I look up at the winding staircase that leads up the tower. If there is a top, I cannot see it from the bottom. 

Well, might as well start climbing, I tell myself. If I end up passing someone on the stairs, they might be able to help me. But in the meantime, the Prince said that the doors only unlock to the person they are assigned to, so if I start trying every door, eventually I will find mine.

I think.

Door 1. No luck.

Door 2. No luck.

Door 18. No luck.

Door 37. No luck.

Door 122. No luck.

Every new door that doesn’t work only makes me dread the one that will. I’m going to have to climb these stairs every time I want to go to bed? This seems impossible.

Door 201. No luck.

And how do I not see anyone else on the stairs? Not a single person has to come down?

Door 337. No luck.

I’m practically crawling on all fours as I creep higher and higher up the stairs.

Why did I ever come to this school? I am going to die, right here, on these stairs, and apparently, no one is ever going to find me, because no one else uses these stairs.

What if it was all a trick? What if the prince was trying to kill me? I am some weird magic used from another kingdom. Did they see that as a threat? 

Me? The kid who didn’t even know how he splashed paint on a kid at school?

The last bits of my energy wane, and I collapse right in front of a door. I roll onto my back and look up. I still can’t see the top of the tower.

Sweat rolls down my face. My lungs burn with each breath.

This is it. This is how I die.

I close my eyes to give up when—

“Hello?” says a high-pitched voice beside me.

My eyes shoot open with sudden energy. I never thought I’d hear a human voice again!

Leaning over me, peering out from the room I’d fallen in front of, is a girl right around my own age. At first, I’m not sure she’s real. She sure doesn’t look it.

Her curling brown hair is pulled up into two large pig-tails high on her head, but lots of her hair still flows over her shoulder as well. I nearly can’t make out the true features of her face under several layers of make-up, but not the kind my mom wears when she goes out. This girl's is colorful, with rainbows over her eyes and contouring all over her warm skin that compliments her features perfectly.

But it is her clothes that are the most interesting. I’ve never seen anyone wearing clothes like hers. It is a knee-high dress, mostly dark black and pure white, but with hints of rainbows that matched her make-up peeking out from the ruffles that kept it large and poofy at the bottom, and through the ribbons at the top.

White stockings. Tall, black boots. A white top with long ruffled sleeves.

Who dresses like this?

Where would someone even find clothes like this?

Starstorm Kingdom is weird.

Regardless, she is my only hope for survival so I sit up. I realize too late she’s leaning over me so low, we nearly clonk heads as I sit up.

“Oh. Uh. Sorry, hi,” I say.

“Is there a reason you’re passed out in front of my room?” she asks, hands now planted firmly on her hips.

I sigh. “I’m lost. And I got tired looking for my room.”

She squints her eyes. “You do realize… it’s all in numerical order, right?” She says it with so much sass, but there is a smile on her lips as she reaches a hand down to help me up.

I accept and stand. “Yeah, I realize that. I just don’t know my room number. And—” I look up, “—I don’t think I’m going to find it anytime soon.”

The strange girl looks up, then back down at me with her brows low. “So your plan was to try every door? Did you know there are twelve hundred floors to each dormitory tower?”

TWELVE HUNDRED? I nearly scream, but something else catches my attention. “Each tower?”

“There are four,” the girl says with a giggle. “How do you not know your number? Where have you been staying all year? Wait—did Professor Mulligan do that demo with the memory spell again. They keep telling her she’s going to get fired if she keeps—”

“No, no,” I say and cut the girl off before I get some poor teacher in trouble. “I’m new here."

"New? I didn't know we took new students in the middle of a year, let alone students your age," she says as she eyes me. Then she squints at me with a strange closed-mouth grin. "Mysterious."

"So people keep telling me, and it's becoming obvious that they are not prepared for me either!" I start to yell, because all the frustration of being forced into a school I don't want to attend with people who clearly don't want me to attend, is starting to get to me. Go figure. "My paper work wasn't filled out. No one ever gave me my room number. My mentor is a Prince, and I have no idea where I am going!”

“A prince?” the girl began with a head tilt, then she dropped her head and laughed. “Oh goodness. It doesn’t sound like you have a room if your paperwork wasn’t filed.”

“What?” I nearly collapsed again. All this for nothing? Where am I supposed to sleep? “I have to go back to the office. I don’t know my way back. I don’t want to go all the way back down the stairs. What if my new room is all the way at the top of another tower? This is the end. I knew this was a bad idea. I’m going to die here!” 

I start to panic and pace as much as I can on the small level part of the staircase we are standing on.

“Okay, hold on. Calm down,” the girl says and sticks her hands out to stop me from moving. “Easy solution: you can stay with me!”

She sounds weirdly excited at the idea, as she hops up and down creating huge thuds with her large boots and clapping wildly.

“Oh. Uh... Is that allowed?” I ask, for more reasons than one, but mostly, “Do they allow co-ed rooms?”

She stops jumping and places her hands back on her hips. “Why? Are you going to try to sleep with me?”

“What?! N—no! No. Of course not,” I say as I swing my hands around for emphasis. 

Her hands drop from her hips and she crinkles her nose as she laughs. “I’m kidding. It’s fine. They don’t care what we do here, as long as we pass our classes. Besides, I’m into people with a bit more…” she looks me up and down, “curves than you have.”

I look at my own scrawny body and then up at her. The look on her face tells me to read between the lines: she’s into other girls.

Oh. Cool.

Someone I could relate to. Or... the opposite of someone I could relate to? Whatever.

I'd come to terms with the realist that I am not into girls last year, which is not an event I care to think about longer.

“Me too,” I say and then shake my head wildly. “No, I mean. I’m into people with… less… curves.”

“Glorious! Then what’s the problem?” she cheers and throws her one arm around my neck. The fabric of her sleeves is so much softer than it looks.

She pulls me into the room with the number “417” hung on it in golden numbers. 

Inside, the wonders of this girl only got… more… wondrous.

Not only are there the typical magical-like things of the room looking so much larger than could be architecturally possible with how close the next door is to hers, and a window that looks out into a field that is certainly not four hundred stories above anything, but the interior design is its own phenomenon.

The whole room is stuffed with mannequins—all wearing clothes as strange as hers—and shelves with colorful fabric. Everything from the curtains on the window to her bedspread, to the carpet look to be customized with handmade features—most of them pink or rainbow.

For a moment, I think I am going blind. I’ve never seen so much color. Even the brightest gardens in my kingdom don’t shine with so much color, not even in the height of full bloom.

Fabric and ribbons fly around the room—literally. A large, purple ribbon floats right past my face and lands on a table where a needle and thread starts to sew all over it, all by itself.

I look at the girl. Is she doing all this?

She doesn’t look at any of it as she walks over to her bed and sits down right on the edge. “I’m Maybelle Windsong, by the way." She sticks out her hand to shake mine. “Though everyone calls me Maybe.”

“Oh…” I somehow take my eyes off all the enchanted stuff and shake her hand. “I’m Allen Silverlake.”

“Well, Allen, welcome to West Dorm 4-1-7,” she waves her hand to the one corner of the room that isn’t covered in a bunch of colorful fabric and decor. There, rests a boring old, brown and white cot with a bare, white-rock wall only directly above and to the side of it.

“You… don’t already have a roommate?” I ask as I pick up my bag from the hallways and toss it on the bed. I don’t exactly need much space anyway.

“I did. Three, actually. They all moved out. Can’t figure out why,” Maybe says as a sewing needle shoots—point first—across the room to start sewing something onto a sparkling dress. “They stopped trying a few semesters ago, which is sad. I need someone to help model my creations. Inni-hoo, I was about to go into town to get some more fabric. I’m running low.”

I look around at the—and I count—eight shelves spilling over with fabric of all kinds.

“Makes sense,” I say. She is being kind. I'm happy to be kind back.

She pops off the bed. “Make yourself at home, but don’t move any of my stuff, kay?” She skips toward the door. “Oh! Let me just—” She wiggles her fingers some weird way, mutters something under her breath, and touches the handle of the dormitory door. “There. Now it will open for you.”

My eyebrows lower and scrunch. “That easily? Isn’t that a security issue to just be able to—”

Maybe swipes her hand through the air. “Nah. I’m just a really good enchantress. Enchantments are my specialty, and I can out-enchant anyone at this school. Even the teachers,” she winks as steps out the door, for only a second before turning around. “Oh, one more thing. If you just stand in the middle of the staircase at the bottom and say your room number, it’ll teleport you to your room. Same going down from the spot in front of the door. Bye Allen, the mysterious new guy!”

With that, she swings the door shut.

I sit on my bed, stunned and exhausted.

No matter how long I thought about it, I couldn’t comprehend what had just happened since the day began.