Orla unceremoniously plopped into the chair next to me.

  "ALRIGHT, AUTHOR, WHAT'S THE DEAL?!" I yelled in my head, addressing the void. "What kind of cheap harem trash are you pulling here? Did you seriously decide that two princesses and one suspicious Alastia weren't enough for me? Stop this circus!"

  Orla, oblivious to my inner turmoil, began to drill a lecture about her own importance into my ears. "You probably haven't even heard of the Council of Thirteen. They are the elite of the United Nations. The ones who decide the fates of worlds..."

  Next came a tedious enumeration of their achievements, titles, and rights. I listened to it like the sound of a running faucet—annoying, but you get used to it. "...Therefore, you have no idea who is sitting in front of you!"

  I sighed and stared at the ceiling. At that moment, Orla pulled a brightly colored piece of candy from her pocket. My eyes twitched toward the wrapper in sync with her hand. Reflexes are a merciless thing.

  She noticed this and smiled slyly. "What? Want a candy?"

  She pulled out a second one, clenched it in her fist, and started moving her hand: to the left—my gaze obediently followed. To the right—and I tracked it. "Bwa-ha-ha! Amazing! Just like a trained little animal."

  Then she took off the wrapper, popped the candy into her own mouth, held it there for a second, took it out, and... held it out to me on her open palm.

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  "EWW!" I nearly fell off my chair. "Are you out of your mind?! Seriously?! Why would you put it in your mouth and then offer it to me?"

  The teacher interrupted this act of biological terrorism. "The topic of the lesson: Spatial Displacement and Teleportation," he proclaimed.

  He was a stern-looking guy. I took a closer look at his hand as he laid out massive, mold-smelling books on the podium. Four fingers. Apparently, the fifth one "didn't quite make it" to point B once upon a time.

  "Moving objects from point A to point B is the highest art of magic," the four-fingered man lectured. "Even in our age of mirror-portals, it remains an immensely complex skill." He handed out books the thickness of a brick.

  "Let's start with fairy tales. Sometimes, anomalous talents are born. Those who are capable of teleporting themselves with a snap of their fingers, without preparation or circles. But you can count such people in history on the fingers of one hand."

  He pointedly waved his incomplete set of five. The class appreciated the irony.

  Then came the unbearable tedium. Formulas, diagrams, calculations of magical environmental resistance... The teacher "optimistically" stated that if we tried really hard, by the end of the course we might be able to move an ordinary rock a couple of meters.

  Orla poked me in the side with her finger. "You know, Greg, usually people dream of me talking to them. My father wields such power that if I ask him..." she smiled meaningfully. "He'll get anything I want for me. Even you."

  I slowly turned my head toward her. I'd had enough. I discreetly fished a handful of that yellow sleeping sand out of my pocket.

  "He'll get anything, you say? Well, let's see him try to get you out of a dream."

  A light snap of the fingers—and a cloud of golden dust enveloped Orla. She didn't even realize what happened. Her eyelids instantly grew heavy, her head swayed, and with a soft thud, it dropped onto her open book.

  "Finally, silence," I thought, returning to my contemplation of the four-fingered professor.

  Building Three drifted past the window. Or was it Building Four? What difference did it make. The main thing was that no one was offering me licked candies anymore.