Anthy had been right about the desert, but had not been prepared for it. She had always assumed that the desert was nothing but sand dunes, or perhaps a flat wasteland, void of much, if any, life. Flat it was, but far from lifeless. The red, dusty landscape was liberally coated with a variety of low, hardy looking shrubs and spiky clumps of grass, and peppered with tall cacti and odd scaly trees that looked like they should be from another planet. In the distance on either side, glowing like fire in the sunset, were mountains, taller she imagined possible. It was breathtaking, really. As she sped along at a speed much more sensible than Akio had preferred, Anthy felt exhilarated by the sight, and oddly outclassed. She'd had to take what joys she could from life back at Ohtori, and one such had been pride at the sheer scale of world she had built for her brother. But the world beyond sure put her in her place, and she had barely seen it!

After many miles she noticed something odd on the horizon; a silhouette too right-angled to be a natural feature. A building of some sort. Well, this was new! She sped up slightly, eager to see what it would turn out to be.

She was eager up until the details of the building became more apparent, and eerily familiar. Her eagerness turned to confusion, and a little bit of dread. By the time she slowed the car to a stop at the bottom of the front steps, and the identity of the place was unmistakeable, she was thinking seriously of panicking.

It was Nemuro Memorial Hall.

Anthy gripped the steering wheel hard enough to crack her knuckles. For a wild instant she feared she had become caught in some sort of loop, and been brought back around to the Academy again. That was the only thing she could think of that would make the place even worse: turn it into a Möbeus strip. But that world had had a very unique... ambiance to it. It was a strange quality that was hard to pin down to a specific sense. Some people who had entered that world could pick it up at once, and these steered themselves out of it as soon as they became aware of it. Her brother had lost many potential victims that way. Anthy wasn't sure if this aura came from her, Akio, or some third option, but it's absence had been the first this she noticed when she stepped through the gates of Ohtori. She was so attuned to it that she'd have noticed it at once if she encountered it again.

This Nemuro Memorial did not have it. So her brother could not have placed it here. She knew that she had not. But to find this here in the middle of an untenented wilderness, directly in her path, could be nothing but deliberate. Someone had been waiting for her to come this way.

Who? Why?

Of course the only way to find that out was to go inside. Given the history of this Hall and what it had been used for, Anthy wasn't sure she wanted any part of it. She reminded herself that she did not have to find out. She could hit the gas, peel out and forget she ever stopped. But there was no guarantee that whoever set this up would not do so further along. She sat, frozen with indecision for a several minutes, trying to puzzle it out before she gave up and entered. The only conclusions she could come up with was that this was either a trap or a test.

Finally, she turned of the engine, took the key and got out of the car. Chuu Chuu pitched a fit when she ordered him to stay in the car, but she ignored him.

•••

"Anthy Himemiya, age 14, born February 29th. 1902"

"Alright. Please begin."

Even in the darkness of the small one-way glass window, her reflection looked pale to her. She heard the soft hum and felt the slight lift in her spine she began her descent.

"I was born in India at the turn of the twentieth century. Our father was the king of one of the many small kingdoms under the British Raj. They called them 'princely-states'. Heh, princely...well. Our mother was his mistress, a jādūgara, a magician. Father was very kind to us, but could not claim us as his heirs, so we were sent to live on the other side of his kingdom shortly after I was born.

"I adored Dios, my older brother, and I'm sure he cared for me. He had been such a kind person; generous, compassionate, strong and confident. He cared for the welfare of those around him. If he could have been Father's heir, he would have been a wonderful king. When we were sent away, he took it more personally than it really was. He felt that he had failed, somewhow, to be worthy of being a prince. Nonsense, of course; Father had no choice but to send us away. But it hurt my brother terribly, all the same.

"I loved Dios with all my heart then. In a way, I was glad he could not be heir. If he had been, the kingdom would always have come first for him. I was selfish. I wanted to keep him for myself as long as I could. But I hated seeing him so hurt. I tried to make him feel better by playing games with him, in which I was the princess who needed his prince to protect me. I was too young to understand how real rulership worked; my idea of princes came from books and stories, not very realistic. Brother didn't mind, he loved me enough to let me try and help him. It did help. For a while. But over time he became became obsessed with the game, and more and more frustrated that a game was all it was. He wanted to be doing, not pretending. He wanted to change things, to help real people, not a fake princess. It made me sad, that I wasn't enough for him, but it also made me try harder to make him happy. I wanted, more than anything, for him to be the real prince he deserved to be."

Anthy's throat closed up at the memory of her beloved Dios, so noble and so powerless, and her feeling of uselessness in the face of it.

"Deeper, go deeper"

"My mother, as I said, was magician, well known as such in the village she was born in. After we were sent away, she continued using her magic for the locals; cures and fortunes, that sort of thing. I started to think that maybe she could use her magic to help make him a real prince. But she told me that magic should not be used for something like that. She said to change the world to from what it was designed for was bad karma. The magic she used didn't try to change natural law, but worked with it to get better results. I didn't care about that. I should have. I vowed that if she wouldn't use the power she had, I would use mine.

"What a lot of people don't realize is that thoughts really do effect the world. Magic is the power of belief. If you believe in something strongly enough, if will come to be. But there are very few people have the...predisposition to use it consciously, like Mother. Or, it turned out, like me. I wished so hard for that power to awaken, got so preoccupied with wishing, that when it eventually did, I actually didn't notice at first. It started effecting the village we lived in. strange incidents began to happen. Attacks by unseen attackers. People coming down with sicknesses that were identified as curses. Children would go missing. Always it was the young girls of the village who were the victems. These events would become more and more frequent. The villagers would come to ask Mother for help, and Dios would volunteer. And he would find the solution, every time. He would be able to slay any monster, lift any curse, rescue any girl. Dios was happy to be able to help everyone, to be needed. Happier than he had ever been. Nobody seemed to wonder about, or even notice, how suddenly these events started happening, not even Mother. I did. It was my magic that caused them. I had done it! I gave my brother a world where he could be the prince."

A wave of unspeakable regret crashed over her. Anthy had regretted for many years that she had not listened to her mother and just let the matter go, but never so powerfully. She had learned long ago to keep her emotions hidden, sometimes even from herself. So why were they effecting her so strongly here, now?

"Dios was now the hero of the village. But he was always away now, off to save the next victim. And when he was home, he was surrounded by the village girls. Dios could never deny them his attention, always the gentleman. I could barely speak with him anymore. It was like he'd forgotten I was there. I thought I was his princess. I made this world for him. How could he forget me like this? That's what I would think. I wanted it end it. But he was so happy!"

Anthy became aware that her hands hurt, and she realized that she had been banging her fists together without realizing it. She wrapped her arms around herself to make herself stop.

"The spell I had cast kept getting stronger. I think my anger effected it, too. The things that would happen to the girls got nastier. I didn't even notice. I don't know if I could have controlled it, even if I did. The demands for my brother got more and more frantic, and he was running himself ragged trying to save everyone. I tried to get him to take me with him, to let me help, at least. Why didn't he see that he was killing himself this way.? Why didn't he let me help him? Why didn't he see me anymore?"

She was shaking now. Tears streamed down her face.

"I tried to hide him from them. I tried to break the spell, but it was to strong now, too much for me. But I had to do something. They were killing him, don't you see? They were tearing him to pieces, and it was my fault!"

She clenched her fists until her fingernails cut into her palms.

"I couldn't save his body. But what I could take, I did. I locked it away where they would never hurt him again! I don't remember how I did it, and I don't care. He's mine now! He's always been mine!"

The stool hit the wall and cracked.

"You can't have him!"

The light in the room flickered and died.

"I WON'T LET YOU TAKE MY PRINCE!"

She found that she had pushed herself back off of the stool and into the far corner of the room, she crouched there on the floor, shuddering, knees drawn up, face buried in them. The impact of all the horror and madness that had been wrought because of her carelessness hit her with force of an exploding star. Marinating in a centuries-long backlog of sorrow and anger, and shame, she sobbed.

"Oh. What have I done?"

The elevator stopped. She heard the door slide open, felt someone approach, stand beside her.

"I understand."

That was not the voice of Professor Nemuro. Even in her fugue state, this got to Anthy. Blinking away tears, she looked up at the speaker.

Her own age, or a little younger. Black hair, with a slight wave. A dusting of freckles across the nose. Brown eyes, kind and gentle. Anthy had never seen him in her life. Though she had briefly been him once.

"A path has been thought of for you," said Mamiya Chida, "if you choose to take it."