Uta sat on the balcony of a side hall, her legs dangling and swaying gently.
Her gaze passed over the surging white waves toward the place where sea met sky.
"Uta, get ready. It's time to go," Gordon said softly.
Uta did not turn around. Her eyes shone.
"Mr. Gordon."
"Yes?"
"How big do you think the New World really is?"
Gordon fell silent for a moment. "Bigger than Elegia. Bigger than any song."
The corners of Uta's mouth lifted. "Perfect."
She stood up, spreading her arms slightly.
Was this what freedom tasted like?
"Uta." Boer's voice came from behind her. "Ready?"
"Wait."
She looked at Boer.
"Can that castle really fly?"
"See for yourself."
His finger traced an arc through the air.
The magnetic sense lines-the network of force fields entwining the entire planet-were forcibly twisted and folded at that moment.
Uta felt a tremor beneath her feet. Then the entire space began to shake, and a buzzing filled her ears, as though she had plunged into deep water.
Her vision began to blur. Land, sea, sky-all their colors churned together into a spinning tunnel.
Then everything stopped.
Uta opened her eyes.
Then she saw the castle.
And she and the castle were floating in the sky!
Uta's eyes lit up in an instant.
Not the crumbling walls of the Kingdom of Song.
Not the audience seating in Elegia's central opera house, reduced to semicircular ruins.
Not those slowly dying stones she saw every day.
"This is so cool, old man!"
Uta ran to the edge of the grass, braced her hands on her knees, and leaned forward to look down.
The azure ocean spread out beneath her. A Marine warship sailed slowly across its surface, the seagull emblem on its bow gleaming in the sunlight.
Uta's pupils abruptly