CHAPTER VII

Lulu was sitting on her bed leaning back against the wall. Since there was practically no thermal insulation in the academy's living quarters, and the temperature was already low in the yard, she had to put on all the warm clothes she only had. Because of this, she looked like a perched pigeon, or rather, a crow.

She was studying the spell book with interest and didn't even notice her friend enter the room. Quietly flipping through the textbook, Lulu continued to study a new discipline for her, a little incomprehensible, but very important.

"The initial course of combat spells," Nana read.

Lulu almost jumped in surprise. Slamming the book shut, she looked at her friend in fright:

"Oh, it's you. Why did you scare me?!"

"You know we're not allowed to study combat spells," Nana frowned, sitting on the edge of the bed. "And where did you get this textbook?"

"I found it," Lulu smiled enigmatically. "Just don't tell anyone, please."

"Okay, I won't tell anyone," Nana agreed. "And what do I get for silence?"

Lulu pouted her lips just like a child:

"I don't have anything. I can only share sweets."

"Come on," Nana laughed. "I'm your friend, so I'll keep it a secret. Besides, nothing will work without the initiator."

"It's a pity that magic can't be used without some artifact," Lulu pretended to sigh because she already had a magic ring. "Probably, we will be given initiators in senior courses."

"They say those only training ones, but you will have to buy the real ones yourself. Oh, I hope my parents have enough money to buy me at least some kind of wand so that I can do magic," Nana said dejectedly.

"Don't worry, they will definitely give you the initiator for graduation. You'll see!" — Lulu to cheer up her friend.

Today was the thirtieth of December, the last day of classes. Therefore, tomorrow all the students and some of the teachers will go home. They will celebrate with their family or have fun at noisy parties. A whole month was given to have a good rest and soon continue studying again with renewed vigor.

"By the way, why are you ignoring Sophie?" Nana asked suddenly.

Lulu didn't know how to answer that question. Her heart continued to ache and moan from bad thoughts, and every night she had nightmares. In some, she sobbed over the lifeless body of the teacher, and in others, she was tortured by Sophie and her sister. Doubt and fear had a devastating effect on Lulu's feelings. At some point, it even seemed to her that she no longer loved her only mentor in the world.

"I understand, it's a difficult period," Nana smiled.

Nana decided to play a friend, so she climbed onto the bed, snuggled up, and hugged Lulu tightly.

"Nana, what are you doing?!" Lulu's face flushed.

"How are you going to get Sophie, even if I make you blush?"

"Leave me alone, you're embarrassing me," Lulu turned her gaze away. "It's different with her!"

Nana didn't bother her anymore, so she pulled away and then remembered:

"And I also have a letter for you."

She held out a black envelope, covered with a red seal with the image of a scarlet rose.

"What is it?" Lulu took it with shaking hands.

"It looks like someone sent you a death message," Nana suggested. "I'd better go, otherwise I don't want to become a random victim."

Lulu tried to stop her, but Nana quickly jumped to her feet and ran out of the room.

"Wait! Don't leave me alone with this black letter!" Lulu shouted after her, but it was too late.

She was left all alone with a mysterious message, from which there was a chill. In place of the recipient was the name "Lulu", and the sender was "Sophie". Lulu thought that her mentor had somehow found out that her secret had been revealed. And now Lulu had to accept the challenge and fight with her teacher for the sake of saving the academy. Inspired, she opened the envelope and began to read the message:

[I invite you to my birthday, which will be the thirty-first of December.

Your mentor,

Sophie.]

"And that's it?! Lulu exclaimed and added indignantly. "But why send it in such an envelope?! Sophie decided to make fun of me again?"

***

Sophie suddenly sneezed, and even so unsuccessfully that she knocked over a glass of wine. The scarlet liquid instantly flowed across the desktop, staining the paper in red tones.

"Ay, what have I done! Report! My report!" she clutched her head with her hands.

She began to look for a cloth to blot the wine. Her faithful familiar, as usual, laughed:

"My lady! How I love watching you fail."

"Bonbon. Enough sarcasm, it would be better to sympathize with me," she sighed.

"Because of the report? Blot it with a rag, and throw it in the bucket!" he advised. "No one will read it anyway."

"Not about this," Sophie finally found an unnecessary cloth with which she wiped the table.

"Do you miss Lulu? But someone so resolutely wanted to erase this little witch from her life, forget about her forever."

"Yes, I did," Sophie admitted. "But she did something to me, and now I can't forget her. Even worse, I have dreams where we are…"

She bit her tongue.

"I'm sorry, Mistress. I am a demon of time, not dreams. If you want, I can call him for you," the familiar said without hesitation.

"Don't, I've had enough of one annoying demon in my life, — she threw a contemptuous look at the toy bear and then added. — Why did Lulu stop playing? Why is he hiding from me? Did she find out something about the wine?"

"Moonlight Sugar is made only in the Kingdom of Black Roses, and even then in secret from the whole world," Bonbon explained. "But your assistant is very resourceful and quick-witted."

After the day Lulu found out that Sophie was the sister of Elizabeth the Blood Witch, she began to stay away from her mentor. Lulu stopped playing the violin, did not come to evening classes, and during lectures hid behind the backs of her peers and quickly disappeared at the end. Sophie tried to intercept her many times, but she deftly found excuses and evaded the answer. So Sophie began to realize that Lulu had found out something about her.

"My question is, what exactly did she find out about me?" — she reasoned aloud.

"I have no idea," Bonbon said innocently.

But it was he who broke into the apartments of Mrs. Krivda and broke into the crystal ball for predictions. He wanted to torture Krivda to death, but the old hag sent Lulu instead. That's why he wondered if an unremarkable girl could change history, turn it in a different direction. Bonbon could see the wrong side of time, and know everything that was going to happen in the future, but he couldn't change anything. The demon of time even knew when and where he would be destined to fall from the hero's blade.

"That's funny. People are insignificant creatures, but they can change time itself and with it the entire universe," how many times has he caught himself on this thought.

Sophie got up from the table at midnight and, wrapping a scarf around her neck, left the room. Her robe did not protect her body well from the cold, so she had to rub hand in hand to somehow warm up. She quietly crept along the dark corridors towards the abandoned wing. Every day Sophie made outings in the hope of finding at least some mention of her sister. Magical lamps burning with multicolored lights illuminated her path. Statues of mythical creatures standing against the walls of the corridors created bizarre shadows, from which Sofia shied away.

It just so happened that Sophie was born a timid and feeble girl. Fears haunted her every day, forcing her to hide under the covers and sit there quietly until her older sister arrived. Everything changed one rainy day when Elizabeth went to study at the Witch Academy. After saying goodbye to her, Sophie was left all alone in the small servants' house. Their beloved mansion burned to the ground, leaving behind only black ashes and firebrands, so they had to live in a cramped, uncomfortable annex, which miraculously survived.

"Why?!" she got angry, remembering those days.

The spell "Calvarus" flew out of her mouth. A snow-white skull formed in the palms. Opening his mouth, he flew towards the enemy. There was a pop, and pieces of pumpkin and scraps of cloth flew in different directions. Someone made a doll and put it here to scare people.

"I'm so sick of these witches," Sophie sighed.

"They're kids," Bonbon's voice said. "If you are unlucky in life, it does not mean that others are the same."

"I understand that, but we are at the academy. This is outrageous!"

It was always so quiet in the abandoned wing, only annoying spiders were in the way, ready to attack stealthily. Burning the passages with a bright flame of fire spells, Sophie explored more and more new rooms that she had not been in before.

"I had to change. I have overcome my fears!" she continued the dialogue.

"Yes, that's for sure. You've become a fearless nerd," Bonbon agreed with her.

"Am I a nerd?!" Sophie stopped. "And who was always complaining to me that I didn't pay enough attention to him?!"

"Lady, from above!" he warned.

Sophie, without raising her head, uttered a spell that sounded like the hissing of a snake. Instantly, a black vortex enveloped her body. He protected the witch from the unexpected attack of the spiders, causing them to scatter in different directions. Having received magical burns, they fell to the dusty floor in their death throes and soon turned into ashes.

"How I hate these vile creatures!" Sophie winced. "So where were we there?"

"You said something about Lulu," Bonbon decided to change the subject.

"Do you think I have no memory?"

"Then why are we going towards the music class?"

"Really?" Sophie said innocently. "Then let's go in another direction."

Perhaps she would have done so if she hadn't heard the pleasant sound of a musical instrument coming from the impenetrable darkness. Forgetting about everything in the world, Sophie rushed in that direction. Her heart beat joyfully, and a thought slipped through her head:

"Lulu, please be there!"

She ran into the music room and saw her assistant. Lulu played a slow and sad melody that made anyone want to cry. There were tears on her face, running down her cheeks and falling on the parquet. Moving around the hall, Lulu completely gave herself up on playing the musical instrument. Immersed in internal problems, she wanted to free herself from spiritual shackles with the help of music, forget herself, become free like a bird, and fly away to heaven.

Sophie could barely contain herself. She wanted to hug Lulu tightly, snuggle up to her and feel her heartbeat. Sophie didn't understand what was happening to her. The mind succumbed to feelings that flared up from endless expectations. All she could do now was pull herself together and lean her back against the wall. Closing her eyes, Sophie thought: "What's going on with me? She's just an ordinary girl who sticks her nose where she shouldn't! Why do I want to hug her, to feel that delicate taste of a kiss, her smell? And her blood!"

Lulu would probably have been playing for ages if the window hadn't opened at the behest of unknown forces and let in the icy breath of the night. The violin playing stopped immediately. Lulu, putting the musical instrument on the piano, finally turned her attention to Sophie.

"How long have you been standing here?" — followed her question.

"Not really,— Sophie said. "I wanted to know why you're avoiding me."

"Think for yourself, why am I avoiding you?"

Sophie didn't say anything, because now she knew for sure that her assistant had unearthed something about her.

"There was another clause in our agreement," Lulu took the initiative. "A mentor should be honest with her assistant."

"Really?" Sophie asked, raising one eyebrow.

"Then answer me, Mistress Sophie. What have you forgotten about these walls? And who is your sister?"

"I don't have a sister!" she exclaimed. "And what I'm doing here is none of your business!"

"Wrong answer. That's just my business," Lulu smiled. "I won't let you harm the academy and summon hordes of demons here!"

"Demons?! What demons?!"

It was too late to explain anything. Lulu threw up her hands and shouted "Fulgur." Blue light illuminated the room, and bright lightning bolts began to disperse in a straight line through the air and move towards Sophie. Bonbon managed to put up a magic barrier at the last moment. A little more, and his mistress would have experienced an electric shock. But the attack power of the spell turned out to be so high that the shield could not stand it and dissipated as if it did not exist at all.

"What a power!" Sophie gritted her teeth. "Lulu, please listen to me! I don't want to fight you!"

"I'll stop you!" Raising her hands in the air, Lulu concentrated again.

"Wait, you don't know how to control the force! Magic will consume you!"

A new spell "Inberus" followed. A small cloud appeared over Lulu's head, which began to increase in size. She quickly covered the entire ceiling, releasing small lightning bolts in different directions. One of them almost grazed Sophie, leaving a black spot on the floor at her feet.

"Please stop!" Sophie once again made an attempt to stop her assistant.

"Mistress! She's going to destroy everything in this room!" Bonbon warned his mistress. "I must admit, it was very clever of her to create a whole thundercloud."

Sophie looked into Lulu's eyes. There was not a drop of fear in them. Lulu knew what she was doing. Sophie tried to constrain her movements with the help of summoned snakes, but the creatures did not have time to crawl. Lulu burned them with the fire spell "Elum".

"Mistress, just kill her already, or I'll do it myself!" The familiar was angry.

At the moment when Lulu was about to say "Fulgur" and cast an enhanced spell that would cause a chain reaction with a thundercloud, Sophie used counterattacking magic. She was shouting out unrelated fragments of words while gesticulating furiously. Nothing seemed to be happening, but Lulu's spell didn't work. She concentrated and tried to release new portions of lightning, but nothing happened.

"Why?" Lulu's mouth dropped open in surprise.

"I'm not your equal!" Sophie went from words to action. "Know your place, you little pain in the ass!"

Sophie summoned a magical weapon into her hands. The black spear that materialized out of nowhere blazed with a scarlet flame and seemed to burn everything in the neighborhood except the hands of its mistress. With a good swing, Sophie threw it straight at Lulu.

"At least I tried," Lulu thought.

Lulu couldn't dodge the attack, so she soon felt her body pierced by the tip of a spear. Tearing the thin skin, the cold metal pierced right into the stomach and went through. From the unbearable pain, Lulu fell to her knees and the last thing she saw was Sophie walking slowly towards her with a satisfied smile on her face.