietness settled over her. Something deep, something old, and somehow strangely kind.

  Using and abusing the pendant Jericho had given her, Eura moved through Pollux with a freedom she’d never tasted before. Under this borrowed face, she was no one. No longer the Princess. No longer a cupcake. Just a girl.

  She knew the guards and maids were probably tearing the palace apart looking for her, but the thought barely brushed her mind. She was here, at the lake, crouched in the dirt with her bamboo stick balanced on the ground like a stubborn pet.

  She lifted her hand, fingers curling in invitation.

  “Come on… fly!”

  Her voice was coaxing, simple enough that even a piece of wood should understand it.

  The bamboo stick didn’t so much as tremble.

  It just lay there, defiant and stubborn as a stick should be.

  Lamar had warned her that air was the hardest element to tame, but she hadn’t expected it to be harder than the wild things she did without thinking. Yet the stick stayed glued to the dirt, unbothered by her effort.

  She huffed at it, cheeks puffing out like a petulant child.

  Maybe Hex would’ve known something about air. Maybe he would've teased her, then shown her properly. For a human, he knew a great deal about magic.

  But ever since he shoved her into the lake, he had vanished, slipped out of her days as if he’d never existed at all. Even at their place, where she used to wait with the chessboard set up between them, the hours stretched empty. He would have told her if he had left Pollux, wouldn't he?

  She finally snapped, frustrated, and kicked the stubborn stick. The kick landed harder than she meant, sending it skidding into the water with a splash. It didn’t sink, just drifted a little below the surface where she could still see it, rocking lazily in the shallows. Eura stared at it, chest rising in an annoyed huff.

  What if Yeso could help?

  The thought lit up inside her like a small spark. It wasn’t like it would be hard. Just one plunge into the murky water. A short slip into Faewood, or wherever he’d been the last time, and ask a few questions, get a few answers.

  A quick trip. She’d be back before dinner.

  She crept to the water’s edge and stretched out a foot, touching the surface with her toes. Golden rings rippled outward from the point of contact — soft, glowing, almost welcoming.

  Eura grinned.

  Like a mischievous child who’d just been invited to play, she jumped straight into the lake.

  Except… she didn’t sink.

  Water splashed, but instead of slipping under, she landed standing upright, the lake holding her weight. Cool water lapped only at her ankles.

  She jumped again. And again.

  Each time her feet hit the surface, rings of gold rippled across the lake. It was a beautiful view, but useless, refusing to do anything more.

  “Come on…” she muttered, leaping once more. Water splashed up her legs, soaking her clothes, her short hair slipping into her face. She tried again, a little harder, a little louder, until frustration twisted in her chest.

  “Come on!”

  She stomped into the water, breath hot, cheeks flushed. The lake glimmered back at her stubbornly.

  Finally, she threw her head back and nearly shouted, “Take me to Yeso! Please!”

  The word Yeso had barely left her mouth when the lake answered.

  The golden ripples collapsed inward. The water surged up her calves.

  And then she felt it, a force curling around her ankles, yanking her downward.

  The world flipped. And the lake swallowed her whole.

  But no one told her there was more than one Yeso in this story.

  Eura hit the ground with a smack of her palms against something cold. Tiles. White ones, the same kind used in Pollux’s bathhouse. Faint ripples of gold shimmered across their surface, like veins.

  She brushed her fingertips across one. The ripple quivered beneath her touch. They were weak, foreign.

  Not hers.

  Her bamboo stick lay beside her, damp but intact. She grabbed it, leaning on it as she stood and lifted her gaze.

  From the ceiling, droplets fell in slow beats. They slid down the tiled walls, gathering in thin trails that dripped onto the floor. Small puddles formed at her feet, but nothing deep enough to be an Ormsaat. And yet, with every step she took, new gold rings rippled outward along the tiles as if the room itself were a taut sheet of water.

  She had no idea what this place was. Or where she’d landed. Nothing about it felt right.

  Ahead, a staircase rose, built from the same white tiles, gleaming with a damp sheen. Eura climbed it on all fours, heart knocking against her ribs, terrified she’d slip and fall backwards into the strange, rippling floor.

  At the top, a door stood half-open, waiting.

  The moment she stepped past the threshold, the world changed again.

  The wooden floors gleamed beneath her, polished to a shine so perfect she could see her warped reflection stretching across the crisscross pattern of the planks. Everything here was clean, the kind of order that belonged to someone who lived alone and liked it that way.

  The walls were wrapped in pristine white wallpaper, bordered with the same warm wood that framed the floors. Light poured in from tall windows, bright and unnatural compared to Pollux’s dim halls. Strange metal fixtures dotted the walls and ceiling — electrical installations like in Pollux.

  The living room stretched out before her, with bookshelves lined nearly every wall, groaning under the weight of hundreds of books: some thick and ancient-looking, others thin and glossy, their spines marked with symbols she didn’t understand.

  At the centre of it all sat a large, polished desk. Heavy. Imposing.

  The kind of desk that belonged to someone important, someone who filled rooms without speaking.

  She lifted her head and froze.

  Above her, an open balcony overlooked the living room, its railing lined with doors leading to separate rooms. From one of them came a steady cling… clang… cling — something metallic striking the floor.

  Eura’s pulse fluttered.

  Still on all fours, she scuttled across the floor like a small creature, peering into corners and shadows.

  “Yeso?” she whispered. “Y-Yeso…?”

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Her voice shrank to a whimper. “Where are you? I can’t see you…”

  She ventured deeper into the apartment, slipping around a tall bookshelf until she found herself beside the massive desk.

  That’s when she saw it.

  A plate. A slice of apple pie. Perfect. Golden. Still faintly warm. Her breath hitched.

  Apple pie was her weakness, her absolute downfall. The metal clanging above suddenly stopped. Silence.

  Eura hesitated for only half a second before her stomach made the decision for her. She rose to her feet, damp and dripping, and edged toward the plate.

  If it’s out in the open… surely it was forgotten, she reasoned. It would be a crime to waste it.

  And she reached for the pie. She took a bite. And the world melted. It was—the most wonderful,

  the most perfect, the most sinfully delicious thing she had ever put in her mouth.

  Warm apples softened with cinnamon, the crust flaky enough to sigh at. Whoever baked this was no cook — they were a master. A sorcerer of pastries. A god!

  Eura let herself sink into the comfort of that single bite. Her shoulders loosened. The fear faded. The strange apartment felt almost welcoming now. She drifted toward the nearest shelf, nibbling the pie, letting her eyes skim the rows of books.

  There were so many.

  All of them interesting. All of them smelled faintly of ink and old stories.

  For a moment, she felt like she’d stepped into a kind of heaven, the kind she’d imagined all her life, full of quiet corners and worlds stacked on shelves. She trailed a finger along the spines, dreaming of what it would be like to own even half of this collection.

  Then her hand stopped. A name she knew far too well stared back at her.

  Professor Edgar O. Duvencrune.

  Her heart seized. She blinked once, twice, and dragged her gaze along the line of books. More of his work.

  Volumes and volumes. And then—

  Between Lore and Legacy: The Mystifying Histories of the Menschen — Vol. II by Professor Edgar O. Duvencrune.

  Her stomach dropped straight through her feet.

  She stared at the thick volume, her pulse hammering in her ears. She had begged her father for this book. Every time, he had smiled that thin, distant smile and told her he couldn’t find it. Or that it wasn’t published yet. Or that it was too rare, too… something.

  All lies.

  Lies to deny her the knowledge she craved. Lies to keep her small. And here it was. Right here.

  A heavy brick of a book containing truths about all the creatures of the Map, from Ormgrund to the Great Continent, truths she was meant to know, meant to wield, meant to inherit. Truth that a Dame must know!

  Eura looked left. Nothing. Looked right. Nothing.

  So she did what any child with no impulse control and far too much resolve would do. She grabbed the book.

  It was enormous and did not want to be stolen, but she shoved half of it down her pants and the other half under her shirt until her entire torso looked horribly misshapen. Now she just had to leave.

  She turned and froze.

  A painting hung on the wall.

  Not just any painting. One that made the hairs on her arms rise.

  It showed a couple posed with the effortless confidence of those born to rule. The woman stood at the front, draped in an elaborate robe that pooled around her feet like flowing dusk. An official banner crossed her chest, and atop her head rested a crown shaped like the rising sun.

  But her face wasn’t there.

  A streak of painted light cut straight across her features, a beam that erased her identity, softening her into something unreachable. It made her look less like a person and more like a legend.

  Behind her stood a young man, tall and impossibly handsome, smiling with a radiance that didn’t feel entirely real. His black Magi robe bore the same banner as the woman’s, and his eyes, bright blue, shimmering with specks of gold, seemed to catch the room’s light even from the canvas.

  His hair gleamed like spun gold.

  And at his boots, seated obediently, was a black dire wolf.

  Eura couldn’t tear her eyes away from the man. He was, without question, the most beautiful creature she had ever seen. Something in the portrait held her still as if her feet had sprouted roots and grown into the floor. Her breath stilled. Her pulse slowed. The world narrowed to him alone.

  Then a whisper unfurled against her ear, curling soft:

  

  I hex with whispers soft as night's own hush.

  Feel my highs, my lows, the push and shove,

  In every quiet, fleeting rush, I hex you.

  Her skin prickled.

  “Who is there?” a voice shouted.

  The metallic cling and clang resumed upstairs, but faster now, urgent. Heart lurching, Eura snapped her gaze upward just in time to see a man in a brown suit limping toward the stairs, each step sending a dull metallic tap echoing into the room.

  “Oh boy... oh boy…” Panic seized her throat. She spun around, scrutinising for cover, but the room was too open, too bright, too clean. Then, a gap. A narrow space between the last bookshelf and the wall.

  She bolted for it.

  The man reached the top of the stairs as she wedged herself into the hiding place, clutching her stolen book against her chest, breath held so tight it hurt.

  “Show yourself!” he barked.

  Eura pressed herself into the narrow gap, trying to shrink into nothing. The wooden shelf dug into her shoulder; the wall was cold at her back. She peered through the sliver of space just as the man came limping into view.

  He wasn’t much taller than she was, wrapped in a brown suit that looked both expensive and tired at the same time. He passed the desk, stopped, and stared down at the empty plate.

  A gasp exploded out of him.

  “No, no — I can’t believe this! You stole my apple pie!” He clutched the empty plate in his hand. “I cooked that myself! I was looking forward to it all day!”

  His voice rose, outraged and wounded in equal measure. “How dare you, you little scoundrel! Oh, I swear I’ll— but… show yourself!”

  As he spoke, the skin around his eyepatch flickered — tiny glowing fissures, faint gold veins rippling across his face.

  Just like hers. But dimmer. Much dimmer.

  Eura’s heart hammered. She tightened her grip on her bamboo stick, mind racing. The basement. She could run back to the tile room. Maybe the bathhouse would take her back to Pollux if she just—

  She needed a distraction. Something, anything, to get him away from the stairs long enough for her to escape.

  She looked at her stick, whispering very seriously, “You need to help me here… can you do something, please?”

  The stick remained perfectly still. Of course it did.

  The man’s footsteps drew closer. He was only a few seconds away from spotting her.

  Then something tingled across the floor like a pressure building, a storm about to break.

  And without warning, books exploded off the shelves, hurtling through the air in a chaotic swarm.

  “What in the—what the heck is happening!?” the man shouted, grabbing at them uselessly as they darted past his head. “Stop! Stop! Some of these are very precious! They cost a fortune...” he moaned. “By the stars, what did I do to deserve this today!”

  More books tumbled. A whole row toppled like dominoes.

  Eura saw something else hit the ground, the man's cane, silver and elegant, rolling in her direction. The number 111 was engraved along its length.

  Using the chaos of flying books and the man’s frantic attempts to catch them, Eura darted toward the doorway she’d come from. Her wet feet slapped the floor in quick, desperate steps. She flung herself down the final stretch, arm outstretched, fingertips brushing the cold metal of the knob.

  And something yanked the back of her shirt. She hit the floor hard, air punched from her lungs. Eura twisted, heart in her throat.

  The man towered above her, or at least, taller than she felt right now. Red hair, freckles, an eyepatch, and a furious scowl carved across his face.

  That’s it, she thought. I’m dead. I’m going to die here, and no one will know where to find my body.

  He opened his mouth, and then it happened.

  Her bamboo stick, the traitor that had refused to move all day, shot through the air and smacked him straight in the face with a sharp thwack.

  The man yelped, lost his balance, and landed flat on his backside.

  Eura didn’t wait.

  She scrambled up so fast she nearly tripped over her own legs, skidding toward the tiled stairs. She slipped, slid, and almost slammed face-first into the ground, but momentum carried her straight into the shallow rippling puddles.

  The tiles fell away. The water rose up to swallow her. And in a gasp of cold and gold, she plunged through. Resurfacing in Balma-Saat with a violent cough, lakewater dripping from her hair and clothes.

  She was back. Alive. The book was still stuffed awkwardly in her shirt.

  She could still hear the whisper of a poem, clinging to her, refusing to leave her ears:

  

  I hex you to death and never leave you alone

  And should you fall forever asleep,

  I hex and I hex myself

  to sleep by your side,

  and trick death until the end of time.

  But as she rose from the lake’s surface, dripping and breathless, the words thinned like mist. One step onto the shore and they faded entirely, swallowed by the wind.

  Eura tugged the book. Perfectly dry. Not a single page warped. She smiled triumphantly.

  For the first time in what felt like ages, she felt proud of herself. Maybe she had unlocked air magic. Maybe she had made her stick fly.

  Or maybe it was a ridiculous fluke.

  Either way, she hugged the book to her chest. She could try again tomorrow. Maybe… there were more books she could borrow.

  

  At the beginning of the Summer, from the 10th to the 16th, I was regularly visited by a scoundrel who insisted on stealing books from me, most of them my own manuscripts, others from respected scholars in fields ranging from history to biology, even the more abstract branches of mathematics. At the time, I knew only that some small evil mage with surprising elemental aptitude had been infiltrating my residence through the basement pool.

  The waters in my basement would rise then fall in irregular intervals, which I eventually calculated corresponded to someone hopping in and out of an Ormsaat. Which I mean I had an Ormsaat in my basement, but that is a story for another time.

  Despite the nuisance, I was forced to be impressed. The intruder demonstrated a finesse with the four elements that most trained mages failed to achieve, particularly with air. Air manipulation, as any competent practitioner will admit, is notoriously difficult to control without Summers and Summers of focused training. Yet this thief managed to knock entire shelves off alignment, send books hurtling across the room, and weaponise a simple stick with surprising precision.

  At the time, I attributed the airborne chaos to a volatile adolescent with poor discipline. In retrospect, it was early evidence of a much more complex elemental signature.

  After an entire Summer of fruitless attempts to catch the culprit—attempts that invariably ended with me on the floor, my cane smacking me in the face, and at least one near-fractured bone—I abandoned this chase altogether.

  I resorted instead to preparation. I left a book on my desk, a slice of apple pie beside it, and a small note of encouragement. If the creature insisted on stealing from me, I reasoned, I might as well guide its reading.

  As the Summers passed, the pattern continued: displaced volumes, missing pastries, and the unmistakable signs of water travel in the basement. These visits became, to my irritation, the greatest inspiration of my career.

  It was during this period that I drafted my manuscript, Handbook of Advanced Elemental Theories and Practical Applications for the Trial of the Elements. I left it on my desk. It was, at the time, still a draft, with the usual slice of apple pie and a message:

  

  If you can steal books from a grumpy alchemist, imagine the glory you could steal from the whole universe.

  Yet the offering remained untouched forever.

  The manuscript remained unprinted for far too long—until the day I provided a copy to the man, Magi Mediah, who would one day build an army for the Summerqueen. It is strange how paths cross, even without intention. I heard they did find a copy anyway.

  Edit (45): I have recently confirmed the identity of the thief. It was exactly who you thought it was. I do, admittedly, feel like an idiot.

  — The Hexe – Book Three, by Professor Edgar O. Duvencrune, First Edition, 555th Summer.