In the green room, Chelia listened in as best she could to the distant conversation. The sound of a door closing snapped her out of her watch. She looked to the side, but found no one else in the room. “Is anyone there?” she asked.
In reply, a knock echoed off the door.
“Who’s there?” Chelia asked.
“Is that you, Ceciliate?” a voice called in through the door. “I can’t get any of these doors to open.”
“Shamrock?” Chelia hurried to the door with her ring. She placed the ring’s jewel in the jewel hole, the door giving no reaction. “Try placing the blue jewel into the opening on the blue door,” Chelia suggested.
Following the request, Shamrock lifted his earring to the marking on the doorway. The door failed to react. He next tried the yellow jewel at the yellow door. The jewel glowed yellow, then black. The indentation on the door vanished, followed by the indentations on the other doors vanishing.
“What just happened?” Shamrock asked through the green door. “The openings on the doors all went away.”
“It’s the same in here,” Chelia said, feeling her hand over the smooth flat material where the indentation had been. “Why did it go away?”
“We can’t worry about it right now,” Shamrock said. “I have the yellow jewel with me. We need to purify it quickly. Is Sarah still in Arle’s dream?”
“I’ll check where she is right now,” Chelia said through the door. She hurried across the room, but stopped to find the mirror reflecting only the room. She hurried up to the mirror, and she placed her hands on the glass. “Clover? Clover, are you in there? Clover, I can’t see you!”
“Is she in there?” Shamrock’s voice called in.
“The mirror stopped working!” Chelia called back.
“Mirror?” Shamrock said to himself. He called through the door, “Is it a mirror that shows dreams?”
“Yes,” Chelia replied, back beside the door. “But it stopped working.” She leaned her back against the door. “I get it now.” Chelia slid down. until she reached the ground. “This is the green room. Green has an affinity with yellow and blue. Both should be sufficient enough to at least view through the mirror, but the darkness in the yellow jewel is disrupting things.”
“Maybe the two of us can purify it right now,” Shamrock suggested.
“We can try, but blue and violet have a bad affinity with yellow. Clover has the green jewel, which is a good match. You have the orange jewel?”
“No. I traded it to Bernard for the yellow jewel.”
“Then perhaps has has returned with it, and presented it to lady Alsike. With the high affinity of the orange jewel, and the low affinity of the blue and red jewels, it should be enough to purify the jewel. I hope…”
“What about you? I can’t just leave you behind while I search for Piñole. Alfalfa guided me here, but he left at a certain point, saying he would be allowed to go in no farther. I’m not sure if I can even find my way out of here, let alone fine Piñole. I think we should try to purify it, first.”
“It would be a waste of energy,” Chelia said. “The yellow and violet jewels has opposing affinity. You’d get further trying to purify it without my jewel than you would with.”
As the two discussed their options on either side of the door, Clover continued to stand between Arle and Melilot. Clover took Arle’s hand in her grip, and started to run away from Melilot, Arle following behind, moving swiftly to keep up with Clover’s pace. “We have to get you away from here, away from her.”
The two went around the corner, Clover bumping into someone who fell to the ground on impact. “Sorry,” Clover said in haste, letting go of Arle’s hand to help up the person she’d knocked over.
“Watch where you’re going,” the person now sitting on the ground said.
Clover looked down to see Melilot. “How did you get here so fast?”
“I’m a Lucid Dreamer,” Melilot explained. Her body lifted up into the air. “I can do anything and everything.” She reached down with her legs, her feet carefully touching the ground. “Inside a dream, I’m nowhere and I’m everywhere. There’s nowhere to run to, nowhere to escape to.”
“Why am I running, anyway?” Clover asked herself. “I’m a magical girl, too. I have magical powers.”
“Are things finally going to get interesting?” Melilot asked. Her eyes glowed, and a circle of bars of solid rock shot out of the ground near Arle, reaching up into the air, and then bending together over her head. “Your move, green lander.”
“No problem,” Clover said back. She placed a hand over her brooch. “Let’s just turn that rock into sand.” The green jewel flashed, but the stone cage remained the same.
“Oh, I may have forgotten to mention one little detail,” Melilot said. “Your friend brought the yellow jewel, and he now stands close enough for its power to feed my control. In this dream, you no longer have any power. I have complete control over everything. All you can do is run around, as if you could actually do something.”
“If Shamrock is out there, it means he’s going to purify the jewel. When he does that, Arle should get all the magic.”
“It’s not going to happen. I can hear everything being said outside of this dream, thanks to the Dream Mirror. Your green jewel is a vital resource necessary to purify the yellow jewel. Without it, they don’t stand a chance. What will you do now, Clover?”
Arle tapped at Clover’s shoulder. “You can wake up,” she said in her flat voice. “Wake up from my dream. Wake up on your own bed.”
Sarah’s eyes opened. She sat up in her dark room. The clock glowed 1:44 AM in red numbers. “If I go back to sleep,” Sarah said to herself in a low voice, “where will the dream continue from?” She closed her eyes, and slowly tilted back, her head resting against her pillow.
