Everyone agrees to the meeting time, and the next day comes and classes quickly pass. Allia is walking through the hallway on the way to her locker where she agreed to meet Sarrah when a red-haired figure steps out in front of her.

  Allia jolts to a stop, starring at the ‘fire-witch’ with a stunned expression before managing to stutter a ‘Oh! Hey Naomi. What are you…”

  “On your way to your little meeting, are you?” Naomi interrupts, leaning casually against a wall in a vaguely threatening manner. She’s in the school’s uniform, unlike last time, but subtly adjusted to show a defiant edge without technically breaking dress code. Combat boots, her jacket oversized and loose along the torso but with the sleaves at the right size and her red ascot completely untied and dangling onto her breasts.

  “… I don’t know…”

  “Let’s skip the denials. I’ve been watching you.”

  Allia blushes. “Watching me? Why… Oh… I’m sorry, I’m not really.”

  Naomi bangs her hand against a locker, startling Allia silent with the klang. “Cut the crap. I’ve always known you were fake, but I thought I’d let it be. But then you just so happened to be at the site of the attack mere hours before? Too much to be a coincidence.”

  Allia’s face blanches at the word ‘fake’, but puffs herself up to try to not let it show. “What mean fake? Are you saying I’m deceiving people? How?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying, and you know how. All your cheerful smiles and happy frantic hugs can’t veil my eyes, my power. But, if you insist on playing coy, I’m sure I could ask your old friend Chloe about it.” She ends the suggestion with a vicious smirk.

  Allia’s face goes from anxious to angry as she steps threateningly towards the ‘witch’. “You leave her out of this… whatever this is.”

  “Oh? You aren’t interested in hearing how she feels about you abandoning her for newer better friends? I wonder what she would say if she knew why?”

  Allia’s anger intensifies as she steps closer. “You don’t know anything. I never abandoned her. I’m constantly inviting her to things, but she keep on say no. She’s the one who…”

  With a flick of the wrist, Naomi draws a stiletto dagger, then grabs Allia by the shoulder and yanks her into an empty room, leaning into her and pressing the blade to her throat, their faces inches apart. “I wonder what colour will come out if I cut you?”

  “Red, same as yours,” Allia says coolly, glance to the side of the witch’s head where she has one of the blade constructs she stockpiled flash into visibility.

  Naomi glances at the weapon hovering next to her head. “So it would seem.” She smirks, but doesn’t retreat. “What were you doing in the Spell study building on the night of the attack?”

  “I was with Sarrah supporting her for her examination. What were you doing?”

  “I’m asking the questions.” She says, glancing at her blade.

  Allia scoffs at the threat. “That won’t work. I have a shield active.”

  Naomi smirks. “Oh, I know about your little barriers. Don’t be so confident in them.” There’s a sizzling popping sound as Naomi’s seemingly unenchanted blade slowly penetrates Allia’s shield construct without shattering it and the tip gently dips into her skin – a drop of red liquid leaking out. “Heh, I guess you weren’t lying after all.”

  Allia’s face quivers briefly with fear, but she quickly controls it. “Interesting. But how does that help you? I think I can survive the trip to the healer’s station with a cut throat, but you won’t last a step after I cut your head off.”

  “Ha! Try it. You don’t know a fraction for what I’m capable of. I think I’ll surprise you again. Now answer the question. What were you doing on the night of the attack, and don’t try to tell me it was all a coincidence again.”

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  “It was a coincidence. Unless you’re saying I somehow orchestrated my friend blossoming the night before?” Allia says, tone stressed.

  Suddenly, Naomi withdraws the blade and lick’s Allia’s blood off the tips, causing Allia to make a revolted expression as she swashes the liquid around in her mouth as if analysing the flavour. Finally satisfied, she raises a questioning eyebrow and steps back. “Huh, I guess you’re telling the truth. It doesn’t explain how weird you’ve been afterwards… well, weirder than normal. What’s the meeting about?”

  Allia scoffs. “I’m not telling you that.”

  Naomi shrugs as she puts the dagger away. “Fine, whatever, keep your secrets. I guess I have no justification to act if you’re not part of them.”

  “Them? You seriously thought I was with the demons.”

  Naomi scrunches her face in confusion. “Demons? Is that who attacked? Huh. That’s surprising.”

  Allia stares at her in complete bewilderment. “How do you not know that? It’s all everyone is talking about. There was a whole assembly telling everyone what happened!”

  “Oh, is that what that was about? I guess I probably shouldn’t have skipped that after all.”

  Allia stammers for a few seconds before managing to say something coherent. “Who’s ‘them’ if you weren’t talking about the demons?”

  “You don’t need to know,” Naomi half snaps. “Just know that just because you’re not with them, doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten about you being a fake and how suspicious you’ve been since the attack. I’ll keep watching you Allia – always.” She turns to leave the room.

  Allia scoffs. “If that were true you wouldn’t need to ask what the meeting is about!” she shouts after her, but Naomi doesn’t respond.

  Allia stands there for a moment, staring at the door and breathing deeply before suddenly startling and rushing to her locker. Sarrah is there when she arrives.

  “Oh, there you are! Come on, we’re…” Allia interrupts her with a sudden and forceful full hug. “…Allia, what’s wrong? You’re shaking.”

  “…That thing you said about not wanting to meet your grandparents, you meant it right?”

  “Um…yeah, of course.” Sarrah says, trying to somehow twist around to look at Allia’s face while still maintaining the hug.

  “Right, of course, because of what you said. Because you can’t derive yourself from your origin because your origin can give rise to infinite permutations and your self could have arisen from infinite origins. Therefore, the origin is irrelevant to the self. Right?”

  “Um… right.”

  “Of course right… and we’ll always be friends… right?”

  Sarrah takes on an alarmed look. “Of course we will. How could you even ask that?”

  Allia study’s her friends face, then her own face twists into an expression of despair. “You’re lying.”

  “What? How could you…”

  “You’re lying because if you can’t derive the present from the past, then you can’t derive the future from the present either. So how can you know that we’ll remain friends?”

  Sarrah, rather than becoming increasingly upset, straightens her face and gives her friend a level look. “Allia, I know by direct knowledge. It’s a um… synthetic a priori judgement.” She finishes with a look of faux pride, smiling forcefully.

  Allia laughs. “I don’t think that concept applies here.”

  “What? Of course it does,” Sarrah says as if Allia is the one saying something ridiculous. “You and me qualify as 2 entities, which is the minimum for it to be synthetic. It’s also about the future, which by definition must be a priori. Moreover, if synthetic a priori judgements can be valid when determining the existence of the entity called time, then it can’t be a priori invalid to make synthetic a priori judgements about temporal facts within said entity; now can it?”

  “Pfft,” Allia giggles at her friend saying such absurdities with a straight face. “Pretty sure you’re messing up a step somewhere.”

  Sarrah smirks. “Well, when you figure out what it is, you know where to find me. Until then, you just have to accept that we’ll always be friends.”

  “…Yeah, I guess I do,” Allia says, smiling, her shaking subsiding and her breathing normalizing.

  “… So, you going to tell me what that was all about?” Sarrah asks, after her friend has fully recovered.

  “…Yeah um… The firewitch decided to have a chat with me. I guess she just rattled me is all.”

  Sarrah raises an eyebrow. “You faced down an entire demon century but one our fellow students had you that shaken?”

  “…Yeah, I don’t know. She just has a way of pushing me, you know. Going to the edge. I don’t know what I’ve done to make her hate me, but she does… Also she knows about the meeting.”

  “What!? How!?” Sarrah shouts, forcing Allia’s gaze to her.

  Allia shrugs. “I have no idea. She just showed up and said she knew and started asking me bizarre questions. Thought I was with the demons somehow, except not the demons. I don’t know, it was confusing… Oh, she only knows that the meeting is happening. Not what it’s about.”

  “Do you think we should postpone it?” Sarrah asks.

  Allia shakes no. “If however she found out about the meeting could pierce J’s privacy measures, then she wouldn’t have needed to ask about it.”

  “Should we tell J about it? Or my parents? Let them handle her?”

  “…N-no. That’s alright… probably. She probably just overheard me arranging the meeting with J, since we didn’t’ silence ourselves and she seems to be stalking me.”

  “Tell campus security then?”

  “…Nah. I don’t know. She seems so menacing, but she was almost scatterbrained at the end. It was weird. I don’t think she’ll be a problem for what we’re doing. Besides, things might move us away from her anyways.”

  Sarrah scoffs. “Stop hoping J is going to send you on a grand adventure. Emil is wrong; it’s not going to happen.”

  Allia smirks. “Oh yeah? Well, I guess we’ll just have to see.”