ECHOES OF FORGOTTEN

Chapter 3: A Place Too Small For Dreams.

The walk back from the Royal Academy lacked the grand dignity one might expect after registering for the Royal Wardens. There were no trumpets. No solemn vows. Just two girls rushing through the lower district because the afternoon soup wouldn't stir itself.

"Six hundred and twelve pages." Mira muttured for the fourteenth time."I am going to see penal codes in my sleep. If I die before the exams. I want you to tell Sister Agnes that it was the geography that killed me."

"Sister Agnes doesn't believe in exhaustion, Mira. She'd just draft your ghost to scrub the pantry," I said, dodging a spectral fishmonger who had been trying to sell the same phantom cod.

The fishmonger glared at me as I passed, waving a translucent hand. "Fresh today, little lady! Only two coppers!"

"No, thank you," I murmured under my breath.

"What?" Mira asked, looking over her shoulder.

"Nothing. The fishmonger is just being persistent as always."

Mira snorted. " He's been dead for a hundred years, yet every time you pass, he tries to sell you that cod. You'll think he'll realize he's dead already and that his inventory has rotted by now."

When we finally pushed open the heavy oak doors of the orphanage, the sheer wall of sound that hit us was enough to make the Academy's strict registration line look like a sanctuary of peace. The building was old, cramped, and loudly falling apart. It was a place where thirty-seven children, two teenagers, and a handful of stubborn spirits were packed into a space entirely too small for dreams.

"LYSANDRA!"

A small, chaotic blur of brown wool and sticky fingers slammed into my knees. It was little Toby. Currently missing one shoe and sporting a spectacular smear of blackberry jam across his nose.

"Milo took the wooden horse!" Toby wailed, pointing a tragic finger toward the stairs. "He said because he's seven now, he owns the cavalry!"

"The cavalry is state property, Toby," I said, kneeling down to wipe his nose with a relatively clean corner of my shirt. "Go tell Milo that if he doesn't share the horses, I'll tell the kitchen ghost to turn his breakfast porridge into gray sludge tomorrow."

Toby's eyes went wide. He nodded frantically and scrambled back into the fray.

"Using the dead for child management," a dry, raspy voice chimed from the doorway of the dining hall. "I suppose it's efficient."

Sister Dana stood there, her small frame wrapped in the grey robes of her order. She looked like a woman who had seen many things in life. And that made her become utterly immovable. Her sharp blue eyes darted to the registration papers still clutched in Mira's hand.

"Well?" she demanded.

Mira held up the examination packet like it was a death warrant. "We registered. Written exams are in two weeks. They only take thirty of us, Sister."

A rare, fleeting shadow of worry touched Sister Dana's lips before it was promptly buried under her usual look of stern discipline. "Then you have exactly two weeks to ensure you are among those thirty, and that the children don't burn the orphanage down while you study. The cabbage shipment arrived late. Move and give the other sisters a hand."

Our "study time" over the next several days quickly devolved into a masterclass in multitasking. It turned out that memorizing the penal codes was significantly harder when you were also trying to keep thirty-seven children from accidentally killing themselves.

"Section twelve, clause four!" Mira shouted over the deafening roar of bath time, ducking just as a soaking wet wooden duck flew past her head. "A Warden has the right to detain any individual suspected of harboring illicit magical artifacts without a warrant for up to - Milo, stop drinking the bathwater!- up to twenty-four hours!"

"Forty-eight hours if it's a Level Three threat!" I yelled back, forcefully scrubbing a thick layer of mud from Toby's left elbow. "And Toby, please stop trying to eat the soap, it's not a turnip."

"It smells like lavender!" Toby squeaked.

"It tastes like regret," I countered, spinning him around to dump a bucket of lukewarm water over his head.

By mid-afternoon, we were in the courtyard attempting to tackle the History of Border treaties while simultaneously hanging the laundry. Mira had an open textbook balanced precariously on top of a basket of damp sheets, her brown furrowed in deep concentration.

"In the year 412, the Treaty of Silver Lilies was signed between Caladryth and..." Mira paused, squinting at the ink. "And ...wait, what's this word? Lys, is this a typo, or did a spider die on the page?"

Before I could answer, a wet shirt slapped me directly across the face. I pulled it off, glaring at the seven-year-old culprits currently playing a high-stakes game of tag through the drying bed sheets. "If more laundry touches the dirt, I am going to report you to Sister Agnes for treason against the orphanage!"

The children scattered with shrieks of delighted terror.

Mira sighed, resting her forehead against the laundry pole. "If the Warden exam includes a section on 'How to handle a stampede of tiny tyrants', we are going to pass with flying colors."

"Unfortunately," I muttered, shaking another sheet, "I think they mostly test for small matters. Like thieves, city murders, and so on."

Unfortunately, the Academy didn't only want us to be smart; they wanted to make sure we wouldn't immediately drop dead in an alleyway brawl. The practical exam included a combat test.

Because of that, our evenings became bruises disguised as exercise.

The orphanage had finally settled into its usual, exhausted silence. The thirty-seven children were fed, scolded, washed, and tucked into their crowded rows of cots beneath the creaking rafters.

Crack!

Our wooden weapons clashed in the dim light of a single oil lantern. Mira lunged forward, trying to catch my flank, but i swung my baton downward, parrying the blow with a sharp jolt that vibrated all the way up my arms.

"Your stance is too wide," I panted, wiping sweat from my forehead. "If a thug rushes you with a rusty iron poker, he's going ti take your legs out."

"I'm trying to stay agile!" Mira gasped, shifting her weight and swinging again. I leaned back, the wood whistling past my nose by a hair. "We cannot be perfect in sword fighting and archery, or any combat like you. If I can't dodge, I'm a goner."

"Then dodge faster," I said, offering a wicked grin as I swept my foot forward in a low kick. She hopped over it with an indignant yelp, throwing a clumsy strike at my shoulder that I blocked with a full thud. We were exhausted, our muscles aching from carrying water all day, but every strike had to count. We were fighting for our future, for the orphanages' future, one bruise at a time.

The kitchen was quiet now, save for the rhythmic thump-thump-thump of the old wooden bread dough troughs.

I sat on the long oak table, a single tallow candle sputtering between us, surrounded by the mountain of the Academy's examination packets. My eyes were burning. The words ' Section IV: Jurisdiction of the High Warden regarding Magical Contraband' were beginning to swim across the parchment like ink-legged spiders.

Suddenly, the door creaked open, and little Toby sniffled his way into the room, holding up a bare wooden stick.

"Lysandra..Mira..." he whimpered, tears pooling in his eyes. "I lost the brass soldier. The one from the junk market. I put it down to help Sister Dana with the cabbages, and now it's gone. Milo said a ghost ate it."

I rubbed my tired eyes. "Ghosts don't eat brass, Toby."

Across the table, Mira smiled gently and closed her textbook. "Don't worry, Toby. Milo's just being a duck. Let me see."

Her magic allowed her to see traces left behind by people and objects. Faint glowing threads woven through the world. Useful.Powerful. Absolutely a waste on brass soldiers.

"Help me," she said.

"No."

"Lysandra."

"You chose this life."

"I absolutely did not."

She gently touched the bare wooden stick Toby was holding. Instantly, her eyes lit up with a soft, ambient glow.

"Ah, found it," Mira said with a confident grin. "The brass soldier left a heavy metallic trace right here on the wood."

She turned, her eyes tracking a thin, shimmering ribbon of bright, cooped-colored light that only she could see. The trail wove through the kitchen, looped around the flour barrels, and slipped under the back door.

"Come on," Mira whispered, beckoning us forward.

Toby and I followed her out into the moonlit hallway. Mira walked with perfect precision, stepping over invisible obstacles, tracing the bright ribbon of light as it climbed up the lower banister of the stairs.

"Look at that," Mira laughed softly, pointing into a small, dark gap between the floorboards and the wall near the closet. "The trace ends right inside the mousehole."

I leaned down, reached my fingers into the narrow crevice, and pulled out the small brass soldier. It was covered in a bit of dust, but entirely intact.

"My soldier!" Toby squeaked, snatching it with a massive grin. "Thank you, Mira!"

"I'm a Tracer, kiddo," Mira proudly smiled, tapping his nose. "If I couldn't find it, who else would. Now go back to sleep before Sister Agnes finds you wandering around."

Toby nodded frantically and scrambled up the stairs, clutching his toy.

Mira leaned against the banister, looking back down at her hands as the glowing residual traces finally faded from her vision. "Those thirty spots at the Academy? One of them is definitely mine. With my Tracing, our combat practice, and your ghost-seeing, they'd be fools to reject us."

"Well, your gift is more useful than mine, but you'd better save one for me," I said, a wave of affection and relief washing over me.

"Always," Mira smiled, walking back into the kitchen. The sheer mental effort of active tracking combined with our intense sparring and our work at the ophange had completely drained her energy. Within a minute of sitting back down, she drifted off into a deep, peaceful sleep right there at the table.

I smiled, shaking my head softly, and turned back to my notes. The orphanage is quiet. For once. I look at the Academy light in the distance from the kitchen window, thinking about the future. I hope, I really hope.... Then I notice someone standing outside. A woman. Young. Motionless. Watching the orphanage. Blue hair. Long enough to move in the wind. She was beautiful, dressed in fine clothes. Then she looked at me. She just looked at me with a profound, aching sadness. And then, very slowly, her lips curved into a gentle, loving smile.

A tear, translucent and shimmering under the moonlight, slipped down her ghostly cheek.

My heart hammered violently against my ribs, a sudden, crushing weight pressing into my chest. I wanted to move. I wanted to open the window. I wanted to ask her who she was, why she was looking at me like that, and why her smile made me feel like a child who had been lost in the dark for seventeen years.

But before I could even draw a breath, a gentle gust of wind rattled the glass. The blue-haired woman faded into the night air, dissolving like mist, leaving me alone.

And beneath a sky full of silent stars, blue tulips danced where no one was looking. As if they knew a secret the world had forgotten