Chapter Nine
I glanced up from my geomagic text at a nearly bare silver beech tree swaying in the wind.
It was lonely weather, the kind where sensible people sat next to cozy hearths with an engrossing novel, not a chilly crafting room with a geomagic text.
Few students haunted the academy on weekends: forlorn footfalls tapped down the halls between bouts of rain pattering against the windows.
I’d arrived half an hour early today to get a bit of studying done first. Geomagic wasn’t just about formulas and mathematics, it was like a puzzle: difficult to make sense of until you had mastered most of the pieces.
As far as the other puzzle in my life… I’d like to think things were improving there as well.
Sephimara and I had met every weekend for nearly two months now.
I’d coach her with woodworking, and quite often she’d have pointers on one of the other subjects.
I didn’t know if she considered me a friend, but it had to be at least ‘pleasant acquaintance.’ I’d escort her to the door every afternoon, bear the sting at seeing her depart for dance practice with Count Greanderal’s son.
Sometimes boarding the count’s carriage, sometimes a hired cab.
The incident with her tool bag…
I shook my head. She’d reacted more emotionally to that than our experience aboard the sinking clipper.
The dead body in the hold she said she didn’t know.
A dead body! How could some tool bag be more traumatic than that?
The formal court inquiry shortly thereafter was the same: she answered question after question coolly and evenly.
I wanted to know what was going on, I wanted to help.
But even if I knew, could I do anything?
Maybe in time she’d confide in me. Or maybe it was some intrigue between noble families that I could do nothing about.
Yet as tensions relaxed between us, as informal words and phrases slipped out, as flashes of smiles and casual gestures crept into our meetings… well… it was simply nice. I was spending pleasant time alone with a fascinating and beautiful elven lady. Why ruin a good thing?
The clock bell rang as I was in the middle of quizzing myself on the current formulas, but I kept going until I’d finished, suddenly realizing Sephimara was late.
It wasn’t like her to be late.
Ten minutes passed. Then twenty.
I racked my brain to remember details of our last words.
She hadn’t said she would be late. Or that she couldn’t make it?
Could something have happened to her? A mix of gloom and worry crept over me.
I didn’t want to be negative, but what could I do?
If I asked at the Greanderal palace, they’d probably have me flogged on sight for just mentioning her name.
A knock at the door jarred me out of the dark chain of thoughts.
Was it her?
She wouldn’t knock.
“Who is it?” I asked.
“Messenger service. I am looking for a Mister Thistlewood.”
A messenger? I’d never had a message delivered to me. “That would be me. Come in.”
A man in a black uniform with silver buttons and trim presented me with an envelope, which I had to sign for.
As he departed, I inspected the embossed logo, where a wreath of feathers encircled Darathiel’s Dependable Courier and Messengers in fancy script. The ‘from’ field of the fine parchment envelope was blank.
I opened it.
Mister Thistlewood,
I regret that I am unable to attend our meeting this morning. If you would consider rescheduling to four-o-clock today, I would be most appreciative.
Cordially yours,
Lady Sephimara Arazniros
Wow.
I didn’t like being stiffed, but she really did it in style. I blew out a long breath, rubbing her note between thumb and forefinger. Finely textured parchment. A hint of peppermint scent?
It would be an awkward time for me. If our session went the usual time, I’d miss dinner at the cafeteria. There was usually a plate of biscuits and fruit provided at the dormitory lounge for just such occasions. But I liked treating myself a little on weekends.
I snorted.
Plans, meals, it didn’t matter. Whatever I had to skip, it’d be worth it to see her. The note. It was… nobody had ever sent me anything like this. Was it simple common courtesy among the nobles? Or something else?
A voice broke the intermittent silence many hours later. “Mister Thistlewood, would you mind assisting me with the door?”
“Uhh, sure.” I stepped to the crafting room door to find Sephimara with a wicker basket in one hand, a satchel in the other.
“Thank you.” She set both atop one of the workbenches, composed herself, and addressed me. “I appreciate your accommodation of both my schedule and ill manners.”
“Ill manners?” She had literally sent me an engraved note to reschedule.
“I was rushed as I sent the note and did not think to ask for a reply. I simply assumed that you would…”
I smiled, shaking my head in disbelief. Talk about class. Sephimara truly embodied the finest aspects of elven civility my brother had told me about. “Lady Arazniros. Your apology is most accepted.” Wait, was that an apology?
“I thank you, Mister Thistlewood.” The wisp of a smile graced those voluptuous lips as she nodded lightly.
Please call me Theo.
“However, that was not an apology.”
Ah.
She opened the basket and removed a red and white gingham cloth. “I have caused you to miss far too many meals. This is the apology.”
I glanced at a selection of breads, cheeses, a jar of olives, grapes, little pots of vegetable paste. “Wow. That looks… amazing.”
“But I believe we have some studying and woodworking to do first,” she said.
I nodded.
Since I’d already completed my homework for the weekend, I decided to work on a piece alongside hers to better demonstrate. You can never practice too much.
“So you believe this box joint you showed me will be sufficiently durable for the term project?” She clamped a piece of poplar in a miter box and began cutting along the pencil marks.
I’d called her princess on our first meeting, a name which I regret now. Her hands were not those of a princess. Not that I’d met any actual princesses.
The jacket of her uniform tossed over the back of a chair, she’d rolled the arms of her white, long-sleeve shirt past the elbow, exposing tanned forearms with notable muscle showing on every vigorous stroke of the saw.
Long, elegant fingers gripped the saw handle.
Nearly everything about her was long and elegant. Yet she was no pampered flower.
She glanced at me. “Is my technique incorrect?”
I shook my head. “Not at all. You’re just… not what I expected?”
“Expected?” She spoke with a slight lilt. “So our encounter was not a coincidence after all.”
My eyes went wide. “I didn’t mean…”
She winked.
Humor? She’d once again proven my point.
My body deflated with a long sigh.
“If I could have arranged an encounter with a charming elven lady, you would have most certainly topped the list.”
“You find me charming, do you?”
Delightfully so. “Possibly. Though perhaps our standards out here on the frontier are different.”
“Your provincial verisimilitude is not without its charm, either.” Her piercing green eyes lingered on mine, simmering with a hint of mischievous energy.
She removed the piece from the miter box and picked up a chisel. “You mentioned a brother a few times who seems to have opinions on all things elf.”
“Be careful cutting those out. It’s much easier than a dovetail, but still requires care.”
“Um-humm. Your brother?”
“Opinions… yes, I suppose you could say that. And he is, in fact, an elf.”
Her gaze fixed on me.
“I refuse to use the term adoptive brother. From the moment he joined our family, he was never anything less than a full brother to me.”
She cocked her head. “I did not think your home city of Thorncove had a significant elven population.”
“It doesn’t. He survived a shipwreck. His family did not. My mother and father assisted with the rescue, and after that…”
She glanced at her woodwork but made no cuts. “I suppose that clarifies quite a bit about our first encounter.” She brushed aside a few shavings. “I am very sorry, Mister Thistlewood.”
I extended a hand across the workbench, palm up.
She took it and squeezed. Not the delicate touch of a handshake for show, but a firm grasp as if helping someone up off a dock.
I closed my eyes as I savored her touch many long seconds.
Withdrawing my hand before it became awkward, I forced a smile. “So, why don’t you finish chiseling out all the notches and perhaps we can dig in to this marvelous picnic you have brought, Lady Arazniros.”
“A sensible suggestion, Mister Thistlewood.”
A quarter of an hour later, I brushed away shavings and sawdust, as Sephimara laid out the gingham tablecloth and spread a fabulous buffet, including cut-glass plates and silverware.
I spooned a couple olives onto my plate, glanced at her, and stopped. “I… you’ll forgive me if there is some protocol I don’t know. I can barely place silverware in the right order.”
“Protocol?”
“You know. Am I supposed to serve you first, then myself. I’ve never been on a date with—I mean, not that this is a date, date.”
A bemused smile crossed her face. “It is quite all right. We may both have misconceptions. I was informed that manners in provincial cities were more traditional and strict. As if many people cling to exaggerated… or perhaps entirely imagined imperial customs.”
“And… is this the case?” I sliced myself a piece of bread and cut a second for her.
“Mister Thistlewood, I see your skill in woodworking applies to bread slicing as well.”
“Thank you.” I spread a bit of hummus on mine, topping it with sliced tomatoes. “So? Are things more formal here than in Drach-Principalis?”
She slid a grape between her lips, chewed, and swallowed. “For some people, most certainly. Though I am afraid I cannot judge the city as a whole. The academy draws students from many different cities. My interactions with city natives have been primarily limited to Count Greanderal and his son.”
“Who are more traditional?”