Jade dashed after leaving Hoenir in the second backyard.

The west hallway was parading in the corner of her eyes as she scanned the minuscule golden nameplates up the doors.
Axinite.
Sugilite.
Diopaste.
Damn!
Where was the Emerald one?
One spin, two spin.
Still nothing.

"HEY MAGIC, COULD YOU BE USEFUL FOR ONCE? GET ME TO THAT EMERALD ROOM."

No reaction.

Worthless, she thought as she made a irked sound and placed her hands on her hips.

Thus, she had blinked, as a human does three times per minute.
How long was a blink for an average human? 100 milliseconds?

In this timelapse, space had moved.

The beautiful and luxurious corridor had grown into a dark, petite room, filled with candles everywhere, six men circling around a weird symbol.
The walls were cracked, the slates too, and any piece of cushion seemed to have been kidnapped to a dark romance of which they'll never escape.
A good illustration of a satanic ritual.

Jade made her eyes flutter just to see if it was a hallucination, but it tragically wasn't.
She had teleported.

(What a déjà-vu. Is The Author low on idea?)《And is This Narrator, with all the competences they have—as to say, none—in the best situation to talk?》

Anyway, her blood felt like it left for a jog.
The needle who stabbed her brain last time she used magic reappeared to repeat her task; destroy any connections between her brain cells with a gruesome headache.

"Oh, oh."
She nearly didn't grab the wall in time.
Her legs unfortunately also had forget how to do their task.

The interjection sure caught the men's attention, interrupting their weird incantations through.

"What is a little girl doing here?"

"OH, WAIT, SHE'S SURELY A DESIGNATED SACRIFICE SEND BY THE SUPREME DIAGOL!"

D-Diagol?
Wasn't that the alter ego of Satan on Telin?
Why would six grown-up men want a small girl for the Devil himself?

The needle disappeared, and the connections revived.
They wanted her as a sacrifice for the Devil.
And, even if Jade knew nothing about spiritism, she was sure it wasn't the best thing.

The men nodded accordingly while one already yelled about how right the other was.
With their numb legs, they managed to stand up as she spotted the exit of that awful room.
Exploding the door while throwing it on a wall without making the whole building tremble wasn't a top priority, so she just did all remorseless.

"SPIROT!"
She called out, entering a pitifully rotten concourse and casually evading a black-coated man of the circle clinging on her.
"WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?"

"UHMMMMMMM," it appeared floating next to her, floating faster than usual, "IT'S COMPLICATED..."

"IT IS NOT COMPLICATED; IT'S ABSURD. WHY AM I IN A SECT?"
She negotiated a perfect deviation, although the remains of headache loomed over her brain.
She slammed a door, fell on an explicit scene involving two adults, and spun around, more panicked than before.

When she dodged someone for the third time, the rabbit yelled.
"YOU DIDN'T MENTION WHICH EMERALD ROOM."

"WHAT?"

"MAGIC, FRIEND."

She swore to anything that, as soon as she'd escape this weirdass brothel, she'd slap that bunny's face so hard it would fly at the other side of Telin.

As soon as she found a staircase, she leaped there, the ravenous troupe in her steps.
The first floor seemed to be a saloon, which, as soon as she entered, got mute.

"EXCUSE ME FOR MY INTERRUPTION!"
She threw after storming the room inside out and blasting the swinging hatches out of her way in a deafening earshot.
"HAVE A GREAT DAY!"

Somber alleys on the right against one light on the left parted the way.
Choice was quickly done. She ran toward the light.
Jade spawned in the main street of Bymen, the capital of Menless, with inquiring stares right on her. Everyone in the street was staring for the sudden apparition.
She detailed herself too in the first found window.

Her past leaf gown turned a khakish tint, and as she liked her outfit simple, she just now looked as a pocket-sized child erring in the boulevards of the capital.
No need to worry about attention with a physique like that; just had to worry about a way to go home.

"Spirot! How do I go back?"
She walked to a wall, hugging it being the best option to be invisible in her opinion.

"You can only go back if you strongly wish to."
The rabbit wiggled his fur, finally flying straight after their run.
"I can't help you."
It shrugged.

What could she do?
Go back to the castle's front door and tell she had teleported, just like that?
This time everyone would know about her magic.

Idea eliminated.

And if she didn't get home?
Who, in a sane state of mind, would want to go to a ceremony to be judged?
Avoiding this roamed her mind and hadn't found a way out.
But, the solution was now served on a silver plate.
Why would she refuse it?
She could wander in the streets, a little bit, and in the principal ones at least.
Postponing couldn't hurt much.

Idea accepted.

"We're going on an adventure, Spirot!"
She dusted out her skirt and took her first step in her expedition.

She wandered, reading the names of the nearby shops.
Wandered again and again and again, till she left the main street to meet a darker one.

●●●

Had she lost herself?
No, absolutely not.

The tenth princess had followed beautiful flowers sliding through the slits between the stones of the houses and was in the tiniest ever known library of the city, and, like this, she actually and technically knew where she was.

"That book, what did you think of it?"

It was about half an hour she had bragged excitedly about books with this girl.

"It was so nice!"
Jade replied, catching the 'Daindreth's assassin' book.
"The story really seized my interest since the first page, and the two main characters' interactions were on point!"

"And this one?"
The girl caught 'ACOTAR'.

"Not my thing but objectively appreciable."
Our writer laid the hardcover on the tall pile of others, which came from the interrogation.

"And last but not least," the girl yanked her back in the conversation, "this one?"

"Horrible."
Jade let out, still traumatized about 'Words are pointless'.
"Monstrous. Wish to never have opened it."

The girl shook her head, a smirk painting her lips, mouthing instantly.
"You and I have the same book taste!"

"Really?"
Jade asked, just to be assured.

"Yes!"
The excited bookworm squealed.
"Wahhhhhhhhhhhhh! It's so nice to meet you, book mate!"

Jade was like a child in front of a pack of candy with this new friend.
"Have you read 'How to ruin an empire with five murders'?"

Her soulmate, a girl with a boy-cut of black hair on the back and light canary bangs on the front, fretted her head, jiggling her rather tomboy appearance in the same manner, as she wore tight dungarees with an oversized blouse. "Of course, it was so good that I devoured the whole series in one day!"

"So did I!"
Jade giggled; a dumb smile painted her lips.

Her soulmate's place was really cozy with so many shelves barely any light could survive.

Then, when she mentally called the girl soulmate, Jade grew her awareness about how she was talking to a stranger.
Wasn't a stranger if you knew their name, right?
That's what her mom said.

'Jade, what the Sorre is that thought?'
Spirot said in her head, causing her to jolt.

'Why are you in my head again?'
She surprised herself in mentally responding.

A snort.
'Because you say the dumbest things ever.'
She could hear it roll of the eyes.
'Don't give your real name.'

'As if I would have.'
She had a hard time maintaining a poker face.

"Girl...?"
The soulmate tried decipher Jade's facial expressions.
"Is everything alright?"

"YES! Yes."
Our writer jolted.
"My name's Nia. What's yours?"

The girl offered quite of a dumbfounded expression.
"Did I forgot to present myself...? Oh sh— Sorry, Nia, to be so excited about meeting you and forgetting the basis!"
She answered rapidly, seemingly fazed about her omission.
"I'm Suncicek. Call me Sun! It's way shorter."

Our writer bobbed her head at the presentation as Sun was already on the other side of a shelf after being behind her just three seconds ago.
She gripped another novel and handed it to her, blindingly smiling.
"If you haven't read this one, it's going to suit you!"

It had been a while since last time Jade saw a new book, as the imperial library only added volumes monthly.
"Thank you so much, Sun!"
She held the new novel with exaltation, Sun already boasting about how it was natural to share books with good people, when our writer glimpsed through the vitrine.

Dusk was rising.
Ah, surely had to go home. For the ceremony.
Her stomach knitted.

"What's wrong?"
Her partner noticed.
"You don't have money to pay?"
She innocently asked.

"Yes... but no! That's not—"

An amicable hand landed on her back.
"No worries! Offered by the house!"
Sun beamed again.

But. It. Wasn't. Jade's problem.
She had to go back for that horrible ceremony and suffer all of this and present herself to each person of the room and—

Sun had strode to the counter and was shrouding the book in a sepia piece of paper.

"Sun, it's not because of the book..."
Jade, embarrassed by this prompt present and the clock ticking, managed to say.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk," her soulmate hushed, "it's a gift. No gift can be refused."
The girl finalized the package, staging it for her now.
"It was so good to meet you, Nia! When could we pass time together again?"
Her fingers stretched in a count of three, then four, then seven.
"Are you available this week?"

"I don't really know..." Jade wondered, remembering about Xander's possible marriage and her personal servant's choosing plan and some magic study since having a headache every time, and Magia Prilla... Well, she had much to do.
She clasped the wrapped book.
"Could I find you here?"

"Of course!"
Sun acquiesced, her head shaking up and down.
"I'm here until the end of the holidays, with my horrible—"

"Horrible... cousin?"

"Absolutely!"

Jade, who wasn't the one who had talked, rotated to the taller figure next to Sun.

Sun also rotated.
"Oh f—" she had the time to mouth before being smashed to the ground in a resounding thud.

The cousin squatted next to her friend's laying body.
"Never insult your elders, Cici."
He said, sweeping his palm after this perfectly achieved wrestling move.
"Sorry for this show-off, miss."
He joined for Jade with a simple glance.

Sun, groaning from the K.O., swore under her breath to him while eyeing Jade with an imploring gaze, as she could save her.
"Nia," she sighed, "this is my cousin, Einar. He's fourteen and awful."

"Awfully handsome."
He claimed pridefully as Sun's eyes rolled in their orbits.

"And humble as you see."
The exasperated girl retorted.

Jade couldn't resist wheezing under Sun's protests.

"It's not funny!"
She screeched, throwing her hands in the air.
"I'm stuck with that brute till the end of the week!"

"P-please excuse me..." she managed to say between two cackles.

The boy—who had the privilege to be nice to watch—had busted out his chest, matching his probable enormous ego, which destroyed any possible gracefulness.
"Why did you offer this girl a book?"
He began.
"Don't you know it's my family's bookshop?"

A violent finger poked his cheek.
"First, she's my official soulmate."
Sun declared, particularly proud, as she rose to a standing position. "And, second, your family would also be mine."
She mimed an exchange with a face showing incomprehension, probably wondering how someone so dumb could share blood with her.

"Nice to meet you, Cicek's soulmate."
The cousin introduced himself, ignoring the successive answer of Sun.
"You better be careful with her, she could burn your house down under a minute."

Our writer nodded, knowing there wouldn't be a chance for her new friend to burn a fortress for that time being.

Einar cocked his head, like a thought just came back to him.
"Oh, and that would be six Menløs by the way."

He took the violent elbow nudge with much more elegance than Jade thought.
He contended to choke intensely after his own remark.

"That will be free."
Sun grinned to Jade, who couldn't help but listen to noises.

A loud clamor grew in the streets.
At this hour, either her family was searching her, or it was just a sign to go.

She snatched Sun tenderly.
"I definitely have to go."
She began when she hugged her new friend tightly, who, surprised, had stiffened and blushed.
"I shall see you as soon as I can."

She strode to the entrance and, before closing the door on the archaic book exposition, delightfully grinned for both of them.
"Thank you for the novel, soulmate."

When the doorbell clinked, the princess read the shop sign above her.

Fate's bookstore.

It was maybe a sign, or she thought so.