***

Right after breakfast, Meide dragged his victim to sign applications for participation in the qualifiers. Lear was curious why Boenetri needed to participate, but he decided not to ask for now.

Lear had not participated in the championship last time and was a little surprised to see a line of people signing applications for the first time. Students from all faculties and years had come.

'And for this he made me go through all these changes?' Lear sighed mentally.

As far as he remembered, in his past life the team from Regulus had won. The prefects were walking back and forth, talking to their classmates. Lear found himself unconsciously searching for the familiar dark head of Chairman of Fomalhaut among the others, but caught himself in time.

Seeing his two charges among the crowd of students, Kieran nodded to them with a sense of pride, not noticing all the non-verbal signs that Lear was giving behind Boenetri's back.

He forced himself to restrain himself from howling in despair in public. Thought about future purchases at someone else's expense calmed him down a little.

After some time, they sorted out the applications, and Lear forcibly dragged Meide, who had stopped to talk to someone, to class.

The whole time they were standing in line, he couldn't get rid of the unpleasant feeling of someone's eyes on him.

Perhaps crowds of people had a bad effect on him. Lear had gotten out of the habit of them and doubted that he would ever be able to get used to them again.

Or it was something else.

They were sitting on the stairs after one of their classes, when Lear decided to drop a hint to Boenetri.

"You know that our 'Almagest' and 'Uranometria' are not the originals? They are adapted versions for students."

"Well, yes, they are essentially just textbooks." At some point in the battle with homework, Meide began to chew on the end of a pen. "The real 'Almagest' and 'Uranometria' are like, a lot of important and legendary."

"Yes, exactly. Some libraries have more complete versions than the ones they give us."

"Cool."

"But they don't just give them out."

"Not cool."

"Indeed," Lear said, raising his index finger, "but there is a way to get them."

For the first time during the conversation, Meide turned to him.

"What kind?"

"Money, of course. Yours. Well, your family's, it turns out."

Boenetri gave him his usual look, as if asking "Are you an idiot?"

"So, this is your request?"

"Mm, basically, yes."

"And you agreed to participate in the qualifiers for this?"

"You are extremely suspicious at such a young age, child. It's not very good for your nerves, you know."

Meide raised an eyebrow.

"Don't lecture me. And anyway, why are you sitting around doing nothing, as usual? Homework for everyone." He pointed his finger at Lear's notebook for all subjects.

He pushed his things aside and looked at the results of Boenetri's efforts.

"It's super simple." He picked up the notebook and began to read it. "You don't remember the composition of the Pleiades?"

"Should I? I'm not some kind of nun," muttered Meide.

"If the Pleiades servants are nuns to you, there's nothing to help you with that." Lear concluded mournfully.

Boenetri snatched his notebook from his hands with displeasure and muttered, "Bore."

Lear continued in a calm voice:

"I really need them. You said you'd fulfill any request within reasonable limits. My request is not that impossible. Or does it somehow conflict with your religious beliefs?"

Meide gave in and pushed his minimalist and expensive briefcase aside with his foot.

"Okay. We can go to some bookstore. You want versions with as few edits as possible, right? I have a feeling that will not be cheap. And I will also have to convince them to sell such books to two teenagers. And I will also have to sneak out of the Academy."

"Thanks, my friend." Lear smiled slyly. "I already have an idea how to solve all our problems."

***

Lear blessed all the stars for the simple, but infinitely generous Chairman of Antares. For some reason, he even promised him that he would ensure the victory of their faculty this year, in exchange for a small favor.

It had been necessary to empty Meide's safe to provide Shin with the money to send him shopping, but Lear did not regret a thing. Boenetri lamented a little over the empty safe and sat down to think up excuses in case his parents found out and asked him to explain where the money had gone.

The next day, Shin, who, as chairman, had permission to leave the Academy, returned with a large, beautiful package. Meide, who had paid for this pleasure, considered it his duty to go and collect it personally.

So, together with Lear, they sat down after lunch in their usual place on the stairs to unpack their purchases.

"Enjoy it," Meide said, looking unconvinced.

"Thank you very much." Lear ran his hand admiringly over the cover of one of the books. "Now we have both fulfilled our ends of the bargain."

"I really don't understand why you asked for this of all things, but okay. Apparently, this is one of the Formalhaut quirks."

"Yeah, something like that."

Boenetri decided not to interfere and tactfully left Lear alone with the books. Finally, Lear, tearing himself away from them, thanked him again, but in response Meide only reminded him about training for the selections.

In front of Lear were stunning copies of ancient treatises, old enough that their content had not been too edited and shortened, leather-bound and embossed in gold.

They would have been an adornment of any library or private collection.

And now they belonged to Lear.

He could not remember when he had received something so valuable from anyone.

Except, of course, fucking R.R.

And even if he literally forced Meide to buy them, Lear still felt enormous gratitude to him and Shin, who agreed to help them both.

Left alone with himself, he began to study the contents of the books, looking for what he had arranged all this for.

It took quite a while to figure out these versions of the books. At the end of the day, Lear sat on his bed, laying them out in front of him. In the break between classes, he went to the library to get a reference book to make sure of something. Taking off his wristband, he scrupulously looked at all the images of the sigils, reread the descriptions of the stars and all the information contained in the reference book and the two tracts.

And came to two conclusions:

The Capella's sigil was absolutely not the same as the one on Lear's hand.

There was not a single image of this sigil or mention of the cursed star to which it could belong anywhere.

There was no information at all about specific cursed stars. All that was said was that such stars could exist.

Lear's investigation very quickly reached a dead end, from which it followed that the money of Meide – or rather his parents – had flown away.

Or not quite.

Depressed and upset by the failure, Lear, nevertheless, not without pleasure, put the books on his shelf.

There were other versions of the 'Almagest' and 'Uranometria', other ancient atlases and books containing information about the stars. It was necessary to continue the search.

Lear lay down, wrapped in a blanket, and closed his eyes, remembering the strange, endless space from the dream.

After all, he could try to question the one who called herself Capella, if there was even the slightest chance that she was not a product of Lear's imagination.