You unfasten a couple of shirt buttons, and pull your shirt closer around your body. It's not so outrageous that Lady Renaldt will complain, but it should draw the eye. Perfect.
"Clemency Building, the carriages are waiting," Mr. Griffith bellows from downstairs.
Freddie squeaks and rushes for the door. You troop down to see Lady Renaldt and Mr. Blanchard being helped into a large, ornate carriage. Lady Renaldt is wearing a dignified sapphire-colored dress with pearl earrings, while Mr. Blanchard wears a dark suit. His shock of curly hair has been made sleeker, and as he steps in after Lady Renaldt, he looks nervous.
Three more two-person carriages await, their horses stamping and snorting in the fading afternoon light.
Freddie glances in your direction. "Do you want to go together?"
Freddie looks a little disappointed, but shrugs and goes to another carriage while you climb in with Gonzalez.
You start to move. The driver is a skillful horsewoman, and the weather is gentle; the movement is much smoother than your arrival. Almost as soon as the carriage is moving, Gonzalez turns to you with an agitated expression. "Pedro, you have to help me. I got a letter from my parents today saying that the heir to the throne of Zaledo is at Archambault! I'm going to have to curtsy and say the right thing, and…and…"
She trails off, and puts her head in her hands.
Gonzalez peers at you through her black hair. "I don't think you could make it look natural," she says. "And I definitely couldn't."
The carriage follows the winding road down the valley before ascending. As the sky darkens, the landscape shifts to the appearance of a cultivated estate. Through a pair of pillars you go, and up a drive leading through scattered woodland. Red deer bellow occasionally to one another, but mostly they lie and watch the passage of carriages with wary expressions. You could be driving to a manor on the outskirts of Fenburg, rather than a mountainous boarding college.
The Academy comes into view. An older building than Gallatin College, it's all dark stone and grandiose towers, with the look of the home of an eccentric member of a royal family. A show of wealth, but a different type to Gallatin. Certainly more opulent than Rochat's Academy.
As the carriages move into the pool of lamplight at the entrance, Gonzalez leans up to look at a marble statue of a rearing stag, eyes wide.
The Carriage Halts