Chapter 10: Holiday Fuss, Part One

Business was good, Aly reflected, doing her books for the first time. With Alanna's use of her services, and thereby her tacit approval, her social dynamics consultancy had really taken off after the Halloween Hop. Most of what she did was rather mundane and dull, it was true – but she had turned a tidy profit, even after subtracting the marketing costs, such as they were. In fact, if her numbers were right – and she was confident they were – she had earned exactly 157 euros in the past month, and it looked as though business would improve, given that her expenses were projected to drop.

About half of her business was simple requests for information, which she generally charged a flat rate of 5 euros, unless they had really annoyed her. For example, there was that time she charged Maeve Lightfoot 15 euros because she had shown up and asked whether Kieran haMinch was seeing anyone, honestly, after the show he and Uline Hannalof put on at Halloween Hop on the dance floor. Then there were the interesting cases.

She had gotten 75 euros from Clarence Swanson for getting his violin back. It was ridiculously easy to figure out who had taken it, because Clarence was in dead heat with Valerie Dineen for concertmaster in the orchestra. There was no doubt that Valerie had taken it, the only question was – how? She certainly hadn't done it herself, or on her own, and there were witnesses to prove it. And after figuring out how, there was the question of where the violin had been stashed, and the whole problem of getting it back. How? Valerie had a cousin, Charlotte McEvoy – the families weren't closely related, and politically speaking the Dineens and McEvoys didn't do business together or anything, but they had apparently had a few playdates as children and it was enough. Charlotte, a first-year, swiped the violin, and hid it, surprisingly, not in her room (and Aly had searched), but in her friend Beatrice Amary's artroom locker. Once Aly figured it out, breaking into the locker was even easier than breaking into Charlotte's room, and Clarence had been extremely grateful.

The last 50 euros had come from Ainsley Dittmer, and it came with a heavy discount simply because Aly had found the circumstances compelling. Ainsley didn't come from a family as wealthy as most of the others; she didn't have big business family, she wasn't ancient nobility, and to be frank Ainsley was in a tough situation. She had, perhaps unwisely, gone on several dates with Joren Montague, who was an ass if Aly had ever met one (though, she admitted, a very pretty one). However, when Ainsley tried to break it off, things got …complicated. He hadn't taken her "Look… I don't think this is going to work out" speech very well, and he camped outside her door, arms crossed, for hours at a time. The first time she ran into him there, he had given her a loud, condescending, extremely embarrassing speech about how fortunate she should consider herself that he was even going out with her in front of her hall-mates. Then, when she began actively avoiding him, he revealed that he had some very compromising photos of her, and gave her an ultimatum: continue dating him, or they would be papered over the school by the end of the week.

In an act of bravery Aly hadn't thought her capable of, Ainsley broke into his rooms to try to get them back when he was at fencing practice. Unfortunately for her, she had no luck there - wherever he kept them, it wasn't in his dorm room, and though his computer was in his room, it was password protected. That was the point where she had come to Aly.

It was an interesting problem. Ainsley counted on there being a digital form of the photos; there was no way that someone like Joren would use a camera that was anything other than the newest model. On top of that, she knew that Joren had at least one physical set of the photos because he had flashed them at her when making his ultimatum. Aly would have bet, too, that he had other copies somewhere, and to neutralize the threat, she had had to track down and get all of them.

Scratch that. The advantage of working for Ainsley was that she didn't get need to get the photos. She just needed to destroy them. Preferably, she needed to destroy them all in extremely short order, because otherwise Joren would, so to speak, get the picture, and then the pictures would pop up again, like estranged family members after a lottery win.

So, a night of hacking, followed by three break-ins (once for his bedroom with Ainsley in tow, once to his school locker, and once for the fencing locker room), and a carefully staged laboratory accident later, Aly managed to track down and burn every extant set of the photographs in question. It was a good week's work, and the most work she had done for any of her clients.

Even after her expenses, namely printing a thousand business cards, printing several discreet posters, her new chairs for her clients and a few additional technological gadgets, it had been a good month, and it was only going to get better from here.

She heard footsteps in the corridor – even footsteps, confident footsteps, not heavy but not exactly delicate, either. Male, she thought, looking up from her computer screen to her open doorway. Average height or taller, based on the length of the strides – average weight, or just under, based on the sound. She leaned back in her chair, waited. This would be good.

When she saw him, she let her lips curve into a small smile. He was tall, but not as tall as, say, the kendo captain, nor as broad. She would pin him at about 180cm, possibly 75kg. His blue-black hair was artfully mussed, cropping his ears messily, and his sapphire-blue eyes were, today, crinkled in slight embarrassment. His nose was narrow, his jaw round – overall, he was not the imposing figure that legend made him out to be.

"Jon De Conte, unless I miss my guess," she said, when he paused at her door. "Which I haven't, so – have a seat."

He wouldn't be here unless he was looking for her, after all – she was in a rather out-of-the-way room. She saw him hesitate, a moment, before he strode into her small room and sat down in one of her chairs. He looked around, surprised, it seemed, at the amount of space that Aly had managed to get by rearranging her room – her bed was off to one side, which admittedly blocked her closet so she had to clamber over it to get to her clothes each morning, but she had turned her desk and desk chair around to face her doorway. She had even squeezed two neat chairs, simple in design and carefully selected to match her school desk, into her room. It made for an odd living arrangement, but it would do.

"What can I do for you?" she prompted, when he didn't stop gaping at her arrangements.

"Oh, I'm sorry," he replied, turning his attention back on her. "You said you offer professional problem-solving, right?"

"Yes," Aly replied, inwardly rolling her eyes. It wasn't like she wasn't famous for this, at this point. She bit her tongue to stop herself from sounding insulting – that wouldn't bode well for business, and depending on Mr. De Conte's problem, she could be taking on an assignment worth her entire last month's profits. "What can I help you with?"

"Hmm," he said, looking away from her to the left. Truth, or at least, more likely to be truth than fiction. "I'm not sure where to start."

Aly held back a groan. Was he really this dense? "Is it about fencing, or is it about Josiane Rittevon?" she prompted.

"Well, both, really," he admitted, raising his eyes to look directly into hers. They were a very nice blue, Aly noted. Still didn't make him quite worth all the attention, but it was something. "Fencing is a mess. It was a mess in September, and I thought things couldn't get any worse, but then they did, because my girlfriend went and insulted one of the Smythessons. They're like a pack, you know, the Smythessons. Where they go, half the club follows."

Aly shrugged. "So? You're just the captain for the foilists, and from all accounts they're still listening to you in practice. It's Alanna's job to worry about fencing."

"But, it's not," Jon interjected abruptly. He took a breath. "But it's not – fencing is my responsibility too. We work as a team, Alanna and I, or at least, we did…"

Aly debated with herself about whether or not to point out that he hadn't mentioned Gary and Wyldon, equally captains of their own groups, in that sentence, but ultimately decided against it. "Go on."

"And I can't blame Josie about all of it, because it was already a mess when before the Hop, but I really want fencing to go back to the way it was last year." Aly nodded encouragingly, though privately she thought that ship had sailed long ago. "I've already talked to Alanna, and it's just getting worse. I don't know what to do about it anymore. And Josie – I can't say I don't like her, but she says a lot of really offensive things to the people I care about, and I can't say I like her anymore either. But she's a Rittevon, and I have the balance my life with the fencing club, with the future of the Conte Group too. And Rittevon Industries is not really a group the Conte Group can really piss off."

And Josiane Rittevon, it was known, was the cherished youngest daughter of Oron Rittevon, the slightly mad (on his good days) primary shareholder of Rittevon Industries, known primarily for weapons development and its military contracts. Perhaps "primary shareholder" was stretching it a little – Rittevon Industries was an old company, and in truth Oron only owned about ten percent of the shares, though he controlled another ten through his children. The company had gone public a half-century ago, and the saner public fortunately controlled about sixty percent. The remainder was held by other, far-flung members of the Rittevon family, including the Balitang clan, the oldest son of which, Mequen, held about five percent.

"So, what are you looking for help with?" Aly asked eventually, since he wasn't continuing. "Do you want to get back together with Alanna? Quite honestly, I don't think that's going to happen." Since the Hop, Alanna was usually seen in the company of one George Cooper, though Aly didn't think there was anything going on between them.

"No, no," Jonathan sighed, putting his head in his hands. "I suppose not. I'd just like fencing to talk, again, instead of half the team ignoring the other half. And with Josie… I'd like to find a way out of it. It was a bad idea from the start. I liked her, or at least I thought I did, but… I can't just end it without thinking of the ramifications for the Conte Group. Some of our businesses have supply contracts with Rittevon Industries, and I wouldn't put it above Rittevon to break them. We could sue, but that would cost a ton and take years to resolve, and we'd be at a loss the entire time. So I have to find a way to break it off without it affecting Conte Group."

Aly smiled, not a genuine smile but a businesswoman's smile. "The latter should resolve the former, and that, I can help you with. But it's going to cost you."

XXX

It was the end of November, and Alanna leaned back in her chair, stretching contentedly. She was updating the team rosters, that behemoth of a binder in which each team member was diligently recorded, with their strengths, weaknesses, and tournament scores. She had always wondered how the fencing team could have entered the digital era without digitizing these records – it really would be so much easier to update each team member's tournament record on computer – but apparently there had been so many difficulties passing electronic files along and problems with things being deleted that somehow, the fencing team roster stayed in its paper form. So, here she was, sitting at a round table in the Cloisters' reading room with papers spread all around her, updating the records with a pen.

Her fencers had done well this year. They had done three tournaments already in the past eight weeks, two of which were TFA events. The Olau Open Invitational had been a good start, with most of her team members making top sixteen and a clean sweep for first place; in terms of sabreurs, she had been particularly impressed by Alinna Smythesson and that second-year Neal Quinn-Cohen, both of whom had taken home second. She noted with pleasure that all of the Smythessons, at that tournament, had medalled.

The Crown Academy Interhigh tournament, too, had been a clean sweep for both teams and individuals. That was a home tournament, the only such tournament simply because there were very few other high schools able to field a fencing team. It wasn't a TFA event, unfortunately for those who placed so highly, but it was good practice anyway, even if it was effectively an internal competition.

The Port Caynn Invitational Tournament, just a week ago, was also a great showing. It was the first truly large tournament on their tournament circuit, with more than two hundred fencers from across the Capital region. In the teams, Crown had done fine – third place men's foil, second place women's foil, third place in men's epee, fifth in men's sabre, third in women's sabre. Alanna had won all but one of her matches, losing in the final against the current Senior Division champion. Daran Smythesson, too, was on a streak – he made it to the semi-final round, and both Imrah Legann and Douglass Veldine placed in the top ten for men's foil. In women's foil, only Mackenzie Seabeth and Rose Smythesson made the top ten. For men's epee, Gary made it to quarterfinals, but women's epee was a bit more fortunate, with Elenna Smythesson placing third. Alanna, though, was particularly impressed with the men's sabre this year; fully four of her six sabreurs had made the top ten, with Wyldon placing third and that hotshot second-year, Neal, finishing an astonishing eighth.

All in all, life was good. The stares, so common in August and September, had dropped, and though she could never say she had been totally friendless, it was like the ice had broken. People were talking to her again, normally, and it was good.

"Finishing up?" George said, breaking into her reverie. He was lounging in his chair across from her, a laptop in front of him. His hazel eyes sparked with good humour. She was glad they'd become closer, these past few weeks; they had always been friends, in the sense that they got along and occasionally sat together with mutual friends, but they hadn't been the sort to spend time together alone doing things as mundane as homework. Even as bitter as he could be sometimes about issues of socioeconomic class, he had a wicked sense of humour and a pragmatic way of seeing the world that she enjoyed. She liked it.

"Yup," she grinned. "Finally. What are you working on?"

"Essay for English," he replied, leaning back. "But what I've got is good enough. I've still got to finish up my Chinese and Arabic assignments, and those take a long time."

"You could have chosen an easier language." Alanna rolled her eyes. Arabic was a popular elective among the Bazhir minority, and Chinese preferred by the Asian immigrant minority, but George was the only one that she knew who, first, took more than the required language courses, and second, chose Arabic and Chinese. "Why Arabic and Chinese, anyway?"

"Arabic and Chinese have got the largest numbers of speakers internationally," George replied, shutting his laptop with a click. "With increasing globalization, it's just a matter of time before we'll begin working closer with the Arabic-speaking countries and with China. I like to be ahead of the curve."

"But they're probably the least useful right now," Alanna pointed out. "Our closest trade partners are the French and Germans, and in the foreseeable future, when you're breaking into the job market, it's doubtful that Tortallan trade will have expanded far beyond the EU and North America. It won't be that useful, for you, at least. Maybe in twenty years."

"Well," George said, a slow grin crossing his face. "I also just like a challenge. And who says I won't be the one leading Tortallan trade to China and the Arabic-speaking countries? Oh, speaking of leading the charge, I had an … interesting conversation with your brother the other day."

Alanna snorted. "I can't see you in business – at least, not yet. And what conversation did you have with Thom? Was it about how one day he'll give you seed money, with conditions?"

George shook his head. "Yeah, he opened with that, but then he weirdly segued into suggesting that I should ask you to the Midwinter Ball this year – assuming I go, when I've skipped the last four."

Alanna laughed out loud. "Do you even own a suit?"

"No, but I'm sure I could borrow one." He had a spark in his eyes, one that Alanna couldn't quite read. Was he teasing her? Was he serious? If he was serious, surely he meant going as friends – but more likely, this was just an interesting topic to poke her about.

"Oh, I don't know," Alanna demurred, letting her voice dip into a mocking, uncertain melody and pursing her lips. She sighed dramatically. "How ever would it look to everyone?"

"Darlin', why let the world measure our love?" he drawled in response, resting a hand loosely over his heart. "So much is lost in allowing others to decide our hearts, such that our hearts lie broken, dead, in the shards of societal expectations."

They looked at each other for a moment, before Alanna felt her expression crumble and she burst out laughing, again. "Good God, that's awful. But if you borrow that suit, maybe I'll think about it."

XXX

Daine stared at her desk, a frown creasing her face, staring at the stacked pile of books on her desk. Her desk, usually covered in scrap paper, old homework assignments and paper plates, was, for once, neat. Numair said that having a neat desk would help her study (though she had no idea why that was supposed to be the case, judging from the state of his desk), but so far, she didn't see the difference. It was a week before midterms, and of her eight classes, she could be confident that she was passing… three? Phys Ed for sure; she was athletic enough. She was probably passing English and Tortallan, simply because the English curriculum in the public school system was, as an exception to the rule, better than the private school one, and because in Tortallan she just had to read the books and write something about them, which was easy enough given that she spoke Tortallan almost natively.

She was probably hovering around the pass mark for her maths and sciences classes. She sighed, then dropped her head against her desk. Curse Numair, she thought sullenly. He had told her to follow her dreams, and that's where this led her. So she wanted to be a vet, and to get into vet school she needed to take heavy maths and sciences. The pro? She could take them in English, and doing it in English was easier than in Tortallan. The con? She was more awful at these than she was at most of the language classes. Maybe she should have taken a page out of some of the other scholarship students' books, and focused on the arts and humanities. And English.

She moved on to the class she was definitely failing: art history. It was a stupid course, and she should have chosen something less ridiculous. That was her fault for choosing her final elective based on, of all things, weird things you can't take in public school instead of easy courses to raise your average. She could have been taken German – German was related to Icelandic, right? Or, she didn't know, Media Studies. She could be watching television and writing essays about the themes in movies or something. Or Art. She couldn't draw that well, but surely Art was more of an effort thing? She was good at effort. Numair always said that she would always get an A for effort (or was it an E for effort?). But no, she had to choose Art History because it was ridiculous and now she had to memorize completely useless information about Botticelli and the Italian Renaissance and she didn't even know what else. Damn.

But with one week left before midterms, there was no way she could prep for her maths and sciences exams, revise her English, Tortallan and the limited written phys ed exam, and learn enough of Art History to pass. She had so much work to do, still, and she had a text left to read for Tortallan and she actually, really, needed to drill problem sets for her science classes.

So. She glared at the pile of books, and pulled out the large, disagreeable Art History text, and promptly dropped it on the floor, following it with the English, Tortallan and phys ed texts. Time for Plan B.

She could make up on a failed Art History exam with a good, involved essay over the winter break. Same for English and Tortallan, though she thought she probably had kept up well enough in those classes to pull a pass anyway, and she could make it up with an essay if she had to over the break. She was athletic enough that even if she failed the written part, she'd pull a pass in the class, and hopefully there would be some overlap between the health part of the course and biology. If not, she'd beg an extra credit assignment. No, the only important ones were the maths and sciences. She could prep for those in a week, and since Numair was a science teacher, so he could help her more with these than with the others.

She grabbed her maths text and got to work.

XXX

Since the kendo tournament, Kel had been busy. Doing what, she wasn't entirely sure – there was the usual dash from naginata practice to kendo practice, the usual homework, the usual meal-time socialization with Neal, the naginata team, and, increasingly, others.

She had met an excitable, boisterous first-year through the kendo team, Owen Jesslaw, who was shaping up to be one of the most likely survivors of the yearly kendo bloodbath. It wasn't that he was particularly good at kendo – far from it, really – but his good humour kept him coming to regular practices and she had never heard him describe practice as anything other than "jolly". One of the other key contenders from kendo, Hailey Chu, often also came for breakfast, side by side with Margarry Cavall, both of whom Kel also shared her morning Tortallan class.

Through Prosper, one of her naginata first-years, she had met both Merric Hollyrose and Faleron Mainderoi, from the other named partners in the famed Corus litigation firm, Tameran Hollyrose Mainderoi. Faleron, only a second year, was already aiming to join his family in law; the other two were not so certain, Merric confiding dryly that he heard enough about the law at home that he saw no reason to actually study it and live it. Kel didn't have any classes with Prosper, since she was in a mix of both English-language and Tortallan-language classes and he was in almost entirely Tortallan-language classes, but she did share Maths with Merric and with Seaver Tasride, who occasionally came to lunch with them.

Rounding out their group was Alinna Smythesson, a sabreur Neal's level ("at least," she had scoffed, her eyes sparkling, "and call me Linn.") and one of Margarry's friends, with whom Kel shared her English class.

"Study groups," Neal announced over breakfast at the last Monday of term. He had brought Cleon Kennan, whose grey eyes were looking rather bleary at seven-thirty in the morning, and a brunette Kel didn't recognize with him. "We should organize one."

Kel was already seated with their other friends who lived in the same dorm, blinked in surprise. Neal was rarely so coherent in the mornings, and if she looked carefully, she still saw shadows under his eyes and his hair was more mussed than usual. "Study groups?"

"Yes, Kel, those things where you get together with your friends and help each other with their weak areas and help them in turn," he replied impatiently, pulling out a chair. "Oh, and this is Maura Dunlath. She's a second year, and a fencer."

"Pleasure to make your acquaintance," the new girl said politely, offering her right hand. "I've heard a lot about you."

"The pleasure is, ah, all mine," Kel stuttered, shaking the new girl's hand. It wasn't quite her, but there really was no replacement for Japanese for everyday formalities. Was there even a Tortallan translation for yoroshiku onegaishimasu? In English she had heard it said as "please take care of me", but that didn't really have the same meaning… she would need to find some adequate translations for herself.

"So – study groups," Neal interrupted, reaching across Kel's plate for the round pot of butter. "I'm good at French, history, and biology – I'm terrible at maths. You're a maths genius – I heard Master Albright say he was accelerating you into a higher level class, so next year you'll head right into the third-year class instead of the second. Maura's good at civics, history, political sciences. And Cleon…"

Cleon took her hand, left loose after she had greeted Maura. "Kel, pearl of my morning, I'm afraid I need help with most of my subjects." Catching the look on her face, he dropped her hand and grinned. "But I can help you with Tortallan."

Kel shook her head lightly at the upper-year's silliness, smiling. "You didn't need to work so hard to convince me, you know. I'm not opposed. And any rumours of my math skill are overblown – I just covered a lot of this year's material already in Japan last year."

"Great," Neal replied, turning to his breakfast, simple bread and butter, today. "Meet at the Redpath common room at eight? The Cloisters is cozier, but their library is so much smaller and it'll be too crowded for a big group. Let the others know."

XXX

Numair's apartment, tucked in a corner of Redpath Hall with both a separate entrance and a door opening into the dormitory, was considerably larger than the students', and yet didn't seem to be large enough to contain all of his books, tables, or experiments-in-progress. Daine often wondered how Numair came to be teaching at Crown Academy – he was young, for a teacher, only in his early twenties, and clearly a brilliant scientific researcher. But as a teacher, he was absent-minded and often let his classes be sidetracked into esoterica. He generally completed the yearly curriculum, if barely, and assigned quite perfunctory homework for most of his classes. He did not manage or supervise any of Crown's numerous clubs or student organizations, preferring to spend time on his own projects. As a residence manager, Numair was charmingly ineffectual, leaving the students to sort out their own difficulties most of time – though she did recall one memorable occasion when he used a small explosion to send a group of fighting students to their rooms. He was clearly foreign – darker-skinned than most Tortallans, he had never mastered the Tortallan language and had long-since stopped trying, seeing as most Tortallans spoke English anyway.

Still, for all of his oddities, Daine was glad he was at Crown. He was someone who took an interest in her, who had always taken an interest in her from the first day she stepped on campus. It was at his suggestion and tutoring that Daine kept her scholarship after that disastrous first year, and regardless of his classroom teaching style, he was a good one-on-one tutor. Unlike other teachers, he never assumed that Daine simply wasn't bright, or that she didn't belong in such a high-class environment, or anything like that. He put things as they were – she was different, but it didn't mean she wasn't intelligent. It was just that, sometimes, your personal circumstances didn't let you maximize your potential earlier on. And when Daine hadn't had anywhere to go in the summer, save a new foster home, Numair spoke to the administration and wrangled permission for her to stay at the school year-round.

So - whatever Numair was, wherever he had come from, as far as Daine was concerned he was perfect.

All of her science textbooks were strewn over one of the tables in Numair's apartment, which he had cleared off for her. He had propped open the door to the residence, letting the crowded room feel airy and open rather than claustrophobic. When she had shown up today for her tutoring session, he had given her new problem sets for each of her subjects and was now stationed across from her, reading the latest International Journal of Chemical Kinetics.

"Having trouble?" he asked, looking up from his journal and catching her look. Daine shook her head hastily, embarrassed at having been caught staring.

"Um, no," she stuttered, turning back to the problem set. As per usual, he had given her a number of example-type problems – the sort where the first problems were close enough to the examples given in her textbook that she could essentially substitute the numbers and the calculation would work, and then increasing in complexity until she understood the problem more naturally. She was well in the middle of it, which was normally where she started having problems, but thus far… it hadn't been so bad.

"That's good," Numair replied, raising an eyebrow and glancing down at her blotted papers. She flushed, but Numair only smiled as he pulled the paper across the table and examined it critically. "You're picking it up – you've got the principle of solving for x with one equation. But you need to actually work out the factoring part on paper – you can't just try to memorize factoring sets. Move on to the next set – I think you've got this set, now."

Daine nodded agreeably, changing over to another problem set and flipping through a few pages on her maths text to the next section.

"I hope you're giving equal attention to your other subjects," Numair said, leaning back in his chair. Daine looked over, seeing that his dark eyes, though stern, still held a laugh. He shouldn't have such long eyelashes, she thought rebelliously. "I'd hate to think that you're working hard on your sciences and maths and failing your other classes."

"Of course," Daine lied, feeling her ears heat as they did when she was under pressure. She was glad she'd left her hair down, today – he wouldn't be able to tell, at least until it was too late. And it wasn't really a lie. She wasn't failing her other classes – she was passing Tortallan, English and phys ed. She might not be passing them after the final exam, but she could make it up. Really, at the moment she was only failing Art History and who cared about that anyway?

"Hmm," Numair replied, the tone telling Daine he didn't really believe her but he would let it go for the moment. She knew he wouldn't check in on her grades until the new year, so as long as she managed her extra credit assignments and brought her grades up before then it would be fine. Absolutely fine.

"Do you have plans for the holidays?" he prompted. "I would hate to think you're spending your holiday doing extra credit assignments."

Daine looked up, relaxing her facial expression into blankness and looking into his eyes directly. "Just the Midwinter ball, and after that I'll relax for three weeks," she replied, forcing her voice to a lackadaisical calm. "Watch whatever I want in the common room, read a book or two, sleep a lot."

"All right, then," he said, shooting her a look that said he didn't believe her one whit, but turned his attention back to his journal. Inwardly, Daine breathed a sigh of relief – he wasn't going to grill her too badly on this, today, anyway. "I was thinking, however, that perhaps since we will be the only ones here over the holidays and there won't be a Midwinter dinner here, we could go into Blue Harbour for dinner on Midwinter's Eve?"

Daine ducked her head down, looking at her homework, hoping he couldn't see her blush. "Yes, I'd like that," she replied lightly, trying to sound as breezy as possible.

"Let's make plans closer to that date, then."

XXX

The Redpath Hall common room was large, an open-concept space covering about half the main level with several different areas. There was the social area – a bunch of couches, a coffee table with magazines and the newspaper stacked on it, and a large screen television that was currently playing a BBC documentary of some sort. There were a number of smaller tables, in viewing distance of the television, with a wall lined with board games – it was also a popular spot for homework. There was an alcove with a pool table, often busy, and in a section off to one side was filled with books, large study tables, a roaring fireplace and several reading nooks. It was in this section that Kel and Owen staked out a large table and pulled out their books.

Kel fully expected to be asked for help with maths, though she had no intention of studying it this night; she had study notes to be written for Tortallan and one on the books they had read was in such outdated language she couldn't be sure she even understood the saga. Neal had recommended had recommended she go over it with Faleron, who had the highest marks in Tortallan of them all. She pulled open her laptop and piled her textbooks to one side.

Neal blew in, Cleon and Maura behind him. Setting up, Neal's books were for physics and maths – though Neal was good at both chemistry and biology, he needed the additional physics and maths classes to go to medical school, a problem he perpetually complained about. Cleon took a seat beside her, Maura across from her, and began pulling out their books.

"Are you going to the Midwinter Ball, Kel?" Cleon asked, keeping his voice low for the benefit of others. Owen was already deep in his books; despite his boisterous personality, he was surprisingly academically-minded.

"I assumed that we'd be going as a group," Kel replied. "I do have to get something to wear though – it is formal, is it not? I don't have appropriate clothing for a formal event."

"That's not a problem, though," Linn interrupted, dropping her books on Kel's other side. "We'll swing into Blue Harbour on the weekend or after exams or something – there's the weekend shuttle bus or I'll make Daran drive us in. I need to pick your brain about maths. Oh, you were studying Song of the Lioness? I love that poem!"

Kel shot a grin at the redhead, turning away from Cleon. "Then if you can help me understand it, I'll help you with maths."

She missed the amused grin Linn shot over her head at Cleon, and his rolled-eyes reply.

XXX

ED: Sorry for the long wait, everyone! This chapter feels like a lot of set-up, though I would warn you that every 5 chapters there's a short story completely unrelated to the main story line. Next chapter is Daran's short story instead :D which at least gives me some time to figure out what, exactly, Aly's going to do to Josiane.

As always, I appreciate everyone who continues to read this odd work, even though the boring bits that I insist on writing which are really only interesting to other martial artists and fencers.