Page 80 of Barbie: Dreamscape

Maybe… maybe this magic, my magic, is what I was always meant to find. “Is that possible?” I ask.

“Of course. There is always a place for you here,” Lune says.

So it’s settled.

I’m staying.

There’s a magic school here called Dreamlake—the grand, multitiered dark pink structure built into an isle across Dreamland’s glimmering pink body of water that I noticed when I first arrived.

It’s where my mother learned to hone her craft.

A cherry-blossom-hued unicorn takes us across, galloping over the surface of the lake. Once we reach the shore, the unicorn trots through the school gates, which are wide open, unlike at Swancrest. The walls are simple arches. Nothing is meant to be kept in.

Lune helps me off the unicorn and leads me through the arch into the courtyard, where I look around, eyes wide. Students spill out of every one of the many entrances. Some take boats across the lake. Others simply float on clouds of glimmering magic, in every shade of pink imaginable.

“I could learn how to do that?” I ask Lune as I drink in my surroundings, lips parted in wonder.

Lune smiles. “You could learn so much more than just that,” she tells me. She presses her lips together in contemplation. “It’s been a while since I’ve taken on a student… but I’ll teach you everything I once taught your mother.”

Lune is Headmistress of Dreamlake. She also used to be my mother’s teacher.

It isn’t lost on me that I’m about to enter a new stage of study, not so different from the one I just exited. That I’m entrusting my well-being to yet another Headmistress, after the first left me heartbroken.

But Swancrest was a school for learning how to fit into the perfect puzzle Robin made. It was a means of control.

Dreamlake is a place to free my magic.

There’s a flash and a scream ahead—a pink lightning bolt has ripped through the school’s arch, crumbling it apart.

I gasp, but Lune looks unfazed. And as soon as the last stone falls… it’s all raised back up and righted. The mistake isn’t permanent.

“Does anything ever go wrong here?” I ask, looking up in wonder. The bricks are perfectly fixed, not a crack to be seen.

“No,” Lune says simply. “Anything that does is exiled to Nightmareland.”

She leads me through another arch inside the school. Two curling pink marble staircases welcome us like open arms. Students are scurrying—or flying—down them on their way to classes.

I think about Lune’s words, feeling a spot of pity for anything in Dreamland that’s not deemed fit to stay. Including a young Robin, who surely would have ended up in that dark abyss forever had my mother not helped her back into the light.

I shake the thought away. No. I won’t think of Robin. Not when she lied to me and tried the best she could to keep me naive.

“What are those?” I point to a glowing ring on the hand of a girl who scoots past us. I’ve noticed that nearly every student is either wearing or holding something that glows just as much as the charms on my necklaces.

“Magic accessories,” Lune says. “Every student claims one at the beginning of the term from the Treasure Trove, once they find their magic. It’s called ‘sparking’—the student forms a connection to an object that helps them filter and channel their magic.”

I clench my teeth, thinking about Robin’s glowing staff.

Our own accessories—gifted from the supposed Fates—don’t glow at all, even though they contain whispers of magic.

It’s all clear to me now: Our accessories in Heartland were just enchanted by Robin, her magic doled out in minute portions while she kept most of it for herself.

They were just another way to control us. To make us grateful… for receiving scraps, while she ruled in secret as a seemingly benevolent Headmistress.

Stop thinking about Robin. She’s in the past.

“You must be starving,” Lune says, and now that she mentions it… of course I am. The food in the dungeons wasn’t all that filling. I nod, relieved.

We’re walking along a rounded corridor. Lune stops suddenly and reaches toward the smooth pink wall. Before her fingers brush the stone, a door appears with a massive ruby knob. She opens it easily, stepping onto open air that quickly turns into a curled balcony overlooking the lake.