Lucky Rabbit

The presence of the Reedsleys kept the weekend exciting. It turned out that Lord Reedsley had attended Falconet for three years, while Lady Reedsley studied with tutors until she was eleven and could start at Kestrel. That meant everything at Falconet was new to her, and she thoroughly enjoyed being shown around, and would comment on which parts of it were the same or different from the other schools.

Pandy, of course, was already well aware of the fact that Falconet, at least, was very similar to Condor, but it was interesting to find out that Kestrel was also almost identical. “They wanted the students to feel at home,” Lady Reedsley had said, giving Geraldine a little side-hug. “It’s frightening to be away from your family. Having to learn to navigate a whole new place every three to five years made it even more stressful, so they simply built the same school three times, just making it larger to allow for more students to attend as they grow older.”

She had been standing by the pool, smiling as she watched the pretty little waterfall. “The outdoor areas are the most different. At Kestrel, the pool is larger, and almost always in use, except in the winter. The closest thing you can find to peace and privacy is in some of the most distant gardens. This is lovely. You know, I think I might add a water feature to my conservatory next year.”

Lord Reedsley groaned, but his eyes were soft as he watched his wife. “Think of the expense, Alice. We’d have to hire a Water elementalist from Knightsmere. Besides, it would raise the humidity even further. You already complain about what it does to your hair.”

Lady Alice raised her hand to pat at her curls, which were as soft and fluffy as the rest of her. “That’s true,” she murmured. “Perhaps something outside?”

“Like the stream we already have?” Lord Reedsley asked, offering Lady Reedsley his arm as the group began moving back toward the main building.

The noblewoman swatted her husband gently on the arm, then leaned her head against the spot she’d struck. Her enormous hat, covered in flowers and feathers and tilting rakishly from the side of her head where it clung through the copious use of hatpins or some unknown magic, bumped against his ear, making him chuckle. She looked up at him through her lashes and said, “Then simply adding a waterfall should be easy enough, don’t you think?”

He sighed. “We’ll see. The harvest looks good this year, but it will depend on the prices at market.”

Pandy just hopped along after Thaniel, taking all of this in. They had spent a few weeks with the Reedsleys after Thaniel’s father died, but Lord Reedsley had been away most of the time, and Lady Reedsley always seemed to be busy, except at teatime. Pandy had rarely had the opportunity to see the two simply relaxing together, and it was fascinating to watch Lady Alice twist her large, rather gruff husband around her plump little finger. The two were so obviously still in love, even after at least fourteen years of marriage, that it actually gave Pandy some hope for… for things she wasn’t quite willing to think about yet.

That said, it was also interesting to compare what she was learning with what she knew from Gacha Love. In the game, ‘Killian the Villian’ had blamed Captain Reedsley for killing Thaniel, since his little brother died in a fire on the night the captain and his troops raided their estate. Of course, that raid never would have taken place if Thaniel and Lian’s father hadn’t been practicing forbidden Dark magic – possibly in an attempt to summon a Demon to resurrect his wife, though that was becoming less plausible as Pandy learned more about Dark elementals in general, and Demons specifically.

In any case, the few times Captain Reedsley appeared in the game, it was usually after someone had died. Killian focused his murder-spree on people who were either involved in the raid or related to those involved in the raid, but he certainly wasn’t above killing a few random people in order to make the attacks seem more… well, random.

In those scenes, the captain was always grim and weary-looking, seeming almost too old to be the father of the lovely young girl who was the protagonist of the game. He barely spoke to Clara, being too focused on solving the murders, and just generally came across as stiff and not very likeable.

This Captain Reedsley was a loving husband and family man, and Pandy wondered which of his two personas was a mask, or if they somehow both coexisted in this single person. If they did, were they comfortable in there together? Because she had the feeling Augustus was dealing with something similar, and that he very much was not comfortable.

In this world, Thaniel hadn’t died, but Lord Conroy had. Rather than disappearing on the night of the raid, never to be seen or heard from again, Thaniel’s father had been killed in a bandit attack. This left his two sons as innocent orphans, rather than Killian alone becoming the outcast son of a fugitive, living in limbo while the Knights of the Royal Eagle searched for his father in order to determine his guilt.

In fact, Augustus might well have been the person hunting for Lord Conroy, since that was his job. Except that he had retired at the behest of the queen, and was already set to become the new chancellor of Falconet by the time the raid on Thaniel’s home occurred. Who was now chasing after the people suspected of breaking the many, many laws surrounding the use of Dark magic in West Altheric?

But that wasn’t Pandy’s problem. She wasn’t here to pick holes in the plot of her favorite game, based on information she’d gained after coming to a world that was, in the words of the god who brought her here, suspiciously similar to Gacha Love. No, her job was to protect Thaniel, and, in so doing, break the very game she’d loved so much. Because frankly, finding true love in the midst of murder and war wasn’t nearly as romantic when you knew most of the people who were meant to die.

Which brought Pandy to Clara. Clara, who was very nearly as beautiful and graceful as she would be in just over two and a half years, when she was meant to enter Condor as a sixteen-year-old, fresh from the countryside, and full of a kind of innocent sweetness that made the male love interests fall madly in love with her. But there was something in that gap between game and reality that made Pandy just a little concerned.

While Geraldine and Lady Reedsley were exactly as bubbly and energetic as they seemed – though Lady Alice was able to hide most of beneath her voluminous skirts and prodigious hats when she had to – Clara was just a bit… hollow. Like a perfectly blown glass ornament, fragile and exquisite, but utterly empty inside. She smiled. She even laughed for exactly as long and as loudly as appropriate, but nothing she did ever held any true enthusiasm or joy.

Clara joined them for meals, but rarely wandered the school grounds with the rest of the group. When she was with them, she was quiet, offering none of the bright chatter she had displayed when she was with her friends at home. Instead, she looked bored, and a few times, she even seemed a little cold when her sister tried to talk to her.

By Sunday evening, Geraldine had given up altogether, and focused on her friends instead. They were trying to decide where to go to view the Grange displays, since different parts of town would have different items on display. While the city wasn’t officially divided up into districts, people had a tendency to gather together for convenience, if not social comfort, which produced a similar effect.

People who worked at the factories – which produced things like glass and the strange, enchanted curls of wooden that served as bedsprings in this world – wanted to live near those factories. People who worked on the farms just outside the city lived in the south and eastern suburbs, while people whose livelihoods depended on the forests to the north gravitated in that direction.

“I wanna see swords and armor and things,” Thaniel said, not for the first time.

Geraldine made a face. “I want to see the new clothes. I heard the most famous fashion designers all put up their booths next to each other, and the queen herself will come to see them.” Never mind the fact that the queen herself had come to Geraldine’s home not that long ago. It was obvious that the girl really wanted to experience the pomp and circumstance surrounding a proper royal visit more than anything else.

Eleanor bit her lip. Her mother, the queen herself, wouldn’t be coming to Falconet for the Open House, and as far as Pandy knew, had no plans to visit her daughter at any point during the festival. That meant Eleanor’s best chance of seeing her mother was from afar, but that was very different from getting a motherly hug and snuggle. Not that Queen Regent Louisa seemed like the snuggling type.

Abbington, who had said he’d like to see the southern displays and left it at that, was eating his dinner, while trying very hard to pretend that the conversation had nothing to do with him. Beside him, Isidor was doing the same, except that he’d said simply that he would go wherever Eleanor went. That effectively gave the princess two votes, which meant Thaniel and Geraldine were both attempting to win her over.

As dessert was served – a molded dome of sponge fingers over custard, smothered in some kind of deep purple sauce – Lady Reedsley lifted her fork and said, “We’ll be going to Lanthorne Court and Amberlock.” The squabbling children turned to look at her, as if shocked at this sudden reminder that they weren’t alone, and didn’t have decision-making capacity.

“Lanthorne Court is in the southwest,” she said, after taking a delicate nibble of her ladyfingers. “Some of our produce ends up there, so Lord Corbin and I wish to see the competition, as it were. Amberlock is close to the river, and local artisans use imported goods to create all sorts of fascinating items which may become all the rage, or may drift away into oblivion. It’s terribly interesting to try to guess which is which.”

Abbington looked pleased at the idea of seeing stands displaying local produce, while Eleanor and Geraldine perked up as Lady Alice talked about Amberlock. Thaniel was the only one who didn’t seem particularly excited at either idea, but after glancing around at his friends, he sighed and shrugged, accepting his fate.

Pandy’s ears perked up at the mention of Lanthorne Court, since that was where Bastian took Clara if she chose to go with him on the second day of the festival. Lady Alice had only mentioned the produce, but there would be tables mounded with flowers, spices, cheese, jams, and sauces as well. Mingled among these would be a few stands showcasing things like shoes, locally woven cloth, and, of course, items crafted by blacksmiths and armorers, though there wasn’t much call for the latter in this peaceful time. Pandy had no idea where Amberlock might be, other than somewhere toward the eastern end of Knightmere, since the river ran along the southeast edge of the city.

Most importantly, Lanthorne Court was where Pandy needed to go in order to contact Saskia and her nephew, Luca. Pandy felt horrible that Luca had been blamed for damage she did to the school, and while Augustus had promised her the boy wouldn’t suffer because he was a convenient scapegoat, she wanted to check for herself. Besides, her new persona needed more pants.

Decision made, the children turned to their desserts, which seemed to be universally popular for once. Thaniel did pass a particularly squishy piece of cake down to Pandy, which she happily devoured. Otherwise, conversation and interaction in general died down until the meal concluded.

Afterward, Clara pleaded a headache and retired to her room – which was, of course, Ms. Wellington’s old apartment, only with the office converted into a sitting room and a curtain dividing the sleeping area so Clara could have some privacy. Lord and Lady Reedsley were teaching the children some new games using Elemental Tiles, so everyone else passed the time until bedtime quite pleasantly.

For her part, Pandy should have been planning out her week, but somehow her eyes kept going to the door through which Clara had departed. She knew the girl was thirteen – a notoriously difficult time in a child’s life – and obviously not particularly pleased to be here, but somehow Pandy just couldn’t shake the feeling that something more was going on. Well, she would have a whole week to figure it out.