On Sunday morning, Mira decided that meeting a duke required better shoes.
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She had no intention of meeting him herself. Evelyn had been quite clear about that, and I had repeated it when Mira asked whether her grandfather would be coming for breakfast. Nevertheless, she brought me both pairs of shoes she owned and placed them beside my chair for inspection.
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“The brown ones are for rain,” she explained. “The other ones are for important people.”
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“Then I should probably borrow the other ones. Mine have met a great deal of rain.”
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“They won't fit you, Daddy.”
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“I was hoping the duke wouldn't notice.”
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Mira gave me the patient look of someone correcting a man who had somehow reached adulthood without understanding footwear. She returned her shoes to the bedroom and came back with Sir Flopsy, whose newly attached school-bag button had become a source of considerable pride.
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Evelyn had gone home the previous evening after telling me about her father's invitation. She hadn't shown him Mira's drawing or told him about the girl, and I was grateful she had trusted me enough to say so plainly. The invitation itself was harder to place. Duke Rosenfeld wanted to meet the commoner his daughter was dating. That was reasonable. It was also the sort of reasonable thing that could rearrange my life with a sentence spoken over tea.
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I had told Evelyn I would think about it. Sunday morning had arrived without making the decision for me.
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Marcus came by with a loaf of bread and found me ironing my only decent shirt beneath a stack of textbooks. He looked at the arrangement, then at me.
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“Is that a new defensive technique?”
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“Pressure and time. Very advanced.”
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“You're going to wear the shirt?”
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“Eventually.”
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He took the top book off the stack. “Evelyn told you what her father asked?”
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“She told me. She also told me he already looked into my work at the academy.”
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Marcus set the book down carefully. His family had money and acquaintances in noble households, but he had never pretended those connections made him an expert on every aristocrat in the kingdom.
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“Then he probably knows you can't afford to impress him,” he said. “Don't borrow a coat. He'll recognize the effort, and you'll spend the whole visit afraid of spilling something on it.”
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“That is unexpectedly useful advice.”
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“I have it sometimes.” He glanced toward Mira's room and lowered his voice. “Does he know about her?”
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“No. Evelyn decided not to tell him yesterday. We agreed we would discuss it before anyone met Mira.”
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Marcus nodded. He didn't ask whether that was fair to the duke, which I appreciated. The person most affected by a meeting with an unfamiliar grandfather was six years old and currently teaching a stuffed rabbit how to knock on a door.
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Evelyn arrived after lunch, carrying the drawing she'd borrowed from Mira. She returned it to its artist before removing her cloak.
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“Did Grandpa like it?” Mira asked.
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“I didn't show him this time,” Evelyn answered. “I kept it safe, as I promised.”
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Mira examined the crease and seemed satisfied. “You can show him another day.”
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“Perhaps. We'll talk about it first.”
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There was no elaborate explanation, and Mira didn't demand one. She asked Evelyn to help make a paper envelope for the drawing instead. They worked at the table while I washed the lunch dishes. Evelyn folded the corners precisely; Mira decorated the front with a rabbit whose ears extended beyond the paper.
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When Mira went to put away her pencils, Evelyn came to the sink.
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“I wanted to ask whether you've decided about Father,” she said.
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“I'd like to meet him. Not because I think refusing would make him angry. I want to know the person who matters to you, and I would rather he ask me his questions than build a picture from records.”
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Evelyn's hands rested on the edge of the counter. “He may ask about your plans after graduation. About income. About what you expect from our relationship.”
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“I've been asking myself the first two for months. The third is newer.”
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“What would you tell him?”
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“That I'm your boyfriend, not your prospective employee. I care about you. I also have a child to look after, though I won't tell him about her until we agree to it.”
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She glanced toward the bedroom, where Mira was singing to Sir Flopsy. “Thank you for keeping that separate. I don't want her first meeting with my family to be part of a negotiation about us.”
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“Neither do I.”
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Evelyn reached for my hand. Her fingers were cool from the journey, and she held on while the water in the basin settled. “I'll write to him and arrange a day. I won't tell him you've agreed to anything beyond a conversation.”
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“That seems like a good place to begin.”
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Monday's academy inspection began with a notice on the west hall door and ended, for me, in a room full of numbered boxes.
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The notice suspended loans of defensive crystals pending an inventory review. Our scheduled practical session could continue with approved equipment already assigned to the department, but no one was permitted to remove anything from storage without a staff member's countersignature. I read it twice, because my name appeared on the list of student assistants asked to verify previous loans.
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I wasn't being accused of anything. At least, the notice didn't say so.
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I took Mira to Mrs. Fenwick, who reminded me that she would need my updated work hours for the welfare follow-up. I promised to bring them before the end of the week. Then I went to the academy and found Evelyn outside the practice chamber, reading the same notice.
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“Does this affect our seminar report?” I asked.
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“The measurements are already recorded. We can still revise the analysis.” She folded the notice. “But the inspection may delay our next test.”
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“Did they say what happened to the missing crystals?”
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“No. They said the inventory doesn't reconcile. Those are different statements.”
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I knew she was right. A missing entry could mean a misplaced box, an unsigned loan, or an actual missing object. The original novel had taught me how tempting it was to interpret every ordinary inconvenience as the beginning of a conspiracy. Paying rent and raising Mira had taught me that paperwork could produce disaster without anybody plotting one.
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The inventory clerk, a narrow-shouldered woman named Mrs. Vale, gave me a stool and three sheets of loan records. She spoke in a low, deliberate voice, with none of the impatience I'd expected from someone dealing with students before noon.
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“Please mark the entries you can verify from your own work. Don't correct a date because you think you remember it. If you have a separate record, bring it to me.”
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I recognized my signature on two loans for the moving-target seminar. Evelyn had requested the apparatus; I had collected the approved crystals, checked their calibration, and returned the case afterward. The third entry carried my name in a different hand.
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It recorded a crystal case collected the morning after the seminar.
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I hadn't collected one that day.
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“Is this a transcription?” I asked.
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Mrs. Vale leaned over the sheet. “The central register is copied from the departmental slips. This line is the copy.”
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“May I see the slip?”
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“If it's in the bundle, yes.”
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She searched through a folder and found a narrow paper bearing the same date and case number. The borrower field said Adrian. There was no signature, only a short mark in the authorization column that might have been someone's initials.
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“I can't verify this,” I said. “I wasn't here to collect it.”
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“Then write that in the margin and initial your note. I'll check who authorized the release.”
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She didn't lower her voice or summon a guard. I appreciated her more than she knew.
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I found Evelyn in the department's smaller study room, where she was comparing our seminar diagram with the revised equipment schedule. She listened while I explained the entry, then asked for the case number. When I told her, she turned a page in her notebook.
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“That isn't one of the two we used,” she said. “I wrote their numbers here when we checked calibration.”
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“Could somebody have borrowed it for a separate exercise?”
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“Certainly. But the authorization should identify who approved it.” She held out her notebook. “Copy these numbers into your statement. They're contemporaneous records, not our memories of the session.”
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I did. She watched until I finished, then closed the notebook without offering to speak for me.
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“Are you worried?” she asked.
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“About the inspection? Less than I was an hour ago. About how easily my name ended up on something I didn't touch? More.”
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“Then we establish what can be established. The rest belongs to the investigation.”
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I looked at her. “You sound very calm.”
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“I'm not calm. I'm trying to be useful.”
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It was an important distinction, and one I might have missed before Mira arrived. Evelyn could hold her expression steady while being frightened or angry. I had once mistaken that composure for distance. Now I knew she was choosing what to do with the feeling before giving it a voice.
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We left the study room together. At the stairs, Evelyn stopped and handed me a folded note bearing the Rosenfeld seal.
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“Father can receive you next Saturday afternoon. He asked whether you would prefer to come alone or with me.”
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“With you,” I said. “Unless that makes things harder for you.”
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“It doesn't. I intend to be there.”
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I tucked the note into my bag beside my copied loan numbers. Saturday was no longer an abstract possibility. It had an hour, a destination, and a host who knew more about my finances than I knew about his favorite tea.
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When I collected Mira, she asked whether the important shoes had been chosen. I told her they had, and she announced that Sir Flopsy approved. I couldn't tell whether that was a good omen, but I accepted it.
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At home, I set the academy statement beside the invitation. One concerned a record bearing my name without my signature. The other concerned a man who wanted to decide what sort of person stood behind that name.
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For the first time, I could answer both questions with something more useful than a joke.