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It was supposed to be just a day like any other. Agott should have woken up because of the sun’s rays on her face before starting to trace spells again until Coco came to get her for lunch. Her green hair would have shone like an emerald, she would have come to take her hand, and the softness of her skin as well as the brightness in her voice and her laughter would have made Agott’s heart flutter once again.
Only, today, that wasn’t the case. What woke Agott was only the crash of rain against her window. There was no clearing, only clouds tinted black and gray on the horizon, so much so that her entire room was plunged into darkness. For a moment, Agott couldn’t find the strength to get out of bed, so she stayed lying down, doing nothing, staring at her ceiling, trying to remember as much as she could the moments she had spent with Coco, hoping that by some miracle she would come once again to take her hand and pull her out of her room.
But that miracle didn’t happen. Miracles never happened. If they truly existed, Coco would have been able to save her mother without trouble. The Moralis wouldn’t have had to impose a dilemma on her and force her to leave. Only that is exactly what happened. The moment she found a solution to reverse the spell she had cast on her mother, Easthies and the other knights arrived at the atelier to give her one single instruction: if she saved her mother, she would have to lose her memories of her life as a witch.
Maybe if she hadn’t warned Beldaruit, none of this would have happened. It doesn’t matter anymore. When he heard it, that decision deeply enraged Master Qifrey, who ended up fighting Easthies while Master Olruggio did everything in his power to restrain Qifrey and his own anger. Tetia had started crying and Richeh was comforting her, not knowing how to react to the situation. As for Agott, she didn’t understand what she had just heard — it had to be a mistake, or she must have misheard. She looked, still in shock, toward Coco, who seemed devastated before running to lock herself in her room.
Dinner that night was eaten without a single word, without anyone daring to speak, in a heavy atmosphere, no one knowing what to do in the face of this situation. Coco hadn’t come out of her room to eat, so Agott prepared a tray of food for her and placed it in front of her door. She tried talking to her, but no sound came back through the locked door. When Agott checked again the next day, very little food had been eaten during the night. She brought the tray back to the kitchen and prepared another one.
Thus she continued for several days, maintaining Coco’s health from a distance as best she could, desperately trying to get an answer from her. Then after three days, as she had just placed food down and called Coco without much conviction, she heard her faintly through the door asking her to come in. The door was no longer locked, so she slowly entered the room.
The room was plunged in darkness, Coco was sitting on the floor leaning against her bed, holding her legs in her arms and keeping her head between her knees. Agott approached her gently, realizing that her body was trembling and that she was crying. She had spent the last days locked away doing nothing but crying. The moment Agott sat next to her, she didn’t have time to do anything before Coco threw herself into her arms and cried loudly against her shoulder.
“I’m scared, Agott, I’m terribly scared. I don’t want to lose you all, but I can’t abandon my mother. Why are they forcing me, it’s far too cruel.”
Agott didn’t know what to say. She loved Coco. Even if she had been mean to her when she arrived, Coco had always been there for her, and she saw her only as an amazing person whose magic was wonderful. It had taken her a long time to understand her own feelings and she had never said anything to Coco. This time too she said nothing, thinking surely that everything would go back to normal the next day. If only she had known, if only she had said something at that moment, maybe everything would have been different.
The next morning, Coco had left to save her mother and abandon her life. She had spent the night writing letters for each occupant of the atelier, and when Qifrey read his first, reading Coco’s reasons for making this choice, for the first time since Agott had been his student, she saw him cry. The same happened with Olruggio, who couldn’t help but shed a few tears. Tetia cried a lot, while Richeh had gone to her secret room to cry silently with the brushbuddy.
The only person who hadn’t read her letter was Agott. She refused to do so, she refused to accept that Coco had left, that her Coco was no longer there. She still felt the weight of her head against her shoulder and the strength with which she had held her in her arms. It was impossible that all of this was real, it had to be a bad dream.
The rain continued hitting her window, but even harder this time, finally pulling her out of her thoughts. She got up and decided to leave her room. She crossed their shared study room without stopping and without paying attention to Coco’s side, as if she were still there and she didn’t want to disturb her. There was no other sound than the rain outside, no one walking in the hallways, no one talking, no one seemed alive anymore. It was as if the atelier was dead, frozen in time.
She arrived in the kitchen and began serving herself food. She took a spoonful of mashed potatoes and put it in her mouth. The mashed potatoes Coco had made. She spat it out immediately before starting to cough. Since Coco had left, Agott hadn’t been able to swallow anything. Her health worried Qifrey greatly, but he couldn’t force her to eat, and he could only believe her when she told him everything was fine.
She returned to her room out of despair. Only this time, she stopped in front of her desk and Coco’s. Coco’s desk was still messy as usual, as if she had just left it and hadn’t yet cleaned up her things. Her own desk was in a similar state. It usually wasn’t, but she couldn’t bring herself to touch her drawing tools anymore. Agott drew magic for Coco, but now that she wasn’t there, it had no meaning anymore. The tests, becoming a librarian, none of it had any value in her eyes. She still heard Coco laughing behind her after seeing one of Agott’s light spells, as well as the softness of her hand.
For the first time since that moment, Agott did something that surprised even herself, she went into Coco’s room. This room no longer had anything to do with the girl she loved. There was no longer that brightness in the air, that radiance that existed everywhere she went, and even the vanilla scent that always followed her had disappeared. There was nothing but sadness and the weight of regret.
Agott walked to the desk and found the letter Coco had written for her. Qifrey had left it there when he understood Agott wouldn’t want to read it. She took it in her hands and unfolded it. There was no doubt, it was Coco’s handwriting.
“Dear Agott.
If you’re reading this letter, it means I ended up accepting the condition to save my mother. I’m sorry to have to say goodbye like this, but I know that if I told you everything face‑to‑face, I would probably go back on my decision. It was difficult to make this choice, but it was when you came to see me that I understood. I can’t keep being a burden to you all. I should never have been thrown into magic in the first place, yet you always supported me and always helped me, taking from your own time. I finally managed to fix my mistake, so everything can go back to how it was before.
It will surely be very hard for you too, but one day you will manage to forget me. You won’t have to worry about me anymore, so you can finally accomplish your dream and become a librarian. You will become one of the greatest witches this world has ever known, I know it because it’s you, Agott, the witch with the most beautiful magic I’ve ever seen. Even if you were harsh with me at the beginning, you never stopped being there for me, helping me when things weren’t going well. You have always been the star in the sky guiding me through the night. I loved every moment I spent in the atelier, but with you it was different. I hope you will always be present somewhere deep in my heart. I wish things had happened differently.
I love you, Agott.
Thank you for everything.
I’m sorry.
— Coco”
As she read the letter, tears began falling down her cheeks and onto the paper. Agott finally understood that her Coco was truly gone, and for the first time since her departure, she cried all the tears her body could produce.