Eizan paused. The world was suddenly very colourful. He could even see shades he had never thought would exist, and he wondered what Duobing would think if he could hear his thoughts. His complexion would be unnatural!
"Eizan." Someone called from behind the colours. Go away! He wanted to take away that annoying voice with his hands. "Eizan! F*ck!!" the person swore, and his entire body trembled. He opened his eyes, and the colours disappeared. What he could see now was a field of rising and lowering grass. Strange… Could grass fly now? Was he in paradise? A goofy smile appeared on his face. A smack landed on his behind.
"Snap out of it, you idiot!" the person snapped, and he quickly came to. The first thing Eizan heard was braying, and he immediately noticed the horse underneath him. Where were they both on one horse? As if on cue, Thom answered his unasked question, "That grouse sent men after us, so I only had time to untie one horse."
Eizan could understand that, but where was he in the narration? He suddenly felt an additional weight on him, and the horse groaned in annoyance. Fear gripped his heart. "You brought HER?!"
Thom slowed the horse to a stop and brought down the unconscious Hunter girl. His eyes searched the places not covered by the strip of cloth she was wearing. "I couldn't just leave her there; she's my fiancé after all."
He came down from the horse himself, and a splitting headache assaulted him. "How come I don't remember anything?" He held his head and fell to the ground, dizzy. The older boy paused, his lips hesitating, but he was too preoccupied with his headache to notice. Thom threw the girl aside and rushed to Eizan's side. He slapped his hands away from his head and massaged his temples for him, saying, "Nothing happened that is worth remembering."
After a while, the headache subsided, and Thom released him and bundled the Hunter girl onto the horse. Then his lips moved in an inaudible chant, and the horse's hair changed colours. It broke into a trot, taking the girl far away from them.
"We never went to town; do you understand me?" He said this with his back to Eizan.
"Why? What happe—" but his shoulders were grabbed mid-speech.
"DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!"
"Y-yes," Eizan stammered, confused at Thom's reaction. What exactly happened at the restaurant? He waved his hands, and their clothes tidied up themselves. "The Tower is just before us; we must hurry. I'll have to go so you don't," he said in a low tone. When they got to the tower, Thom led him through a hidden entrance and took him back to the garden. "Don't go sticking your nose into anybody's business, and, most importantly, if you are asked where you were yesterday, say I took you out to buy clothes," he had told him, "I will be back tomorrow."
But Eizan never saw him the next day or the one after that until a month passed and he turned thirteen. This time he knew all the tasks by heart, and the positions of all the herbs in the garden were ingrained deep in his subconscious. He had spent the better part of his time in the garden; it was time to go back to his dorm. Wouldn't Agnes be shocked to see him? He couldn't help but feel excited. A bell abruptly rang across the tower and was particularly loud in the garden. A minute later, Duobing scurried into the garden, his clothes in disarray, and said, "Come with me. Hurry!" With that, Eizan was dragged to the platform where they had taken the test into the tower. On it were that wizened Elder Wei and a younger, handsome man looking down on a kneeling figure before them. Apart from the three, there were five older men in golden apparel with oppressive auras emanating from their bodies. Eizan took a good look at the kneeling figure and thought he looked familiar. The figure looked up; he was sporting a black eye and a bruised lip, but aside from that, he was fine. "Thom!" he blurted, but his voice was lost amidst the gossipy voices surrounding the platform. An attendant went up the platform, placed a scroll in the old elder's hands, and swiftly disappeared into the crowd. "Thom Klaugsh, fifth-year apprentice of the Tower and a young master of the Klaugsh clan of Dluugotha, disregarded the lives and properties of the people, slaughtered without mercy, and has sullied the reputation of the Tower," Elder Wei read from the scroll. "He is thereby expelled from the Tower and will have his magic removed."At the latter part of the speech, the auras of the other five men exploded and pressed down on the elder. One of them grabbed Thom and disappeared, but the young man slammed something onto Thom before they fully disappeared. The other four did not notice this, but seeing that they had successfully taken their young master, they ceased fighting and equally disappeared. Eizan's eyes locked onto the young man as Elder Wei nodded to him; they must have planned it, he thought. He returned to the garden and squeezed himself into a corner. He couldn't help but think Thom's expulsion had something to do with what happened when they went into town.
Sighing, his eyes inadvertently went to the moonflower still sitting in the centre of the garden, dead. He walked up to it and moved closer than he had previously. Seeming to have forgotten he had no gloves on, he used a finger to caress one of its drooping petals and felt a sharp sting on his finger. Blood gushed out from the small wound onto the roots of the flower and was absorbed cleanly, but he didn't notice. He withdrew his hand and rushed to the infirmary to have it attended to. In his absence, the moonflower trembled a little, and a little part of its stem turned green.