Flight
Friday evening, in the library of Caypol Municipal Magic School — the very hour Blow had begun to unspool his story.
Skadi and Hervena were supposed to be studying for the second exam, but neither of them could settle. Something kept snagging at the edge of their thoughts, and it would not let go. What gnawed at them was the simple fact that Yulia was with Blow in a stretch of time when they were not.
Crack.
Hervena, who felt it even more keenly than Skadi, had just snapped her fifth quill nib of the evening.
"...Hah."
Skadi, watching, swallowed a laugh so it would not make a sound, then came over and tapped her on the shoulder. Hervena looked up with a scowl, and Skadi tipped her chin toward the door — their private signal to step outside for a little while. Hervena rose at once and followed.
The moment they left the reading room, where nothing but silence had hung, Skadi stretched with a groan and asked, as if it were nothing,
"So. Studying going well?"
"I already finished. From here on it's just drilling it until it sticks."
"From where I was sitting, it didn't look like you were concentrating at all. Is the top of the class really built different?"
"I'll have you know I can do several things at once."
At the faint note of pride in Hervena's voice, Skadi let out a snort.
"Studying and seething at the same time. Now that is a remarkable talent."
"I am not angry...! What about you? It's been a while. This has to be brutal."
"Turns out I might actually have a knack for it. I'm just swallowing the stuff whole, one clean chunk after another."
"And if the questions ask you to apply it?"
"Then I fail in spectacular fashion! And if that happens, I set my sights on the third exam!"
"The third one's practicals and reports anyway."
"Which is exactly when having chosen the right friends starts to pay off."
Skadi laughed and clapped Hervena on the back. Hervena started to pout, then broke into a snort of her own instead.
Skadi looked out at the other school buildings, their windows still lit, and propped her chin on her hand.
"Everyone's working so hard. Good for them. Keep at it."
"You're working pretty hard yourself, right now."
"Am I."
After that the two of them stood blankly, watching people pass. Then Skadi, who had been turning something over in her mind, grinned and turned toward Hervena.
"Hervena."
"What?"
"Got any mana left today?"
"I need to save some for later tonight. Why?"
Skadi rose into the air on flight magic and spoke down to her.
"Let's go."
"Where?"
"Roten."
At the sudden proposal, Hervena's mouth fell open.
"Have you lost your mind? Don't tell me you mean to cover that distance with flight magic."
"People are supposed to go a little mad during exams! A carriage has to follow the road, but flight magic can cut straight across. You know?"
"......"
Hervena narrowed her eyes at the recklessness, ran the numbers quietly to herself, then folded her arms and asked,
"Do you even know where it is, going in like this?"
"You've got at least one useful spell in there, haven't you?"
"Do you think I keep magic in my pocket and pull it out whenever I feel like it?"
She spun on her heel and started back toward the library. Skadi scratched her head and called after her, all disappointment.
"Not going? Cold. So cold."
"We'd have to pack, wouldn't we."
"See? You really are easy to talk to."
Pleased, Skadi patted her shoulder. Hervena let out a long sigh and shook her head.
"While I'm fetching my things, I'll see if the library can scare up a map."
"Hm. All my stuff's at the mansion, though."
"Just borrow mine."
Skadi looked down at Hervena — a full head shorter — smiled as if she found her adorable, and stroked her purple hair.
"Mm. That won't do. The sizes are different. We'll stop by the mansion. Everything's already packed, so it'll be quick."
"...It's only my height that's smaller than yours. Everywhere else is much—"
"Anyway, that Meigan girl — we really don't have to bring her, do we? She can come tomorrow with Linne, in my carriage."
"She said she didn't want to, so what can you do. She's probably lost in a novel right about now."
Hervena answered curtly, sulking all the while. Skadi pictured Meigan's eternally unchanging face and burst out laughing.
"The more I think about it, the stranger a character she is. That maid. Melo, too. Blow really does have the most interesting people around him."
"Look who's talking."
"You're no slouch yourself, Violet Devil."
Skadi put a particular relish on the name, and Hervena, flushing, shouted,
"I told you not to call me that!"
Beneath the glittering lights of the library in exam season, the two of them shared a laugh, then walked back in with the most excited steps they had taken all day.
At that same hour, Meigan had at last finished Oh No, the Academy Princess!!
She set the book gently beside her pillow, clasped her hands for a moment, and stared up at the ceiling. She had read for so long that her head felt as if it were on fire.
The brief rest was enough for hunger to catch her. Pressing at her stomach, she muttered in a resentful tone,
"This always happens the moment all I do is read."
She sat up for the first time in a day and a solid three hours, wondering what to eat, and picked up the chocolate lying beside her. Then, all at once, she remembered the demi-human boy and the old man she had seen the day before.
No way.
Still, just in case, she quietly drew the curtain aside — and her mouth fell open. The two of them were still standing out there like statues.
So when they said they'd wait, they weren't joking?
Struck dumb, Meigan Browngrass did not even pause to think. She yanked the curtain shut and opened the first page of In the Abandoned Lady Knight's Bedchamber, which she had left within reach.
Early Saturday morning, at Paulos Monastery.
Whether it was because he had drunk himself to sleep the night before, or because today he would have to speak with the abbot about the beer, Blow found himself turning over the words of the proprietor of Eggbottles: How about trying, just once, to catch hold of an ill-fated bond?
Looking back with those words in mind, things seemed to have gone better than he had expected. Of course, there was no telling how today might change that.
Carrying worry more than hope, he finished his preparations and stepped outside. Dawn in a monastery set in the heart of a mountain valley was as black as night, and air far colder than when he had climbed to Caipol brushed past his body. The weather was unkind. He went back in, wound a scarf around his neck, and came out again — and from a distance Aubio approached at a quick pace and bowed.
"You're awake, Young Master Blow."
"Yes. Aubio. You're up awfully early."
"The brothers usually rise at five. Shall we?"
They walked without speaking, while the birds that had met the morning sang with all their might. None of it reached Blow's ears. Tense as he was, the road to Marta felt impossibly long.
In the most secret corner of his heart, he still wanted to run. They had eaten together yesterday, and Marta had spoken kindly of the meal, but that did not mean he was at ease with her. There was also the distance that came of their stations — saintess and noble — so different from the innocence of childhood.
If things are worse when we face each other today, what do I do? If Marta cries in front of me again, the way she did then, what do I do? If she says the wound from that time still hasn't healed — what am I supposed to do then?
Every time the thoughts came, he wanted to stop where he stood. But he bit down hard on his molars, picturing the regrets that would follow if he did, and forced his feet onward.
He followed Aubio deeper in, until they came to a tiny single-story building so modest he would never have guessed the monastery held such a place. Aubio stopped, opened the door, and said,
"If you'll wait inside, the Saintess will be here shortly."
Blow nodded readily and went in at once. The building was a single room: a hard-looking wooden chair, and one wooden desk whose legs did not quite match in height. That was all. A plain little space. He took the seat farthest from the door and rubbed his hands together.
Before long he heard voices, and Marta appeared. She was dressed as simply as yesterday. Blow rose and offered her a formal courtesy.
"Did you sleep well, Saintess?"
"I slept well. And you, Young Master Blow?"
"Yes. Thanks to your concern, I was able to rest comfortably."
Marta smiled instead of answering. Aubio set a cup of tea before each of them and took his place behind her.
Between Marta and Blow, silence stretched for a long while. It was Marta who broke the awkward quiet first.
"Young Master Blow. I heard yesterday that you've gone into trade."
"Yes. That's right."
"If you don't mind, I would like to hear about it."
"It isn't that interesting a story. We haven't even properly opened yet..."
"No. I think it will be interesting."
She smiled as she said it. Seeing that smile, Blow drew a deep breath and began in a calm voice.
"Then, if I start from the day I bought the potatoes..."
From that point he told her everything up to the present, in the order it had happened. Marta never once cut him off, never once asked him to repeat a word. She nodded, or murmured in wonder, and listened. The whole of it felt so natural that Blow almost imagined he was speaking with an old friend.
When he reached the part about sparring with Greig, Marta clasped her own hands tight and spoke to him, plainly worried.
"I see. You must have suffered a great deal."
He stopped. He gazed at her without a word. Sunlight fell across her face, and in that smiling face Blow laid the Marta of before — the girl he had seen praying in the chapel. Unlike then, she wore the gentle, deep smile of a saintess, as if she could embrace everything.
And seeing it, he felt, somehow, that he could say anything to her. He cleared his throat, settled the voice that had grown heated in the telling of the spar, and at last opened his mouth to Marta, who had been waiting in silence for whatever he would say next.
"I'm sorry, Saintess."
"Whatever do you mean, Young Master Blow?"
"I did a great wrong. To you, and to Aubio behind you as well."
"......."
"I hurt you in many ways, and I imagine I left you feeling very poorly because of me. That I was young... that seems nothing but an excuse. I have nothing to offer you but an apology."
For a little while, silence lay between them. Blow's throat was dry; he drank the tea set before him. Marta let out a long breath, then spoke to him softly.
"Young Master. The truth is... I called you here because I meant to say this. But I could not find the courage."
"What do you mean?"
Some feeling rose in the Saintess. She closed her mouth for a moment, drew several breaths in and let them out, and then spoke.
"A year ago, I met Max and Rudny."
The two names he had pushed to the back of his memory — names he had only just managed to recall yesterday — came from the Saintess's lips. Blow could only flinch, and stare at her.