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Chapter 11 - 11

Asher grins. "Sleep well," they say, looking much more cheerful, and head into the hall.

With thoughts of your first day running around your mind, you listen to the creaking of the old building until you fall asleep.

Next

For a moment, you're not sure if it's your imagination, but as you blink awake, you hear it again. Footsteps. Someone is moving around Vercher House, and they're approaching your door.

You light a candle and stride to the door. "We're armed in here!" you shout.

In their room, Asher calls out and races into the room with you, just as you hear Beaumont's muffled voice on the other side of the door.

"What are you yelling about?" he says disagreeably.

"You go back to bed," Beaumont snaps, then, reconsidering, says, "I couldn't sleep. There was no sense keeping Dominique up."

Even through the door, you can hear the tension in his voice.

"I'm sorry I disturbed you," he says in the tone of someone unused to apologizing. "I'll leave you alone."

Beaumont turns on his heel and disappears into the dark hallway. As you watch him go, you feel sleep overtaking you once more. When you wake in the morning, the whole thing feels like a dream.

Next Chapter

Chapter 2: In A Class Of Your Own

Prince Hugoz Of Westerlin "Delighted" To Learn Outside Palace Life, Says Queen Estell

-Daily Letters

Between rushing from class to class and back again, and getting used to all the new faces, your first fortnight at Archambault Academy passes quickly. It's different, dealing with teachers and fellow students rather than learning from a tutor alone or with your siblings, and the whole thing is truly noisier than you're used to.

Mostly, it's Vere and Clemence who are in charge of you and the other Vercher House students, focusing on Politics and Natural Science, since final-years are expected to have mastered the basics already. But you do have other sessions in between with students from Ursel House which are larger affairs: Literature, Mathematics, History, and a variety of other lessons for young leaders. For those, sometimes you're taught by Chiara, a Teranese woman with intense feelings about mathematical formulae, and sometimes Anthony, an elderly gentleman who would happily recite poetry for hours and claims to have taught here for fifty years.

On top of that, fortnightly visits take place from academic luminaries, scientists, famous artists, most of whom are personal friends of Pascal and have little else to do but come to teach Archambault students how to be the best they can be.

Javi joins your Vercher House lessons with Dominique and Beaumont. Though there's no sign of her starting another fight, and she is not overtly hostile in public, you have the sense that she's hoping to use every moment to get one over on you, whether it's giving a more expansive answer in Politics or working more efficiently in Natural Science.

That becomes even clearer during one Politics class discussing the Linwood-Philippe exiles.

"Obviously it was such a shame that the Linwood-Philippe situation happened at all," Clemence says, standing once more in front of the blackboard at the front of the class. "But I personally believe it was dealt with effectively."

The story is practically everyone's first History lesson at school, along with your own family history. A hundred years ago, Timothy Linwood rallied together a collection of revolutionaries and nearly assassinated your great-grandfather King Gian. Though Gian was injured, the aftermath went poorly for Linwood and his friends, and the ringleaders were swiftly exiled to a southern island; spies rooted out their followers, and anyone suspected as such, and scattered them across Westerlin to perform hard labor.

Nothing so outrageous has happened in your lifetime, of course. But the accounts and memories remain, and Westerlind aristocrats have remained nervous about troublemakers over the centuries.

Clemence nods thoughtfully. "Some have said it was an extreme response," they say, "but King Gian had been terribly wounded. It would have been dreadful if something worse had happened to him."

Javi's face is the picture of horror. "So you'd justify King Gian throwing people away because they might have been following Linwood?" she says. "No wonder Lady Renaldt at Gallatin got away with throwing people in her mines for so long. You're all used to it!"

Clemence pauses a moment, glancing at the clock. Perhaps they're calculating whether they can afford their lesson to be drawn out for hours on the topic of the ethics of exile. In the end, they spread their hands and say, "I'd love to have your thoughts on this, Princess Javi, in this week's prep work. Now, about Philippe's part in discovering the dissidents…"

That particular discussion aside, you generally deal with Javi in class by:

You spend a portion of your time in lessons figuring out how to provoke Vere's small but approving smiles, and Clemence's enthusiastic applause. But it proves to the detriment of your learning. In one Politics class, you're so busy flattering Clemence's political experience that Javi beats you in a debate, leaving you behind.

Javi aside, most of the younger students are star-struck whenever you appear, and it's never more in evidence than after breakfast. This morning, you and Asher are making your way out of the hall when Asher nudges you.

"There, you're being tailed," they say quietly.

You turn to see an eager cluster of students scurrying behind you. They're always different, but their keen demeanor makes them interchangeable. The bravest, a short girl, steps forward. "May we carry your bags, Your Highness?"

You push your satchel into her hands. "How's Anthony's Literature class going for you?"

She looks alarmed. "Oh," she says, faltering.

With a low curtsey, she and the others trail you and Asher all the way to Vercher House in silence. At the door, she hands you your bag and curtseys again, and they all scurry away.

"They're sweet," says Asher as you head into the hallway.

As is their habit, Asher walks a few paces in front of you, eyeing the space ahead and around. For their part, they are at your side between lessons or during recreation time, but deal with other business while you're learning. What exactly they get up to in those times, you do not know.