If his wish can come true, I’m willing to give up my own.

‘Will you be here tomorrow?’ Rion asked.

‘I will.’

She realized she had to dash back in case her mother’s conversation with Ms Kitajima had finished.

But all she could think about now was that they really existed. And when she saw the others the next day, she could be completely sure of it.

HER MOTHER DIDN’T BRING UP her conversation with Ms Kitajima, and so Kokoro waited patiently for the next day when they could all see each other again.

When she passed through the mirror the next morning, they were indeed there. All except Masamune and Rion.

Rion’s timetable was such that he couldn’t spend all day in the castle like the others. But Masamune’s absence was significant.

‘Kokoro.’ When she arrived at the Game Room, it was Aki who first spoke to her. She looked a little angry.

As did Ureshino, Fuka and Subaru.

They must already have been discussing something, Kokoro thought. She came in, silent, and they stared at her.

‘Why weren’t you there?’ Aki said.

She’d known the question was coming. But now that she actually heard it, the shock was greater than she’d imagined.

‘I was!’ she said. She looked directly at Aki. ‘I was there! I went to school just like we promised.’

And right then, a possibility crossed her mind.

Maybe all the others did meet up?

All of them except Kokoro had met in the nurse’s office, everyone but her. Was that all it was? If so, to them that meant Kokoro had betrayed them.

Aki’s eyes narrowed. She looked over at Fuka.

‘Are you telling me the same thing?’

‘What?’

‘The same thing as Kokoro – and Subaru.’

Kokoro gasped and looked at Fuka and Subaru for confirmation. They nodded. Ureshino’s face turned bright red.

‘I was there too,’ he chimed in.

Kokoro felt her shoulders go limp.

Ureshino had made the trek back to school. That must have taken some courage.

‘Me too.’

‘And me.’

‘But I didn’t see any of you,’ Fuka said.

So that was it. It had happened to every single one of them.

They had definitely been to school yesterday, but for some reason they couldn’t meet up.

‘They told me there’s no seventh-grader called Kokoro,’ Ureshino said. ‘Kokoro’s an unusual name, and I asked a teacher who was passing by. But he said there was no one called Kokoro at the school.’

‘I asked too, but they said there was no one in seventh grade called Haruka Ureshino.’

Ureshino’s face clouded over.

‘I’m real, you know.’

‘Me too. I’m in seventh grade at Yukishina No. 5 Junior High.’