**Chapter 57 – The Last Night Before Departure**
The night before the trip to the academy fell calm and starry over Saint Lunalie Orphanage. A gentle breeze blew through the forest, carrying the scent of damp earth and night-blooming flowers that Sylvara had made blossom in the garden. Inside the house, no one wanted to sleep in separate beds—the idea of being apart, even for just a month, felt unbearable.
They dragged all the mattresses into the main hall—a collective effort full of laughter and playful chaos. Astrid carried three mattresses at once on her back as if they were feathers; Marina released warm steam to heat the cold floor; Joker and Harley stacked pillows like they were building a circus fort. When they finished, the hall became a sea of blankets and cushions, lit only by the soft glow of the marks pulsing faintly on foreheads and backs—red-gold, purple, silver, blue, all shining like timid stars in the dark.
Thirteen bodies settled into the giant human cocoon: Lysithea in the center, as always, with the empty space left for Elara, Mirella, and Graciela marked by pillows carrying their scents. The younger children nestled into the arms of the older ones, tails curled, claws retracted, runes dimmed. Absolute silence for a full hour—only the sound of synchronized breathing, the wind outside, and the distant crackle of the fireplace.
Then Lysithea whispered, her voice low and full of affection, yet firm as ever:
— Tomorrow the journey begins… the world will try to test us.
Everyone replied together, voices soft and excited, like an oath filled with promise:
— Let it try.
Lirien added, her voice gentle and ethereal, like an elven melody woven from light and wind:
— I have already seen a future without you all, a sky where the stars went out and the gardens withered in eternal silence…
and I prefer to weave time with threads of light and explosions of color, dancing among flowers yet to bloom, than to walk through empty shadows.
Joker squeezed the hands of everyone he could reach, fingers intertwined in the dark:
— Then we blow it all up together.
Harley finished, voice sweet and full of warmth:
— And then hug until the end of the world.
No one truly slept that night.
They stayed awake, breathing together, feeling each heartbeat like a song only they could hear. Some whispered excited promises: "We'll always come back home," "The circus doesn't end, it just grows," "The academy is just another stage for us to conquer." Others laughed softly, sharing old mischief stories, light tears slipping onto pillows—not from fear, only from anticipated longing for the orphanage. Joker and Harley, lying on their backs, stared at the ceiling where shadows danced slowly, as if already rehearsing the next act.
Because they knew:
the journey that began tomorrow would change everything…
but that hug…
that hug was eternal.
(to be continued…)