"Alice, do you have a moment?"

Alice looked up from behind the book she was reading in the corner of the library. Since Nancy had shown so much aptitude for White, Alice had stepped up her efforts there herself. As it had seemed the least useful of the colors, she had neglected it somewhat. Now, though, she found herself surprised to find she had something of an aptitude there herself.

Now, if only her five-year-old sister had not already outpaced her…Nancy was certainly keeping the 'repair' lady busy back home from the letters she was getting. Four ward repairs in one week seemed to be pushing it. At the start, they had only needed one every other week. Nancy's power was growing, and the essence of being and mental energy itself seemed to vibrate in her presence.

This made the wards protecting her turn into a big pile of magical mush, unless they were repaired often. The phenomena would keep occurring until Nancy learned to shelter her surroundings from her own power, but this required control that no five-year-old possessed.

She turned her attention to Minnie who had just popped in and interrupted her thoughts. "Sure, grab a chair," she answered, waving at the vacant seats surrounding her at the study table. Directly after breakfast on a Saturday was not a high traffic time in the library.

Minnie looked around furtively to make sure they were alone before answering. "I was just wondering…how did it feel for you? Just to be married, I mean," she asked, blushing.

Alice noted that she was glad that Minnie had specified, as that could have gone in several directions, a few of which she had yet to have any practical experience. "You mean after the last wedding, or the first one?" she asked.

"This one, I guess," Minnie said. "It's just that…I thought that it would feel different to be married, and it really doesn't."

Alice nodded. "I think I know what you mean. And no, it's not actually that different in most ways. I mean, you don't become a different person by being married. He doesn't become someone different either."

The other girl nodded slowly. "I know, on the surface that sounds logical. But…."

"But it isn't the way you imagined it when you were a little girl," Alice finished for her. "You are both the same people, you just agree to journey the rest of your way through life together rather than going separately."

Minnie nodded slowly. "Life doesn't always live up to one's expectations."

"You're telling me?" Alice laughed quietly. "If someone had told me early in my freshman year that I would be married to Professor Grabiner and liking it my sophomore year, I would have said they were crazy."

"At least I'm pretty sure my relationship with Jacob will be less...tumultuous," Minnie sighed. "I was just wondering if there was anything in specific I should do or look out for."

"Come to think of it," Alice noted, "I'll probably have to cover for you during the pancake supper. Everyone will know why I'm not taking part this year, but you…."

Minnie grimaced. "I actually hadn't gotten that far, yet."

Minnie must be distracted, not to have thought of that yet. She was usually so good with details. "Are there any other questions that I can help with? You might actually do better by asking your parents about this sort of thing." Alice said.

That taken care of, Alice brought up a page from a book she had had a question about. The two young women turned their hushed conversation to White magic as the day progressed. Eventually, Minnie left, and Adelaide arrived, one brunette replacing the other on the seat beside Alice.

Alice and her brother had considered telling Adelaide about Virginia's contract, but had reluctantly refrained from doing so. She needed to sound honest about her ability to attach herself to them to successfully stall her mother. Knowing that Clark was planning to marry someone else would not aid that.

They did not simply talk about magic during these gatherings, and Alice was able to learn a little more about Adelaide's background. Apparently, both of her parents had been trust-fund babies of trust fund babies, so to speak, which was why her parents did not know how to handle money well. To make matters worse, the steward they had once had had been an idiot or had terrible information, which led to some bad investments. Instead of firing the man and hiring a more competent one, her parents had simply fired him and started 'managing' their money themselves. Adelaide's Aunt Tessa referred to it as 'hemorrhaging' rather than 'managing.'

Other than her parents, Adelaide's only real family was a great-aunt named Tessa from her father's side that was gone on expeditions to other worlds most of the time. Apparently, Tessa had promised her nephew that she would not assist him finically if he married Adelaide's mother, but that had not stopped him.

Adelaide liked Aunt Tessa, who had foreseen what her mother would likely demand of her while Adelaide was still playing 'tea party' with stuffed animals. Since she could not assist her nephew finically due to her earlier promise, she had instead encouraged Adelaide in her academic work and given her such tutoring in protocol, beauty, politics, and grace it had been the witch equivalent of finishing school. Tessa's goal had been to either make her great-niece into an academic success that could get paid enough to sate her mother after graduation or, failing that, into a witch suitable as a life-long wife for a husband from the higher classes rather than a contract wife that was used and then discarded.

Apparently, it was not just having the choice between bearing a child by a man she did not love and then abandoning her baby, and dooming her mother to the normal world and breaking her father's heart that Adelaide was worried about. She also did not want to fail her great-aunt who had put so much time and effort into her.

Alice sat back, watching the other girl perform the set of exercises she had given her. We're they really so different, when it came down to it? They were both young women being forced into the adult world, having sacrificed much of their own childhoods in order to cope with the challenges set to them. They were both doing a complicated dance, trying to keep their families together, though Alice was not sure if she would have put as much effort into keeping a mother like Adelaide's. Some of the greatest tragedies on earth had been caused by spoiled, self-entitled brats. She had to admire the other girl for her willingness to do nearly anything she could to take care of parents that treated her in such a fashion. A young woman able to put sacrificial kindness in effect that well would be quite a catch for any young man, wealthy or not.

"Was that all right?" Adelaide asked, finishing her exercise.

"It was good," Alice answered. "Now, what I want you to do next…."

...

Before she knew it, Alice was in the dungeon for the next exam with three other cloaked figures.

"The obstacles on the right and left paths are the same," said the voice. "You will split into teams of two, and the first team to reach the exit passes the test."

Immediately, she checked with Spirit Sight to see if the other participants were real students, and one of the others was doing the same.

"You're on my team," she said to the other person that had checked.

"What was that about?" One of the others asked.

"I just wanted to see if any of you were anything other than human," she answered.

"Like on the last test you mean?" her partner asked.

"You mean that kid on the last exam wasn't a kid?" the last one asked.

"That was a manus," she answered before gathering her teammate to start working on the obstacle course.

"Good grief," her partner muttered as they went along. "I just knew e wasn't human…or any other species that attended here."

She had been improving her White magic enough that she had gotten better with sensing triggers for traps, and her old skill for Blue helped with the illusions. Her partner appeared to be good at destroying the traps they could not avoid, so they made a good team. E also appeared to be decent with Green, and put four Hodags and an Ogre to sleep…though she had had to use White to put the Ogre in a distracted state so the Sleep spell would work. Apparently, Ogres had pretty stout constitutions, so she had been happy to have had her wand for that bit of work.

"Full marks," Hieronymous announced as she came blinking into the bright light, her partner apparently Teleported to wherever Potsdam was. "Assessing to see if Hafiz was there told you both that we were not using non-human creatures as your 'opponents' and showed you as a desirable partner to the other students. You had the good fortune to pair yourself with someone else that had done well in the previous test in this fashion."

"Thank you," she said, smiling. While he was certainly more loquacious than he once was around her, academic praise was still uncommon. Then she frowned. He did not look…right. "Do you have a fever?" she guessed, reaching up to feel his forehead by instinct instantly switching roles from student to wife. It felt warmer than it should.

"I am sufficiently well enough to finish the exams, wife," he said, and she put her hands on her hips.

"I want you to tell me that you'll have Potsdam look at you after exams," she told him. The man could be stubborn sometimes. "I'll find her after supper and tell her you have a fever if you don't."

Either he felt worse than he was letting on, or he had decided it wasn't worth the fight because he promised that he would before she left. Remembering how easily Virginia caught things, Alice made sure to wash her hands well before returning to her room.

The next day, a small fever had developed into a high fever, a headache, body aches, fatigue, dry coughing, and a sore throat. Hieronymous had come down with the flu.