LTSV - Lost & Found 16 (Patreon)

“I really am alright, I was just overwhelmed for a moment,” Mira insisted, but let her sister plant her in an armchair. Actually, she was a little woozy. The silver lining was that she now knew what to do about the archmage. “I’ll contact Master Solvere this evening. She’ll have a more informed opinion on my situation. I’ve been given permission to contact her as needed.”

“This constitutes a need,” Vesper agreed. “Where is Adelram?” She was annoyed, Mira could tell, because she dropped the ‘mister.’ That must be how Vesper normally addressed him.

“I snuck off while he was on a call,” Mira told her and leaned back in her chair with her eyes closed. “Don’t blame him.”

As if summoned, the study door opened and Colvin stuck his head in. “Lady Coventry, is—there you are, miss.” He looked her over. “Are you alright?”

“Just a dizzy spell,” Mira assured him. “Vesper made me sit.”

“Is this common?” Colvin asked, examining Mira’s face. Whatever he saw, he must not have liked it because he frowned.

“It will happen periodically until I’m treated,” Mira told him. As comfortable as she was with a necessary lie, she also wanted to keep the number of falsehoods she had to keep track of down to the bare minimum.

“I understand,” Colvin said. “If that is the case, then please let me escort you next time even if I am otherwise occupied. What if it had happened when you were by yourself?”

She debated with herself for a moment whether or not she wanted to argue. She didn’t need to be supervised every minute of the day, but then she remembered the lack of warning she had before the aftershock seizure and her argument crumbled. Going off by herself, even in the safety of the hotel, had been foolish and they had a right to be cross with her.

“Alright…” she agreed at last with a defeated sigh. “...I’ll make an effort. This is frustrating,” she added the last in a huff.

“Things will be easier when the doctors finish your inscription,” Vesper promised her. “Adelram, would you escort my sister to the sitting room and get her something to eat? She’ll need to sit quietly for a short time whenever she’s been stressed. Ask Cecily to check her over as well.”

Colvin bowed and then they did exactly that. Cecily prescribed her a nap and an afternoon snack, which Mira went along with. She wanted a little bit of rest before dealing with the matter of her apprenticeship, which was a source of stress that Mira hadn’t anticipated needing to deal with at all. She’d thought she had complete autonomy over her role in the University Arc, but having an apprenticeship to an Archmage was very different from enrolling herself in a few freshman courses.

Once she was feeling better, Mira had Anna bring the large speaking crystal into her bedroom and sat it on a little frame in front of a chair by the salamander’s grate where it was cooler.

Mira’s memories of Archmage Solvere were a bit mixed. Violet had seen her viciously cutting and grandmotherly kind. It all depended on who she was dealing with and Violet, as her sole apprentice, had apparently earned some measure of softness from her master when they were in private.

Even so, Mira wasn’t expecting Archmage Solvere to answer her crystal quite so quickly.

“Call Achmage Orla Solvere,” she said out loud and one of the gems inset into the crystal’s frame began to glow. The image of a middle aged woman with salt-and-pepper gray hair bloomed almost as soon as Mira finished speaking. She looked, in a word, furious.

“Girl, where have you been?” was the first thing out of her master’s mouth. “You were meant to contact me every week to keep up with your summer readings! I was about to storm Fenby house in person!”

“Forgive me, Master,” Mira squeaked. It was pure physical memory that pulled her upright in her seat. “I’ve been ill.”

Master Solvere’s mouth twisted in displeasure. It’s likely she didn’t believe it, but even if she thought Mira was fibbing she still said, “Sick? Explain, now.”

She didn’t get any happier as Mira went through the entire ordeal over again, but she did relax a bit and her outrage simmered down to a level that didn’t feel directed towards Mira, personally. However, she did even up cradling her head in one hand as Mira got to the part about her damaged recollection.

“It’s bad enough that he tried to throw my apprentice away on a shit-heeled pig farmer,” Master Orla growled once Mira was done speaking. “What was your father thinking? Or was he at all?”

However, Mira was stuck on a different point. “Pig farmer?” she asked. “The Fenbys?”

“They own a sausage factory and pretend that they aren’t in trade by going to every party in town with open admission,” Master Orla said dismissively and flapped her hand at Mira. “You don’t need to spend effort on remembering them. They’re nobodies with the delusion of being somebody. Even so, I wonder where Hamish Fenby suddenly found the balls to doublecross Bertram Coventry, of all people?”

She paused and took the crystal with her over to a bar cart where she poured herself what looked to be a very stiff drink. Then she came back to the worn velvet armchair she’d been sitting in when she answered Mira’s call.

“How bad is it?” she asked. “How much are you missing?”

“I remembered most of my schooling earlier today when my older sister happened to mention your name. I’ve generally been able to recall anything that was important to me or that I dealt with often enough. My language is unaffected and I can still read. One of my doctors has instructed me to visit a cleric of Syne if matters don’t improve by the time I’ve been treated for the seizures.”

Master Solvere nodded to herself. “Yes, that would also be my advice as well,” she sighed and settled back in her seat. “This will set us back some. Do you recall the schedule we’d agreed on for your first year? Don’t chase it if it won’t come. It’s not worth the effort,” she added when Mira started to squint with the effort of remembering. “I need you up to Journeyman rank as soon as possible. The plan was that you’d spend your summer doing the bookwork independently and we’d proceed with your practicals and lab work once the term begins. That was before your father told you that you’d be getting married, of course. I was expecting a call from you earlier so we could rework our strategy.”

“Vesper and I have agreed that I won’t be entertaining any suitors for at least the next year,” Mira offered.

“Vesper Coventry agreed to that?” Master Solvere stroked her chin. “No, I’m willing to bet that she suggested it. She’s deep in the Crown Princess’s camp and Milica is starting to gather power. It’s going to be an interesting year.”

That was for damn sure, even for people who weren’t Mira. Master Solvere didn’t know how right she was.

“For the time being, I’m restricting you from unsupervised practice,” Master Solvere continued. “I’ll assemble a new reading list for you, which you may take at your own pace. If you feel a memory coming on, then end your study for the day until you’ve absorbed it. We’ll reassess your condition when the term starts. You are to report to my office first thing after convocation. Don’t bother with registration. I’ve already decided on your coursework.”

“I’ll have a personal aid with me when I start,” Mira interjected. “In case I relapse.”

“Oh?” Master Solvere shrugged. “If it’s necessary, then I have no objections. They’ll need to wait outside the practice room, but it will be years yet before you can go in there without me present.” She paused and gave Mira an unreadable look. “I am glad you’re well now, dear, but you seem different.”

Violet’s teacher wasn’t an archmage for nothing, apparently.

Mira knew from experience that there was no testing short of direct divine observation that could identify her as an imposter and no god that had ever noticed her seemed to care. She was a curiosity, as far as they were concerned, but nothing that even approached being a threat to them or their purposes.

So, even if Archmage Solvere suspected Mira, she’d never be able to prove it.

Still, that didn’t mean Mira wanted to alienate her future teacher and mentor. Every magic system had its own rules and terminology. She needed to be able to integrate here seamlessly and she had no guarantee that she’d be able to replace this mentor if Archmage Solvere rejected her.

“I feel different,” Mira chose her words with care. “I don’t remember myself very well or much of my family aside from Vesper.”

“Well, perhaps this is who you were all the while underneath the influence of your family,” Master Solvere said after she’d stared at Mira for a while, accompanying it with a shrug that looked natural enough for Mira to relax a little herself. “There have been fascinating studies on the role familial education plays in the development of a young person’s attitudes and demeanor. Nature as opposed to nurture, they say…” Master Solvere continued and the rest of Mira’s evening was spent trying to get off of the call as her mentor waxed enthusiastic on and on and on about the subject and refused to let her get a word in edgewise until Nanny had to come by and loudly say it was Mira’s bedtime, doctor’s orders.

She didn’t make it to bed until well after dark and was still sandy-eyed the next morning.

000

Mira dragged herself through her morning routine, breakfast, and placing an order for her books only by sheer effort of will. Master Solvere kept a bat’s hours, apparently, and there was a three page list of books waiting with the morning post before Mira even managed to dress for the day.

The good thing about having Colvin around was that all she had to do was make the list and give it to him to arrange for delivery. However, he kept much closer to her than he had the previous day. The book order was picked up by a dark haired man in a bad chalk stripe suit and a bowler hat, who scuttled in and out of the suite with hardly a word to anyone.

Did her assistant have an assistant? Possibly. Mira still wasn’t entirely clear on what it was Colvin even did for the Crown Princess, but if he had a staff then he was possibly still doing it.

When she asked, Colvin only smiled as he paused in his aggressive alphabetization of her new book collection on the bare shelves in her bedroom and said, “I solve the occasional problem for her majesty,” which wasn’t ominous or anything. Mira decided that she didn’t want to know.

Anna brought them tea and the afternoon mail. Once again, Mira was missing the front page of the newspaper. She looked over at her new assistant as Anna excused herself. “How bad is it?” she asked, holding up her folded newspaper.

“Annoying,” Colvin replied. He didn’t even pretend not to know. “They’ve mainly been rehashing the story of your engagement. The fourth prince is currently receiving more criticism due to his very public affair with Miss Cecily, although that may change if the royal press office decides to exert their influence on his behalf.”

Mira was a bit surprised they hadn’t already. “How likely is that?”

“It will depend on how displeased the Prince Regent gets,” Colvin paused his tidying as he explained. “He only has limited control over certain internal affairs of the country so he’d have to spend favors in order to rein the press in and the Crown Princess told her younger brother that she would help him annul the agreement between your families, but would not shield him from the consequences. The Prince Regent could intervene if he needs to, but it’s my understanding that he strongly opposed breaking the betrothal and so is unlikely to exert himself in order to protect the fourth prince right now either.”

“I see,” Mira crossed her arms over her chest and thought about it. It was shocking to see a prince’s schoolboy indiscretions being dragged out into the open like this, but in retrospect he was a scandalmonger’s dream target. He was a royal, but had no hope of a throne because of his mother. Even his current title would disappear when the Crown Princess was crowned Queen and there was no guarantee he’d receive a new one to replace it.

The newspapers knew he was a soft target, so of course they wrote about him without fear. It’s just that this time, Mira and Cecily got dragged into the mix.

Colvin watched for a while before he

spoke. “May I ask an impertinent question, miss?”