The following day, the day in which a whole week’s worth of exercise had been completed, was when Blythe began to see real results.

  The system notification pinged her while she was taking her post-workout shower.

  Euphoria rushed through her whole body as she stared at the pink screen, processing the good news. It had taken an entire week for her to see the fruits of her labor, but now it was finally here.

  Progress was slow, but the best part was that it was doable. It strengthened her resolve to persevere in working out regularly. If she kept going, she could probably grow those numbers week by week. To be honest, Blythe felt a little lazy at the prospect, but she had no choice if she wanted to improve her stats.

  She left the bathroom humming a random tune, startling Suzy who’d been waiting outside.

  Her chocolate-making endeavors with Jessica yesterday had gone well. They’d taste-tested both the chocolate truffles and the chocolate bars, which had turned out delicious. They agreed to book another student kitchen closer to Valentine’s Day to make the actual thing now that they were sure of the outcome.

  Out of curiosity, Blythe had asked Jessica about what Sophie was going to do about Valentine’s day. After all, she hadn’t joined them. Jessica explained that since Sophie had no talent in the kitchen, she had her home chef prepare the chocolates for her every year.

  When she arrived at her first class of the day, Jessica and Sophie were already seated at their usual desks. They perked up upon seeing her approach.

  “Good morning, Blythe,” Jessica chirped, and Sophie echoed her words.

  “Good morning,” she said, smiling at both of them as she dropped herself into her seat. “You both seem like you’re in a good mood.”

  Sophie nodded happily. “I just dropped by the greenhouse earlier, and my plant is doing really well.”

  “Don’t you visit it daily after school?” Blythe asked curiously, taking out the blueberry-flavored stick candy she’d bought from Luscious Cocoa before coming to the classroom. “Do you really need to check on it so often?”

  Sophie’s face darkened. “I don’t trust anyone not to tamper with it. Who knows what Callum is capable of doing.”

  Jessica snickered, but before any actual words could leave her mouth, heavy footsteps stomped up to their little group. Blythe lifted her head to see a fuming lanky boy scowling down at Sophie. His short brown hair was slicked back, and he wore a pair of dark-green full rim glasses.

  “Excuse me? I’ll thank you to refrain from slandering my name with your baseless insinuations.”

  Her friend twirled a lock of her blonde hair, looking utterly bored. “Slander? I have no idea what you might be referring to.”

  Blythe checked his profile.

  She wished the status windows would share more useful information, but this was better than nothing. It was at least more useful than when she would try to check the status of objects or animals.

  Callum didn’t buy Sophie’s unfazed response. “Not one second ago, you were implying that I might tamper with your flamestalk. The thought has never even occurred to me. Furthermore, my fillyeve’s growth is already far superior to yours.”

  “Hmm, did I imply that?” She completely disregarded his last sentence. “I can’t quite recall saying anything like that.”

  “Sophie would never say such a thing,” Jessica agreed, lifting an eyebrow at him. “You must have misheard.”

  Never once had Blythe ever imagined she would befriend not one, but two gaslighters. She sat there, trying to decide if she was relieved they were on her side or upset that her closest friends in this world were people she’d never have approached on her own.

  To her surprise, Leopold sidled up to Callum, putting an arm over his shoulders.

  “Now, now, I’m sure Sophie didn’t mean it that way,” Leopold said in a coaxing tone.

  Callum shrugged it off and snapped, “You aren’t in our Advanced Botany class. You don’t even know what we’re talking about.”

  Leopold’s frown was offended. “I do know. You’ve been telling me about your assignments. And I have other friends in Advanced Botany too.”

  “She was slandering me. As my friend, you should be on my side,” Callum told him, turning away from Sophie to glare at Leopold.

  “What did she actually say?”

  Are you for real?

  Did he actually step in without even having heard what Sophie had said? Blythe had a feeling she knew why Leopold was trying to ‘help’ Sophie. It probably had to do with the fact that he was on the hunt for love, something that had been made abundantly clear during lunch period yesterday.

  Blythe took the opportunity to look around—only a few people, scattered around the classroom were paying attention to their argument. Their curious eyes were on the small commotion. Everyone else was busy talking among themselves.

  “I was talking to my friends,” Sophie said, lazily flicking a glance at him. “I wasn’t slandering anyone. Why were you even eavesdropping on us?”

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  Pure outrage drew Callum’s thick eyebrows together. “As though I could possibly want to eavesdrop on you! You were loud enough for everyone to hear.”

  Sophie made a point of craning her neck around the classroom. “How strange. It doesn’t seem anyone else but you has heard this so-called slander.”

  To be fair, Blythe and her friends had been sitting in their own little bubble, with the rest of their classmates at least five feet away from them. It probably helped that there was still plenty of time before class was supposed to start, so not everyone had arrived yet. Additionally, a lot of them were just standing around in the corners of the classroom to chitchat rather than sitting down at the desks.

  Blythe wondered how Callum even heard Sophie’s words. He must have been concentrating hard or at least keeping an ear out for them.

  She could see the steam coming out of Callum’s ears.

  “I don’t need to resort to underhanded tactics,” he informed her with sufficient venom in his glare to fall an adult elephant. “I can achieve second place without any of it.”

  “All that talk merely to claim second place,” Sophie said, resting her chin on the back of her hand and bracing her elbow against her desk. “I would think that with your confidence, you should be aiming for first place. How … interesting.”

  He looked ready to erupt like a volcano, his face entirely red by this point.

  She was definitely riling him up on purpose. Callum’s buttons seemed particularly easy to push. Sophie was barely expanding any effort with her words.

  Blythe couldn’t help but see the hypocrisy in her friend’s words—Sophie herself had staked a claim over second place rather than first place because Giovanni was that unbeatable.

  Leopold tried to give her an appeasing smile. Contrary to his earlier blitheness, he seemed a bit on edge now. “Sophie, we’re all classmates here. Some friendly competition is normal, but shouldn’t we be more, ah, amicable with each other?”

  Turning on him, Callum exploded. “I don’t even want to waste my words on her! She can’t be reasoned with!”

  He stomped off in the direction of a few other boys who’d been chatting among themselves. As he approached, they looked up and nodded. Were they his friends? They hadn’t even bothered paying attention to the quarrel he’d just been in. When they stepped aside to give him space, he joined the group.

  Leopold hurried to catch up with him. The rest of the guys easily accepted him into their group as well, and Leopold and Callum began to engage in what appeared to be a heated conversation.

  “That was mean, Soph,” Jessica said with a giggle. “You know he could never outdo Giovanni in Botany.”

  Sophie gave her a serene smile. “It’s what he deserves for eavesdropping on our private conversation and trying to pick a fight over it. It’s not like I stood behind a podium and announced it for all to hear.”

  Blythe had to concede. “I mean … that’s true.”

  Gaslighting or not, Sophie hadn’t been going around telling everyone she thought Callum would sabotage her Botany project. The classroom was filling up with students.

  All of a sudden, the noise level in the classroom fell by half. Blythe looked up, as did Sophie and Jessica. The reason behind it was made clear once Daisy stepped into the classroom. It had been happening for every class Blythe had with her. It showed how much attention her mere presence drew. At least half the boys turned their heads to watch her movements, and most of them greeted her with a bright smile as she walked past them. She always greeted them back with a sweet and friendly smile, causing many of the girls in the classroom to seethe.

  Blythe’s friends both sneered, but they said nothing as the latter made her way down the aisle of desks a few rows away from them. Ever since the tripping attempt, Daisy had been careful to avoid walking past them. All things considered, it was a wise move.

  They happened to make eye contact. Like she’d been doing for the past several days whenever it occurred, Blythe awkwardly smiled at her.

  Daisy returned it with a tentative one of her own. Then she settled down at a desk in the back. Immediately, a couple of boys broke away from their group of friends to talk to her.

  “Who does she think she is, walking into the room like she owns it?” Jessica said with narrowed eyes, flipping her waist-length lilac hair over her shoulder. “She’s just a baron’s daughter.”

  Another thing Blythe had noticed was that her friends couldn’t resist talking smack whenever Daisy was in the vicinity. Whatever the prior conversation topic had been before she entered the area, it would be promptly discarded in favor of zeroing in on Daisy’s faults—even if those faults were shamelessly fabricated.

  “I think she walked pretty normally?”

  As always, her friends looked aghast at her light attempt to diffuse the contrived outrage at Daisy’s allegedly unbecoming behavior.

  As she glowered at Daisy from at least four desks away, Sophie wrinkled her nose. “The way she swaggered when she saw those boys looking at her. So arrogant.”

  Guys! This is delusional!

  Were they even looking at the same reality? Daisy had walked in a very normal fashion. She hadn’t even swung her hips while walking or anything.

  Jessica rolled her eyes. “She thinks she’s so pretty, but she has the plainest face I’ve ever seen.”

  “Maybe you should stop beating this dead horse,” Blythe said dryly. “The carcass is already rotting.”

  In the span of a few days, Blythe had heard the same recycled insults and complaints every time Daisy appeared within a ten-foot radius. They never seemed to tire of it.

  They just sounded salty.

  In her opinion, Jessica and Sophie were very pretty in their own right, but they didn’t quite have the understated glow that seemed to emanate from Daisy’s very being. There was just something about Daisy that drew people’s gazes to her, whether they were looks of admiration or envy.

  Jessica and Sophie seemed to be deaf to her comment, because they continued with their trash-talking as though she’d never said anything. This was a frequent occurrence whenever Blythe tried to switch back to their previous subject.

  Fortunately, it was also typical for this strange phenomenon to end within a few minutes. Even though Blythe withheld any contributions to the mudslinging, Jessica and Sophie were happy enough with a back-and-forth among the two of them.

  As expected, they went back to discussing Sophie’s Advanced Botany project once they’d satiated their need to insult Daisy. Not that it mattered, because the professor showed up to begin their lesson shortly after that.

  ???

  The day was going relatively well so far.

  During her Embroidery II class, Blythe gained some experience points in the skill. It reminded her of the half-completed embroidery on her coffee table meant to serve as a token for the Hunting Race. She decided to brainstorm some ideas after school and begin working on it before it was too late—she had less than two weeks left.

  As previously agreed, Magnus left her alone in Beucian III so she could partner up with another classmate during the speaking practice section.

  After lunch, in which she’d sat with the same group of people as yesterday, Magnus walked with her and Jessica to their classroom for Art. This week’s Art lessons were theoretical ones about art history, so they took place in a regular classroom rather than an art studio. Just like he did in Art class the previous day, he sat beside Blythe. Jessica sat on her other side with a giant smile.

  “I’m so happy for you,” she whispered in Blythe’s ear when Magnus left for the restroom. “It was simply awful when Willoughby lured him to sit beside her last week.”

  Blythe didn’t care about that, but she grinned back at her anyway. Daisy hadn’t even arrived at the classroom yet, but she was the first thing Jessica thought of. She really was the ’main character’ when it came to Jessica and Sophie.

  “I don’t mind,” she whispered back. “He can sit anywhere he likes. I, uh, trust him.”

  Jessica considered her reply. “You’re right. His Highness has great integrity. He would never be tempted by the likes of her.”

  Blythe thought about pointing out that Jessica had just accused Daisy of ‘luring’ Magnus into sitting with her previous breath, but quickly changed her mind. She didn’t want to hear about how terrible Daisy was all over again.

  Blythe buried her nose in her textbook and tried to read ahead in the chapter they were supposed to be covering. She’d gone through a bit of the art history she was supposed to have learned in the past three years at home, but there were too many other subjects she had to catch up with as well.

  When Magnus came back and took his seat again, Blythe didn’t bother looking up.

  They’d already had an extensive but banal conversation about the weather during lunch earlier. It was only going to be more of the same if she talked to him again. Out of fear of saying something incorrect, Blythe did her utmost best to avoid talking to him about things or people she didn’t know much about—which encompassed nearly every topic that Magnus tried engaging her in.

  Maybe if she appeared engrossed in her textbook, he wouldn’t try to talk to her.

  She could hear rustling and light thumps as he prepared his stationery next to her.

  The unexpected green flash made her start.

  She frowned for a split second before shrugging it off.

  Well, alright. I’m not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth.