ㅤ
On Friday morning, Mira informed me that the welfare office had forgotten to give Sir Flopsy a certificate.
ㅤ
“He lives here too,” she said, holding him across the breakfast table.
ㅤ
“He does. But I think rabbits are exempt from registration.”
ㅤ
“He isn't a rabbit all the time.”
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“What is he the rest of the time?”
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“A knight.”
ㅤ
I considered whether Bellamy had a separate form for that and decided not to ask. Mira seemed lighter after the review, though she still checked that our key hung beside the door. I let her check. I'd spent part of Thursday evening checking the folder myself, even after Bellamy had told us we could stay.
ㅤ
Before leaving, I checked that the receipt for our first week of rent was still with the lease and counted out enough for groceries. There was no sudden financial rescue in the folder. Bellamy had given me a chance to show that the arrangement could work, and I intended to use it.
ㅤ
***
ㅤ
Evelyn was already in the practice room when I arrived. Two barrier crystals rested on the desk, along with a measuring dial and a page covered in her precise handwriting.
ㅤ
“You're early,” I said.
ㅤ
“So are you.”
ㅤ
“I had to deliver Mira before class.”
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“And I wanted to test the cutoff mechanism without you standing inside the barrier.”
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“Considerate.”
ㅤ
“Practical. You complain when your sleeves catch fire.”
ㅤ
“It happened once.”
ㅤ
“Once was sufficient.”
ㅤ
She'd adjusted the practice apparatus so the crystal would discharge a controlled pulse at a fixed interval rather than when an observer pressed a trigger. That removed one variable from our measurements. It also meant I couldn't blame an inconsistent result on Marcus, who'd offered to help with the timing.
ㅤ
I checked the connections while Evelyn explained the changes. We were due to submit the exhibition proposal before Halden left for the day. The results didn't need to be perfect, but the procedure had to be something we could reproduce in front of strangers.
ㅤ
***
ㅤ
Our first run lasted thirteen seconds. The second lasted fifteen. On the third, my outer channel failed before Evelyn's spell reached its intended strength.
ㅤ
I lowered my hands. “That's new.”
ㅤ
“Your right anchor shifted.”
ㅤ
“I didn't move.”
ㅤ
“The anchor did.”
ㅤ
We examined the chalk marks. A loose floor tile had tilted beneath my heel, barely enough to notice. I checked that the apparatus had stayed level before we reset the trial. I stepped off it and tried again. Fourteen seconds.
ㅤ
“Should we remove the first result?” I asked.
ㅤ
“Keep it in the record. Exclude it from the comparison and explain why.”
ㅤ
“People might think we're bad at this.”
ㅤ
“People might believe we understand experiments.”
ㅤ
I wrote down the fault. In my old life, I'd been fond of demonstrations where everything worked on the first try. Actual work was less accommodating.
ㅤ
After another two runs, we had enough consistent measurements to justify the proposal, not enough to claim that every future attempt would behave the same way. Evelyn checked my calculations, and I checked the labels on her diagram. Neither of us found anything to argue about.
ㅤ
“That feels suspicious,” I said.
ㅤ
“We can argue over the title.”
ㅤ
“We already did.”
ㅤ
“I still dislike your choice.”
ㅤ
There it was.
ㅤ
***
ㅤ
Halden read the proposal while we stood in front of his desk. He turned the pages slowly, pausing at the excluded trial.
ㅤ
“Why is this here?”
ㅤ
“To document the floor-tile fault,” I said.
ㅤ
“Good.”
ㅤ
Evelyn's shoulders relaxed by a fraction.
ㅤ
He reached the final page. “You'll need a safety observer who isn't either of you. I can assign a graduate assistant if the exhibition committee accepts the application. No live discharge near visitors.”
ㅤ
“Understood,” Evelyn said.
ㅤ
“And keep the claims modest. You've measured a useful configuration under defined conditions. You haven't rewritten defensive magic.”
ㅤ
“I took that sentence out,” I said.
ㅤ
“Evelyn took it out.”
ㅤ
I looked at her. She didn't deny it.
ㅤ
Halden signed the departmental approval. We still needed the committee's acceptance, but it was the first time the project had existed on paper with someone else's name beneath ours.
ㅤ
Outside his office, Evelyn held up the signed page to check that the ink had dried.
ㅤ
“Now we wait,” she said.
ㅤ
“I'm developing a talent for that.”
ㅤ
“No, you're developing a talent for doing other things while you wait.”
ㅤ
I liked her version better.
ㅤ
***
ㅤ
At lunch, we visited Miss Vale in the archive. She'd agreed to show us the stationery catalogue Halden mentioned, provided we didn't remove it from the reading room.
ㅤ
The volume was older than either of us. Its entries listed suppliers by paper weight, fiber treatment, and intended use. Miss Vale laid a transparent tracing over the preservation copy of the letter and pointed to the edge where the fibers were visible. The original remained wrapped and undisturbed at home.
ㅤ
“It's tempting to identify the manufacturer from one unusual thread,” she said. “Don't. Similar paper was produced in several places.”
ㅤ
“Can we narrow it at all?” Evelyn asked.
ㅤ
“Possibly to a class of treated paper. Some was sold for correspondence meant to survive heat or damp. Others were used in magical instruments.”
ㅤ
I looked at the copy. “That would explain why parts of the letter survived.”
ㅤ
“It could. Or the surviving parts were simply lucky.”
ㅤ
She let us copy the relevant catalogue entries. There were four possible suppliers, none linked to the academy by the records she had available. The catalogue gave us no reason to select one over the others. The catalogue also noted that the treatment sometimes interfered with ordinary preservation spells.
ㅤ
“So trying harder might make the writing worse,” I said.
ㅤ
“That's a crude summary,” Miss Vale replied, “but yes.”
ㅤ
I left the archive with four names and a renewed appreciation for people willing to say they didn't know.
ㅤ
***
ㅤ
I collected Mira later than usual. Mrs. Fenwick had already packed her drawing supplies into a cloth bag.
ㅤ
“She's been teaching Sir Flopsy to count,” she said.
ㅤ
“Any progress?”
ㅤ
“He insists on starting at three.”
ㅤ
Mira held up three fingers. “Because there are three of us. Even when Mommy has work.”
ㅤ
I took the bag. “That is a strong argument.”
ㅤ
On the walk home, she asked whether Evelyn would visit that evening. I told her Evelyn had her own work and couldn't come every day.
ㅤ
“Even if she likes our soup?”
ㅤ
“Even then.”
ㅤ
Mira considered this. “We could save some.”
ㅤ
“We could. But I think we should eat it before it goes bad.”
ㅤ
She sighed at the limitations of domestic life and asked for potatoes instead.
ㅤ
***
ㅤ
There was a reply from Lina waiting at the apartment. She'd accepted the trial lesson for Tuesday, without committing to anything afterward. I added it to the calendar beside Tomas's next session, then calculated what the extra five silver would cover if she continued. I stopped before I began spending money I hadn't earned.
ㅤ
Mira climbed onto the chair beside me.
ㅤ
“Numbers again?”
ㅤ
“Numbers again.”
ㅤ
“Are they nicer?”
ㅤ
“A little.”
ㅤ
She examined the page. “You should draw flowers on it.”
ㅤ
“Would that help?”
ㅤ
“It helps mine.”
ㅤ
I gave her the corner of a scrap sheet. While she drew, I prepared the potatoes and set water to boil. She told me about Mrs. Fenwick's neighbor, who owned a dog that apparently disliked hats. I listened, asking enough questions to understand that the dog disliked hats on people, not on itself.
ㅤ
It was the kind of conversation I'd never imagined being important. I found myself wanting to remember it.
ㅤ
***
ㅤ
After supper, I worked on the archive notes while Mira colored at the other end of the table. Four suppliers, two broad categories of treated paper, and no useful date. I copied the names neatly rather than inventing connections between them.
ㅤ
Mira leaned over to look at the transparent tracing I'd made of the letter's surviving border.
ㅤ
“Is that Mommy's?”
ㅤ
“It may be a letter she wrote.”
ㅤ
“Can I see?”
ㅤ
I moved the tracing closer. The original was still wrapped and stored where Mira couldn't accidentally damage it. Mira studied the lines for a moment.
ㅤ
“She folded it small.”
ㅤ
I looked at her. “Do you remember that?”
ㅤ
She nodded. “It was in her hand. She kept making it smaller.”
ㅤ
I waited. Mira traced an imaginary fold on the table, then returned to her drawing.
ㅤ
“Did she give it to you?” I asked.
ㅤ
“Put it with me. I had to hold Flopsy.”
ㅤ
“Thank you for telling me.”
ㅤ
She shrugged, already choosing a green pencil. I wrote down her words exactly, without asking what happened next.
ㅤ
Repeated folds might explain why some of the damage followed narrow lines. We would need Miss Vale to compare the pattern before treating that as a finding. It didn't tell us where the red room was, or why future Evelyn had needed to send her daughter away.
ㅤ
But it was something Mira had offered freely, while sitting at our own table. I didn't want to turn that into a reason for her to dread my questions.
ㅤ
***
ㅤ
The next morning, Marcus arrived with a screwdriver and the confidence of a man who hadn't seen our window shutter.
ㅤ
“I can fix that,” he said.
ㅤ
“Mr. Pell said he'd look at it. It's his window.”
ㅤ
“Then I'll save him the trouble.”
ㅤ
“Please don't remove the window.”
ㅤ
Mira watched from a safe distance while Marcus tightened the loose hinge and discovered that the problem was partly the swollen wood. He adjusted what he could without cutting or replacing anything, then declared the rest a job for the landlord.
ㅤ
“You didn't fix it,” Mira observed.
ㅤ
“I made it less broken.”
ㅤ
She looked at me. “That's what Daddy says about his spells.”
ㅤ
Marcus laughed so hard he had to put the screwdriver down.
ㅤ
I checked the shutter myself. It closed without needing to be lifted, though it still scraped the frame. I wrote a note for Mr. Pell about the remaining problem and thanked Marcus for the part he'd managed.
ㅤ
***
ㅤ
Later, Evelyn stopped by to return a book I'd left with her. She found Mira at the window explaining the repairs to Sir Flopsy.
ㅤ
“Uncle Marcus made it less broken,” Mira reported.
ㅤ
“A useful skill,” Evelyn said.
ㅤ
I offered tea. She accepted, but only after warning me she had an appointment in an hour.
ㅤ
We sat at the table while Mira worked on a new drawing. I showed Evelyn the archive notes and told her what Mira had said about the folded letter.
ㅤ
“You didn't ask her to describe the room again?” Evelyn asked.
ㅤ
“No. She'd moved on.”
ㅤ
“Good.”
ㅤ
She studied my record of Mira's words. “If it was folded repeatedly, the damage might follow the creases. We can ask Miss Vale to compare the pattern on the copy before anyone considers examining the original again.”
ㅤ
“I thought so. I didn't want to tell Mira she had to remember more.”
ㅤ
Evelyn set the page down. “She told you because she felt safe enough to speak. That matters even if it never helps us find the formation.”
ㅤ
Across the table, Mira was drawing three figures beneath a large orange sun. She held up the picture for Evelyn's approval.
ㅤ
“That's our window,” she said. “It closes now.”
ㅤ
“Mostly,” I corrected.
ㅤ
Mira ignored me.
ㅤ
Evelyn smiled at the drawing, then at me. “Mostly is a beginning.”
ㅤ
When she left for her appointment, Mira put the picture beside the earlier one. The two sheets didn't match in size, and the figures had changed colors. She arranged them carefully anyway.
ㅤ
I returned to the kitchen to wash our cups. The exhibition committee had yet to answer, and the welfare office would want another income record before the provisional period ended. Through the window, the marigolds were beginning to bend under their own weight. I'd need to ask Mr. Pell whether we could stake them before the next rain.
ㅤ
For once, the list of things to do didn't feel like evidence that I was falling behind.