It was dark outside again. To be very fair Anya had no idea how time worked or how much had passed, but she was pretty sure it shouldn’t have been dark yet. It didn’t actually matter that much, since the darkness did give them cover and made the whole thing feel more… spooky. Or just more illegal.

Leo was leading the group, the bag on his back jingling whenever he took a step that was a bit too much like a jump. Luckily, no one seemed to be outside and the few people who were walked past the group in a hurry.

The peace did give Anya a chance to look around at the world she had been born in. The buildings continued to be the cutest things, a mix of tall structures made from stones and smaller houses built from wood and painted white. Some sort of ivy was climbing the walls of most of the taller buildings, each balcony of those filled some sort of plants. Those that didn’t seemed to have wind chimes or general things just hanging. Anya was fairly sure she saw at least one balcony have an entire waterfall on it.

The light from the houses and apartment buildings lit up the pavement, helping the group find their way around everything from slightly bigger roads to small alleyways. Not a single streetlight was lit, even though they lined the more official looking roads. They swayed slightly in the wind that smelled of salt. Anya filed that information later and hoped that there was a body of water nearby. God she missed swimming.

When they finally stopped under a pole that had four cameras pointed in different directions Leo was brimming with excited energy while Katt seemed to have the same amount of nervous energy.

“Leo, are you sure? We haven’t seen a single guard even though the alarm was ringing just a few hours ago.”

“Usually your paranoia makes sense but this time the situation has no minuses, we’ll run if there is trouble.” Leo replied, picking up a can of paint from his backpack and tossing a couple to Lily and Sam. “We can stop whenever we want but not right now.”

Anya went over to the pole where Leo and Katt had now devolved to a staring match, taking a spray can of her own. Looking up, she quickly realised there was no way she would reach the cameras from the ground. Assessing the area, Anya saw nothing that looked a) movable or b) usebale as a ladder. Which left the option of climbing up the pole and spraying the four cameras from there or sitting on a friends shoulders.

Anya had never been the best at making decisions.

Taking a breath and a spring, she jumped up to hold on to the pole a bit off the ground. Moving her legs up a little bit, Anya pushed herself up the camera pole, slowly pulling herself up the pole to a height where she could reach the cameras. Not the most difficult thing she had climbed in her life.

“Whoa.” Anya looked down to see both Leo and Katt staring at her in awe, and Lily hiding her face in her hands. Anya raised an eyebrow at that, to which Sam just gave a thumbs up from beside his sister.

“Pretty neat huh?” Anya said, opening the can and flipping off the nearest camera before spraying the lens completely.

“Where have you been all my life?” Leo asked as Anya moved on to the next two targets.

“Stuck on earth with no memory of Commonia.” Anya said, finally spraying the last lens and sliding back down.

“Touché.” Leo answered, throwing Anya a new can. Confused, Anya took it and followed Leo to the nearest wall. Looking behind her, she saw Katt spraying some text on another wall and Sam and Lily taking care of another camera pole.

“Why did you give me another can?”

“That is glow in the dark paint. We use it because it’s fun.” Leo started spraying some words onto the wall as well, similar to what Katt was doing. “Do you want to spray the symbol we’ve been using?”

Anya nodded. Leo smiled, rooting around in his pockets for a moment before handing Anya a piece of paper. It was a dot with three dots curved on top of it and five long diamond shapes under it. Anya got the distinct feeling that this wasn’t just a symbol the teenagers had made up one night, but then again Anya wasn’t actually sure what people usually did on sleepovers.

“Why is this vaguely familiar?” she decided to ask.

“It was the symbol for uh… I guess the literal translation is Royal School of Magic? Anyway, it was a school where your mom taught basically the best magic users of each generation. My sister went there and so did Katt’s brother.” Leo got a somber look on his face. Anya decided to just nod and not ask further questions about siblings, even if she wanted to. Carefully, she began spraying the symbol on the wall in front of her.

After some awkward silence Leo started absentmindedly chatting about this and that. Mostly about the paint. Apparently, he had worked with Ava to make it nearly impossible to remove. The bright orange colour had been chosen as a nod to Anya’s mother, Ciryllia. She had been vocal about it being her favourite colour while she was still alive. To make it more of a conversation, Anya shared some anecdotes from her life. Like the time she hit herself with an axe. Even though that memory had been changed a bit it was still a classic.

They were startled from their conversation by a loud “you”, which they realized - after closer inspection and turning around - had been said by Katt. Confused, they both looked to where Katt was glaring.

Anya’s very first thought at seeing the figure was how the hell such a short person could warrant such hate. Then she remembered Carla and their antics and deemed Katt's actions very fair.

Then it hit her. She had seen the figure before. Maybe. The height, posture, the color of the person's hair reminded her strikingly of the strange brunet she had seen a glimpse of in the portal room in the shed. She hadn't gotten a good view of their face, but the person facing them now was wearing a mask anyway, so any facial recognition ability Anya had was absolutely useless.

“Ah, K. How… nice to see you and your friends again. You seem to have gotten some more.” Anya awkwardly waved as she was referenced. The person waved back, oddly enough. Their voice seemed so young? Anya had expected a short adult but the person had a very soft and clear voice.

“Look, Princey, how about you leave? You know we can take you down,” Katt snapped, moving so that Lily and Sam were behind her.

“It’s just prince or Your Highness, you know this,” this Princey person mumbled. Then he waved his hand behind him, signalling for several people in uniforms to march from behind the corner. “And if taking me down is so easy, why have you never done it?” Anya could hear the guy smirking under that mask. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

As the guards moved closer to the group Anya instinctively put her arms up, backing herself into the wall behind her. It felt so cold. Trying to control her breathing, she looked over to where Lily and Sam were. They had been completely circled, but at least they looked like they were calm. Calm but angry.

Looking up, Anya could see people in the windows on the other side of the street, just looking down. She desperately tried to catch one of their gazes, but they seemed to be dead set on avoiding eyecontact, looking out with empty eyes. The one person Anya was able to catch the gaze of closed the blinds as soon as they locked eyes. Everyone else was just staring.

Why was no one helping? Why was this happening? And why was the goddamn wall so cold?

Anya didn’t have time to react before the wall behind her exploded outwards, sending her flying right into the guards circling her friends. Through the ringing in her ears Anya vaguely registered someone grabbing her and restraining her. Everything was illuminated by bright orange light shining from where she had been standing only seconds before. Anya had to shut her eyes in pain. Her ears wouldn’t stop ringing and Anya wished she had her hands free so she could hold her head. She couldn’t focus, her eyesight was blurry and holding her eyes open hurt. She could barely hear anything. Was someone yelling? She slowly lifted her head. With shuddering gasps she could finally blink her eyes open and see what had happened.

The building, or what was left of it, was completely engulfed in fire. The only bit of wall that was still standing held the symbol Anya had sprayed on, somehow glowing brighter than the fire behind it. Leo had been pushed forward onto another guard and seemed to have the same troubles as Anya. His eyes were shut tight and he was trembling visibly despite the guard's attempts to restrict his movement. The guard behind Anya held onto her arms tighter, making her wince in pain. There was pressure on her arms, in her head and in one specific point on her foot. The last one was just a rock in her shoe though.

God, how long had she been this exhausted?

The guard started dragging her forward. It took a few moments for Anya to get her legs to work, to walk with them so she wouldn’t have to be dragged around. Why were they in a hurry?

The ringing was slowly quieting down, but Anya still struggled to focus on what she was hearing. Someone was yelling? She had no idea who or what they were saying, only that they were getting further away from her. As the sound disappeared the guard pushed Anya down to her knees.

“I didn’t know K had found a witch! No wonder she thought you had the advantage.” Anya looked up to see Princey. She didn’t like calling him that. Prince? That would have to do for now.

“Moreso I fell into her lap and started bothering her.” Anya forced out, gulping air like it was the first time she was breathing. Everything hurt.

The Prince snorted, turning to the guards behind him.

“You three, go with them and get them to the closest one of our buildings.”

“Sir, the closest one is on fire,” The guard holding Anya pointed out.

“And there is one just down that street. Just go, I’m going to get the Queen. I’m sure she’ll want to see this.” Anya was abruptly pulled up. What building? Where was she going? Where were all her friends?

“Where are my friends?” She asked, turning around to try and catch the attention of the brunet currently walking in the other direction. He waved a hand, not even turning to look.

“Don’t worry about them. See you soon, princess!” and then Anya was pushed around a corner.

Wait.

Princess?