The Girl the Academy Erased

Not for long. Not even long enough for the hall to shift.

His eyes moved across the Roll. The black script above the dais flickered. One line near the middle of Saint Orabel blurred, as if milk had fallen through ink.

Lumi stared. The letters bent. Mira. She was certain she had seen that much. Mira something. The rest of the name thinned, stretched, and lost its shape.

Master Belloran blinked. His mouth closed. No student stood. No one answered. The bell at Lumi's wrist went cold. Not silent in the ordinary way. Silence was the absence of sound. This was a hand pressed over a mouth.

Master Belloran lowered his eyes to the list in his hand.

“Mirabel Harth,” he said smoothly.

A girl three rows behind Lumi stood. “Present.”

The bell chimed.

Lumi turned.

The girl who had answered was blond, freckled, and whispering to the student beside her. Her place existed. The Roll above the dais showed it clearly.

Mirabel Harth. But that was not the name Lumi had seen blur. Was it? Mira. Mira what?

A small pain opened behind Lumi's eyes.

She checked the Roll again. The line was clean. No smear. No gap.

The ceremony continued.

Perhaps she had imagined it. It would be safer to believe that.

Then she looked past Selene, past the rows of Saint Orabel, to the center of the hall.

An empty chair stood between two others in the fourth row, silver lantern carved at its top.

No one looked at it. No one leaned away. No one set a bag there. The chair simply waited.

Lumi's throat tightened.

She did not know why. It was only a chair. And yet looking at it felt like hearing someone call for help from under ice.