One after the other, the statues leant forward as if they were performing a dance. They stretched their arms towards the entrance of the School, their index fingers pointing straight at the gate.

The doors opened. The path continued into a court.

Still, there was nobody.

Sofia kept standing among the stone formations. She knew that she was supposed to go in, but, like Kaido, she had an overwhelming feeling that she might never get out again. The statues remained in their new postures as if they had been carved like that. They waited with the unhurried patience of the elements.

Finally, Sofia turned to the one that had addressed her.

"Where did you come from?" she asked, trying to ignore how silly she felt speaking to a supposedly inanimate object.

There was no time lag before the statue's answer, no hesitation, no moment to consider what it was going to say.

"We are always here."

"You weren't before. When I first got here."

"We were unseen. But still here."

The statue's voice was neither warm nor cold. Its manner of speaking had no intonations, no ups and downs. Every word was allocated the same weight and thereby appeared to have the same significance. Sofia had to listen closely and repeat the words in her head as if she was getting used to an unfamiliar accent.

She peered into the courtyard. It was framed by more statues of the same appearance. They stood immobile and looked ahead of themselves, seemingly unconcerned by the open gates or by Sofia.

"Are they the same as you?" she asked.

"Yes."

"All of them?"

"Yes."

Undecided what to do, Sofia tried to come up with another question. Her mind was blank.

"You should go in now," the statue said, and, with an unexpected lightness, it stepped from its pedestal and strode towards the gate.

After a moment of confusion, Sofia followed her. More than anything, she didn't want to stay back on her own.

The statue walked, putting one foot in front of the other with an unshakable balance. Its large flat feet tread securely on the ground, yet there was a kind of inner self-mastery as if it were carrying out an exercise.

At the open gate, it stopped and turned to Sofia.

"If you ask, you will receive answers to every matter that the School is willing to disclose."

Sofia nodded, bewildered. She wasn't sure if she was supposed to thank the statue or say anything meaningful in return.

Not awaiting her to make up her mind, the statue returned to its previous post. The gate shut without a sound.

When Sofia turned towards the courtyard, another statue of the same height and fashioned in the same manner was standing in front of her. Its face was marginally different. It had a wider forehead and a narrower chin that gave it a triangle-like geometric appearance. Otherwise, it might have been the same one as before.

"Follow me," it said in the same gravelly voice. "The headmistress is expecting you."

The courtyard was a perfect square. A roofed-over walk lined with columns went all the way around it. There was enough symmetry to lose one's mind. The gate through which Sofia had entered was gone.

"Where is the gate?" Sofia asked.

The sky was visible high above her, high, high up, unreachable. She felt as if she was suffocating, as if she had been buried alive, fighting down the panic that would accomplish nothing but make everything worse.

"In the same place as before," the statue answered. It was leading the way calmly and evenly. Sofia followed like a blind person clamouring along on a string.

She wanted to protest over what she felt had to be an untruth. All she had witnessed in Nihon had suddenly fallen away from her. She felt like the girl she had been back home, knowing barely anything about the world she lived in. The worlds.

The worlds.

It came back to her, and she swallowed her questions and protestations as if they were physical things, hurting in her throat. Of course, the gate was still there. Of course, there was nothing to feel strange about. Of course, there was no reason to be suspicious of anything she was experiencing in this strangest of all places. Sofia's head felt like it was splitting into several pieces. It took great effort to keep it together.

Finally, she said with a voice that she gratefully recognized as her own,

"Does the headmistress know that I am here?"

"Yes," the statue said, its voice registering no surprise.

"I have heard a lot about the School," Sofia probed further. "How old is it again?"

"Three thousand seven hundred and thirteen years."

Sofia didn't know what that number even meant. So many years. Did they all have the same number of days, of hours? What about the important years, were they longer? Or shorter, because they were condensed into the moments that made them stand out? And how long did it take to determine if something had been significant or if it had been a mere blip in history, a forgettable moment of no consequence?

Suddenly, Sofia had an idea. Even though things were so different in Nihon from how they were back home, there was something about the rigidity of this place that felt familiar to her. And since its history went so far back, there had to be years, centuries even, of shared history, or some kind of common ground.

"Where is the library?" she asked.

"In the cellar vault," the statue replied.

"It must be huge."

"Yes."

"I would very much like to see it," Sofia said. She couldn't suppress the tremor in her voice. Now, she had surely given herself away.

The statue kept walking in silence. They were now crossing a large hallway. Wide marble stairs went up, but the statue walked straight ahead, and through another concealed gate, they entered another courtyard, much larger than the one before.

Sofia realized that she had not asked a question.

"Can you take me to the library?"

"Yes," the statue said.

"Now?"

"Yes."

"What about the headmistress?"

"She will wait. The School approves of thirst of knowledge."

*

Sofia had expected the library to be huge. She had imagined shelves growing from the ground to the ceiling, and rows and rows of them. But nothing she had pictured came close.

They stepped through a large door. Its wings opened in the same manner as everything else, without a living being's assistance. They were heavy, with elaborate wood panelling that rotated, ever-changing its appearance, depicting one sight and landscape after the other, like a wanderer turning her head from one side to the other.

And through the door, Sofia treading dutifully behind the statue, there appeared a vastness so great that it was a country of its own. Not limitless, but the borders were too far away to reach them in one day.

Rails ran through the corridors between the bookshelves, following a clear, concise logic of their own. And on these rails, carriages were being pulled by an invisible hand. They either went slow or sped off into the distance at an unfathomable speed.

For the first time since Sofia had entered the School, there were people, though few and far between. At a table, Sofia saw two children a little older than herself. They were reading in large tomes lying open in front of them. The pages turned by themselves, and their eyes were half-closed. Yet, they were not asleep but focusing intensely.

At Sofia's entrance, one of them turned his head towards her. He frowned slightly, looking her up and down, then returned to his book as if he had already forgotten her.

Sofia was dumbstruck.

"How -," she started, then fell silent, not knowing what she had wanted to ask.

The statue stood still, but Sofia didn't know if it was waiting for her to accustom herself, or if it was following its own kind of routine.

"These books," she said. "How can there be so many?"

"They chronicle everything," a voice behind Sofia said. It sounded even, as the statue's, but less husky.

Sofia turned around. A tall, lean woman was standing there, framed by the door panel. She was wearing a light grey tunic, the same as the statue's, and her face had a similar unmoveable quality as if it was trying to retain its symmetry with muscular force. Her hair was long and white and parted straight in the middle.

"Over time, much amasses," the woman added. There was an impervious smile on her face, and her gaze seemed to go through Sofia, yet seeing all of her at the same time.

Sofia felt herself tremble.

"Are you the headmistress?"

"Yes," the woman said. "Why don't you sit down and we can get acquainted."