I woke up. I was back in the pink room. The maid was beside my bed giving me a look of disapproval. 

“What, did I fail the test?” I snapped.

I must have. Someone must have noticed I set the maze on fire and gotten me out. They wouldn’t have let a kid burn to death, hopefully. I half glanced at my arms expecting to see bandages or burns but saw none. 

The maid stood up, still annoyed.

“The test is in four days. Did you have a nightmare? Don’t worry, you haven’t failed yet.” I didn’t like the snide tone in her voice. Who does she think she-

“Four days?”

“Yes, now please get up, we have to go meet-”

“The magic tutor,” I finished for her while climbing off the bed. 

I walked over to the dresser like I had done every day for the past four days in a daze. Did I get sent back in time? Oh no, did I die again? Maybe I did set myself on fire after all!

The maid began to pull out a dress but I shook my head.

“I want the blue one.” I told her

My wardrobe once again consisted of nothing but horrible shades of pink. 

“You want the-” she must have been too shocked to even finish her sentence. 

“The blue. I think I’m done with pink. Now hurry up. Isn’t the tutor waiting?” 

The maid hesitated before reaching for the light blue dress. It was still nice. As the maid rattled off my schedule my mind wandered to the girl I saw before passing out. No, no one like that belonged in this world. But I knew her name, didn’t I? I called her Leanne. I gave my head a small shake. No, why would I know someone like that. I must have given her that name as the smoke burnt up my lungs. 

“Is something wrong?” the maid asked.

“Yes, you’re not working fast enough.” I replied irritably.

She might have been a bit rougher than she probably should have as she helped me get the dress on. I guess she got a bit mad. After that was done, I walked to the door and before she could follow me I said over my shoulder, “I don’t need you hanging around me. Go do whatever else it is you do. I think I can find my own way around my own house.” I slammed the door without looking back. She did not follow me.

It wasn’t that long a walk now that I knew the house a bit. I opened the door and found the tutor setting down a briefcase on a sofa. What had the maid called this room? A sitting room? It had tall windows, sofas and two small desks facing what was unmistakably a blackboard. Why were there two desks? Was one of them for the maid’s daughter when I used to sneak her into my lessons? Or did Anastasia have a friend after all?

I did a small curtsy almost automatically. He gave me a small smile, like he found me amusing or something.

“Good morning! Are your nerves kicking in before the big exam!” He asked in what I hoped was a joke.

“What makes you say that?” I asked sitting down. I remembered too late that at this point my notebook is still sitting at the top of the dresser. I guess I was not taking any notes in this class.

“You seem a bit distracted this morning.” He rummaged through his briefcase and pulled out a book. “Now, where did we leave off yesterday? I believe we were talking about the simple spells again.”

“Can we talk about the maze instead?” I surprised myself by saying.

“Do you actually want to hear about the maze this time! You must be getting nervous after all.” He put the book back into his bag and pulled out a different one. 

He also pulled out a piece of chalk and began to draw lines on the board. It took a few lines for me to realize he was drawing a maze. I picture the hedges and an image of fire flashed through my mind. I could feel the burning in my lungs. I closed my eyes and waited for the feeling to stop. When I opened my eyes again, I found the instructor still drawing his maze as if nothing had happened. Because nothing had, I thought to myself angrily. It was one fire! Big f***ing deal!

I forced myself to take slow deep breaths. The instructor paused his drawing to shoot me a quick look before he got back to his masterpiece, a bunch of crooked lines. He actually took a step back to admire his handiwork. It was a bit of a silly gesture but it took my mind off the fire so I almost found it amusing. 

“As you know, the maze is the entrance exam for The Golden Cauldron Magic Institute. It was developed more than a thousand years ago but of course as the magic abilities of the general public began to decline, it had to be simplified. There are stories that when the test was new, the prospective student had to face young monsters and sometimes even small dragons. There is no record of that, though. I believe that was a story told to frighten children. No, the test is safe.”

I tentatively raised my hand feeling a bit foolish. I just didn’t know how else to interject with a question. 

“Has anyone died? In the test, I mean.”

I wish my voice hadn’t shaken. It made me feel like a coward. 

“There are no records of any deaths, no. There is a council of twelve sorcerers to look over the students and make sure nothing goes wrong. They will step in if anything goes wrong.”

I guess I must have imagined dying in the maze then! I forcibly turned my attention back to the instructor. 

“The main goal of the maze is navigating to the center while avoiding the illusions throughout the maze. In the center of the maze there will be a random item that must then be taken to the edge of the maze.”

I raised my hand again. It still felt foolish, I had no idea if that is how I was supposed to get his attention. He stopped talking and looked at me expectantly.

“Isn’t the test to use magic? Can’t you just walk through the maze without using any magic at all?”

“Oh, magic is not required. The Golden Cauldron Magic Institute is not just a school of magic funnily enough. Magic does make the test much easier. The maze is dark and there is a simple spell that allows one to see past simple illusions that is very useful. I can show you those spells. The second one is a bit more tricky but it should not be that hard.”

I really wished I remembered to bring a notebook.

That was how the class went. It seemed to last less time than the last one as the instructor described small spells that could be used in the test. The fire spell lingering in the back of my head, I kept trying to visualize anything but the wall of fire. I also learned that the maze did change. The walls shifted close to the center to confuse prospective students. Even so, I can’t have taken more than thirty steps into the maze. There was no way I was anywhere near the center. No reason for the walls at the entrance to shift. I closed my eyes. I was doing my best to ignore the dry feeling in the back of my throat.

With that class over, I had lunch with my father  and it went just about the same as the first time except I was not as nervous to eat in front of him the second time around. He spoke about the same things he did the last time and I snuck in a few questions about the test. He seemed surprised but he gave me very similar answers to the instructor. 

Moving on, I met with the etiquette teacher and then I had some time for myself. I decided to do the same thing I tried to do on my first day, except with more success because I knew the way. I went to visit my mother.

I knocked on the door and waited. 

I heard a weak voice, asking who it was.

“It’s Anastasia, mom.” I wish my voice hadn’t shaken. 

There was a small pause. I guess she needed the time to ponder my motives? She let me in or rather, the maid let me in. I barely looked at her. 

“I’ll be outside” she told my mother walking out.

I took a few steps into the room. She still looked ill. I did my best to give her a smile and a curtsy.

“Hi mom…”

She coughed, and barely managed to say, “I see you decided to visit me.”

She did not seem angry. 

“Why was she in here?” I asked, trying and failing to keep the spite off my voice.

She frowned. Taking a moment to cough before she took a shaky breath.

“I know you two don’t get along but she is an old friend of mine.” She gave me a small smile. “I think you two need to spend more time together. She is not a bad person, she’s going through a tough time.”

More coughing.

“She looks at me like she hates me. It’s so weird. I barely even talk to her.” I barely stopped myself from shouting. What good will it do to shout at a sick woman?

“I’m not sure it’s hatred. I think it’s resentment. That is something she had to deal with and probably not take out her emotions on a kid.” She seemed amused. 

“You’re friends?”

She gave me a small smile.

“We met at the Magic Institute, back when she was still a noble.” Cough, more violent than before. “She was forced to drop out during our last year. She wasn’t a noble anymore. Their family home was set on fire. Her parents were killed. She was alone and homeless. I convinced my parents to let me hire her as a maid. I just wanted her to have a place to stay. She didn’t see it that way.” Cough. Was that blood? “She saw it as me taking advantage of her lowered status. I don’t know but I think on some level, she still sees it that way. I hope not. When you were born, I reassigned her as your maid hoping some time away from me would calm her down. I guess not. She told me you would rather not have her follow you around anymore.”

“I’m eight. I don’t need an escort.” I scoffed.

She either laughed or had a very long coughing fit, maybe both.

“Of course not!” She said after a few minutes.

Once more, her coughing became so bad that the mad had to rush in to get me out. I once again promised I would visit again as I was pushed out.

I ate dinner alone and in an almost meek voice asked the maid to get my notebook down from the dresser. She got it for me but from the way she looked at me, you’d think I asked her something unreasonable. 

I looked through the bad attempt at notes looking for the fire spell. It was there, very badly described. I also noticed a very small note at the end ‘Fire spreads’. Yeah… it really does.

I went to sleep. I had a very similar day the next day. I went to class, had lunch alone, had more class, I visited my mom and then ate dinner alone. 

The third day was my free day. I asked the maid where the library was and sent her on her way after she showed me. I had a few things to look up after the second magic lesson. The library was quite similar to father’s study but without father. I looked around the shelves. There were so many of them. I would have found the whole thing daunting if not for the labels on the side of the shelves. I went to the section labeled magic. The first thing that caught my attention was a book simply called fire. It was a big book, the spine having a small image of a candle. I took it to one of the tables I noticed between the shelves.  I opened it at random. It opened to the fire spell. Anastasia had not even written down the spell correctly. The spell was fireball and it was definitely not a simple spell. It was a ball of fire that exploded on impact. I used an intermediate spell instead of a beginner spell. Maybe that’s why it all went wrong?

I shook my head and put the book back. I spent the rest of the day looking over spell books copying down spells I found interesting making a plan for the next day before I was forced to go to bed. 

The next day it was finally time again. I left the house with the maid and headed to the maze. I walked in. The hedge closed behind me. I thought back to what I had read the night before. I could burn the maze down but they probably expected me to navigate my way through and I tried. Five dead ends later and several creepy black illusions later I lost my patience. I aimed a ball of fire at the hedge. I then began visualizing a bubble around myself, one that would hopefully not let any of the fire or the smoke in. I didn’t see any difference at first until the smoke started to fill the air. It was everywhere but none of it reached me. As a bonus I no longer needed a light spell to navigate my way around. The day before, I had planned to just find some safer spells to get past the maze but the ugly feeling around the fire was annoying. On some level it felt like the fire had defeated me.

A burning branch dropped and bounced off my shield. I kept walking. I can’t believe I was scared of some stupid fire. I walked faster. Maybe it was because of the lack of visibility but I didn’t see many illusions as I walked further into the maze. Maybe it was because the center was made of sand but the fire never got anywhere near me. When  I reached the center, the fire had already started to die down. I was basically able to walk back out of the maze by walking in a straight line and I walked out to a whole lot of shouting. Old wizard had never seen such a reckless act in all of his years, I could have died! I knew I could have died. I had already done that. I think I knew a bit more than him how dangerous shooting fire at a hedge could be. The twelve sorcerers including my magic instructor hurriedly moved to extinguish the maze and then had a long discussion whether or not burning down the maze even counted as completing the task. I stood off to the side holding a slightly burnt piece of cloth, the item I needed to retrieve. While they talked the maid walked up beside me.

“Did you burn down the maze?” For once she did not sound scornful or resentful.

“Oh, I guess,” I half smiled.

“It’s better than your last attempt.” She made a vague gesture to my hair, back to being antagonistic. I almost confused her for a person but no, she was nothing but a resentful b*tch.

Conversation being pretty much dead, she went back to the carriage and I went back to waiting to see if I passed the test or not. A full ten minutes later, a very disgruntled old wizard told me that although that was not the way I was supposed to go through the maze, I had passed the test. He then held out his hand to get the cloth I retrieved. 

Still in disbelief, I walked back to the carriage. I won. I beat the fire and the maze.

I won.