ㅤ
The exhibition committee had one more condition: our demonstration needed a rehearsal in the public hall, with the actual viewing distance marked on the floor.
ㅤ
I read the notice over breakfast while Mira attempted to persuade Sir Flopsy to eat a piece of potato.
ㅤ
“He doesn't like potatoes,” she informed me.
ㅤ
“He's never liked anything we serve.”
ㅤ
“He likes honey cakes.”
ㅤ
“Of course he does.”
ㅤ
She gave the potato to me instead. I put it on my plate and read the notice again. The rehearsal was on Wednesday afternoon, exactly when Mrs. Fenwick had planned to visit her sister.
ㅤ
I had two days to find childcare or ask the committee for a different slot. Neither was a disaster. I still stared at the page longer than necessary. The rehearsal was important, but Mrs. Fenwick had a life beyond looking after Mira, and I refused to make her feel that my timetable outranked a visit she had planned weeks ago.
ㅤ
“Is it the numbers?” Mira asked.
ㅤ
“It's the calendar.”
ㅤ
“Is it being mean?”
ㅤ
“A little.”
ㅤ
***
ㅤ
Mrs. Fenwick could keep Mira until lunch, but she'd arranged her trip weeks ago. I told her not to change it. Marcus had martial training during the rehearsal and offered to ask a friend, an offer I declined before he could finish describing the friend's qualifications.
ㅤ
Evelyn listened when I explained the conflict after lecture.
ㅤ
“I can ask the committee to move our slot,” she said.
ㅤ
“You shouldn't have to. They assigned us a time.”
ㅤ
“Then we can ask whether Mira may attend with an adult.”
ㅤ
“I'd still need an adult.”
ㅤ
She considered that. “Does Mrs. Alder have time?”
ㅤ
Our former guesthouse keeper was the last person I'd thought to ask. Not because she'd been unkind, but because moving out had felt like closing a door. Mrs. Alder had watched Mira while we lived under her roof; asking her to cross town felt different from asking for a favor downstairs. Still, Evelyn was right. I could offer to cover her travel and accept no if she was busy.
ㅤ
“I can write to her,” I said.
ㅤ
“Good. And if she can't, we request another slot. Those are the options, not a personal failure.”
ㅤ
“I hadn't called it one.”
ㅤ
“You've been looking at that timetable as if it insulted your family.”
ㅤ
It had, a little.
ㅤ
***
ㅤ
Mrs. Alder's reply arrived the next morning. She could watch Mira for two hours at the apartment, provided I paid her fare and returned before supper. She also wanted to know whether the shutters had been repaired.
ㅤ
I wrote back accepting, then added that Marcus had improved them and Mr. Pell still needed to finish the job.
ㅤ
Mira was delighted when I told her.
ㅤ
“Mrs. Alder knows how to make the toast with the brown edges.”
ㅤ
“She does.”
ㅤ
“Can she teach you?”
ㅤ
“Apparently my toast has developed a reputation.”
ㅤ
She looked at me with sympathy. “It's sometimes too dark.”
ㅤ
There were moments when I missed being judged solely on magical performance.
ㅤ
***
ㅤ
At the rehearsal, the public hall seemed larger than it had on the exhibition map. The committee had marked a visitor boundary several paces from the practice circle. Halden's assigned graduate assistant, Nessa, tested the cutoff device while Evelyn and I checked the anchors.
ㅤ
“I'm not here to rescue your results,” Nessa told us. “I'm here to stop the demonstration if something goes wrong.”
ㅤ
“That is exactly what we need,” Evelyn said.
ㅤ
“Good. Some students take it personally.”
ㅤ
I glanced at the reinforced glass over the practice crystals. “I'm fond of keeping the visitors intact.”
ㅤ
The first run held fourteen seconds. The second held thirteen. A committee clerk recorded the readings while a senior lecturer watched from the boundary. Nessa kept one hand near the cutoff throughout, though neither run required her to use it. We had repeated the comparison with the same mana allowance, not tried to beat our earlier durations.
ㅤ
Then he asked a question I hadn't prepared for.
ㅤ
“Why should anyone care about a weaker barrier?”
ㅤ
I started explaining mana allocation. His expression told me I'd lost him before the second sentence.
ㅤ
Evelyn waited.
ㅤ
I tried again. “Because if you can protect what matters for longer using the same amount of mana, you have more time to move, call for help, or defend someone else.”
ㅤ
The lecturer looked at the diagram.
ㅤ
“Put that on the display.”
ㅤ
Evelyn wrote it down without saying she'd told me so. I appreciated the restraint.
ㅤ
***
ㅤ
When the rehearsal ended, the committee approved our safety plan with minor changes. We needed a clearer label for the cutoff and a wider gap between the display table and the practice circle. Nessa would remain the independent safety observer if the final arrangements held. The actual exhibition was still several days away; passing a rehearsal was not the same as finishing the display.
ㅤ
I checked the time and hurried home. Mrs. Alder was sitting beside Mira at the kitchen table, overseeing a drawing that involved an alarming number of orange flowers.
ㅤ
“You're early,” she said.
ㅤ
“I promised before supper.”
ㅤ
“You did. It's nice to see you keeping it.”
ㅤ
Mira ran to me with Sir Flopsy. Mrs. Alder waited until she'd finished describing the rabbit's afternoon before mentioning that Mr. Pell had stopped by to inspect the shutter.
ㅤ
“He says he'll plane the swollen edge tomorrow.”
ㅤ
“That may be the finest news I've heard all week.”
ㅤ
“Then your week needs improvement.”
ㅤ
I paid her fare and thanked her twice. She accepted the first thanks and waved away the second. Mira tried to give her the drawing, then decided she needed it on our wall first. Mrs. Alder said she could admire it on her next visit, if we invited her.
ㅤ
“Ask when you need help, Adrian. Don't wait until you've exhausted every other possibility.”
ㅤ
After she left, I looked at the drawing on the table. Mira had added a fourth person beside the three of us.
ㅤ
“Mrs. Alder?” I asked.
ㅤ
“Yes. She said flowers don't need to stand up straight to grow.”
ㅤ
I glanced at the courtyard. The marigolds had begun to recover.
ㅤ
***
ㅤ
The next day, Halden returned a short note on the letter's magical residue. His conclusion hadn't changed: the surviving trace was too weak and contaminated to identify a specific formation. He had, however, included a reference to a specialist who studied how heat-treated paper retained magical impressions.
ㅤ
“Can we contact them?” I asked.
ㅤ
“You can write. Don't send the letter.”
ㅤ
“Would they need to see it?”
ㅤ
“Eventually, perhaps. Begin with a description of the material and ask whether the technique is recognizable. Miss Vale can help you phrase it.”
ㅤ
I took the note. “Thank you.”
ㅤ
Halden turned back to his desk. “And Adrian? A lack of evidence isn't an invitation to make the missing part more exciting.”
ㅤ
“I'll put that above my bed.”
ㅤ
“Put your exhibition notes there instead.”
ㅤ
***
ㅤ
Miss Vale helped Evelyn and me draft the inquiry. We described the surviving fibers, the uneven exposure, and the limitations of the preservation work, using her notes and the preservation copy rather than handling the original letter. We didn't mention Mira, future-dated coins, or the red room. The specialist might reply in a week or never. Miss Vale read the final draft once more to make sure we had not described a possible magical impression as an identified spell.
ㅤ
Evelyn folded the finished letter.
ㅤ
“It's strange to write something so ordinary about something that isn't.”
ㅤ
“We could add that the paper may have traveled through time.”
ㅤ
“We could also ensure the letter goes directly into a wastebasket.”
ㅤ
She sealed it and passed it to the archive messenger.
ㅤ
On our way out, she asked whether Mrs. Alder's visit had gone well. I told her about the toast, the shutter, and the extra person in Mira's drawing.
ㅤ
“She remembers the people who make her feel welcome,” Evelyn said.
ㅤ
“She's making a very crowded picture.”
ㅤ
“Is that a problem?”
ㅤ
“No. I think I used to assume there was only room for one or two people to help.”
ㅤ
Evelyn didn't answer immediately. We walked down the archive steps together.
ㅤ
“There can be room for more,” she said.
ㅤ
***
ㅤ
I had planned to use Friday evening for grading. Instead, I spent the first half of it helping Mira make a paper sign for our door. She wanted our names on it, along with Sir Flopsy's.
ㅤ
I wrote ADRIAN and MIRA in careful letters. She supplied a rabbit with a sword.
ㅤ
“Should I put Evelyn?” I asked before I could think better of it.
ㅤ
Mira looked up. “She doesn't live here.”
ㅤ
“No, she doesn't.”
ㅤ
“But she comes.”
ㅤ
“She does.”
ㅤ
Mira considered the sign. “Can we make another one that says welcome?”
ㅤ
We did. It was a better solution than I'd offered, and it didn't require me to explain why I'd asked.
ㅤ
When Evelyn arrived the following afternoon to review our exhibition script, Mira presented the sign before she'd removed her cloak.
ㅤ
“It's for everybody.”
ㅤ
Evelyn read it aloud. “Welcome.”
ㅤ
“And knights,” Mira added.
ㅤ
“And knights,” Evelyn agreed.
ㅤ
***
ㅤ
We practiced the exhibition explanation at the kitchen table. Evelyn played an impatient visitor who wanted to know why her strongest shield wouldn't always be the safest choice. I played a student who had forgotten how to use simple words.
ㅤ
Mira sat nearby, occasionally raising her hand.
ㅤ
“Can I ask a question?”
ㅤ
“Of course,” Evelyn said.
ㅤ
“Why don't you just make two shields?”
ㅤ
“Sometimes you can,” I said. “But then you have to divide your mana between them.”
ㅤ
Mira frowned. “Like when we share soup?”
ㅤ
Evelyn and I looked at each other.
ㅤ
“Exactly like that,” Evelyn said. “If you have one pot, you have to decide how much goes into each bowl.”
ㅤ
Mira nodded and returned to her drawing.
ㅤ
I added the analogy to our notes. Evelyn didn't object.
ㅤ
***
ㅤ
When Mira went to wash her hands, Evelyn examined the sign hanging near the door.
ㅤ
“She asked you to make this?”
ㅤ
“She wanted the people she loves on one sign. We compromised.”
ㅤ
Evelyn glanced at me. “What did you tell her?”
ㅤ
“That you don't live here. She suggested making a welcome sign instead.”
ㅤ
“Ah.”
ㅤ
I couldn't tell whether she was relieved or disappointed. Perhaps neither. I felt foolish for trying to read so much into one syllable.
ㅤ
“She knows you're welcome,” I added.
ㅤ
Evelyn turned toward me.
ㅤ
“I know,” she said.
ㅤ
It was a simple answer. It stayed with me longer than the committee's approval had.
ㅤ
***
ㅤ
Later, after she'd gone, I sat beside Mira while she sorted her pencils. She'd drawn another picture of the apartment, this time with Mrs. Alder, Marcus, Mrs. Fenwick, and Evelyn standing around the three of us. The figures barely fit on the page.
ㅤ
“That's a lot of people,” I said.
ㅤ
“Some have to stand outside.”
ㅤ
“Are they unhappy?”
ㅤ
“No. They're coming in.”
ㅤ
I watched her add a door wide enough for the smallest figures to pass through. She had drawn the hinges on the wrong side, so the door opened across the flowers. I almost corrected her, then remembered the point of the picture was that everyone could get inside. I asked for the green pencil and helped her give the flowers another place to grow.
ㅤ
In the novel I remembered, Evelyn von Rosenfeld had been surrounded by people who wanted something from her or feared what she'd become. I'd thought about that story often since Mira arrived. But the woman who'd spent an afternoon helping me explain defensive magic with soup hadn't asked for a role in anyone's prophecy.
ㅤ
She'd simply kept coming back.