The Girl Who Walks Between Worlds
The bell has not yet rung, but Seiran Academy already hums with the particular chaos of eight-fifteen in the morning—hundreds of navy blazers converging through the front gates like a tide finding its favorite shore. Mira Novak walks through the middle of it with the unhurried grace of someone who has never once been late, her bag slung over one shoulder, her dark hair pulled back in a braid so neat it looks stenciled on.
She smiles at Ms. Fujimori, the literature teacher, who is trying and failing to herd a cluster of freshmen away from the vending machines. "Good morning, sensei. Did you finish grading the Kawabata essays?"
"Novak-san." Fujimori's face brightens instantly, the way adults' faces tend to do around her. "Yours was exceptional. I may read a passage aloud in class, if you don't mind."
"I don't mind at all." She dips her head, modest, luminous, every inch the girl the school likes to put on brochures. Then she keeps walking, and the moment the teacher is out of sight, something in her shoulders loosens by a fraction—so small no one would notice unless they were looking for it.
No one is looking for it. That is rather the point.
She passes the trophy case, its…