The dungeon was both dark and damp, lit only by a few dim torches that seemed to cast more shadows than illuminate anything. Though it was not devoid of prisoners it was deathly quiet, the individuals therein having long lost the will to act out against their imprisonment. It was such that they barely reacted when the doors at the top of the stairs burst open, and a new prisoner was dragged downward by a pair of guards. The man was dressed in the simple, but well-made clothes of someone who worked on an airship, wind cloak still resting upon his shoulders. Compared to how lavishly dressed most of the other prisoners had been when they were dragged in themselves, this new man seemed downright common. Then again, that was the point.

The new prisoner was being dragged because he was only partly conscious, the numerous bruises marking his once fair face indicating why. Still, while he was not strong enough to break free, the man forced himself to remain awake, trying to get a hold of what was happening to him. The guards dragged him to a waiting cell, chaining him to the wall with manacles before leaving him without a word. Several long minutes passed before enough of the prisoner's wits had returned for him to look around. His blonde head rose, looking at the chains that bound him and trying to keep his sense of helplessness in check. If only I had my wand… he thought to himself.

"I am sorry, old friend." The prisoner's head snapped towards the bars of his cell upon hearing the familiar voice, and he saw the one responsible for his position. The man stepped forward, and though were his features barely visible in the dim light, the prisoner saw a familiar hard face framed by a mop of dark hair. "But this had to be done."

It took the prisoner a few seconds to realize who was in front of him. "C-Charles? What are you doing here?! Never mind that, get me out of here!"

However, Charles simply shook his head. "I cannot do that. Your activities were aggravating the Republic forces, keeping them from restoring the peace." The man replied, his tone resolute. "The longer this conflict continues means more meaningless death for our countrymen. There is a higher purpose for us."

The prisoner blinked, not expecting that response. "What in God's name are you talking about? Why are you-" he cut himself off, and a sudden dread filled him as a simple question came to mind: why was his old friend the one on the other side of those bars? "What have you done?" He all but whispered.

"I have insured Albion's future."

Through the shock, the pieces fell into place in the prisoner's mind. "You- you were reason the Reconquista found me?! You're the reason my men are dead?!" He should have known that supply convoy was a trap, but even then he never would have dreamed that it would be three Tempest class sky frigates that would emerge out of the clouds to open fire on his vessel. As the captain of a pirate airship he was constantly hunted by the rebel forces he stole from, but that was overkill for protecting a convoy of that size. They were looking for him, and there was only one reason for that: No one knew what the prisoner's true identity was, not even his own crew. All save for the man standing in front of him. "You told them who I am?!"

"This is for the best," Charles insisted. "Though your heart was in the right place, raiding the Reconquista ships was accomplishing nothing, only delaying the inevitable."

The prisoner snarled. "Why?! In God's name why?! You were my oldest friend! How could you betray Albion?! Betray me?!"

"I…" The other man started before he stopped, looking a little lost. After a moment's pause he shook his head. "The old way is dead, my friend. Royalty has ruled the Bimiric nations for six thousand years and in all that time they still have not accomplished the most holy of tasks. The land of our ancestors, of the Founder, is still in the hands of the Elven heretics. Clearly, something else has to be done."

The prisoner stared dumbly at his once friend for a moment before he said "You can't seriously be buying that nonsense propaganda! The Reconquista don't care about the Holy Land! All they want is power, and that's just their filmy justification for their actions. Brimir would never want the royalty removed like this!"

Charles's hand suddenly slammed into the bars, and his tone became angry. "Brimir would want his homeland out of the hands of those heathens! He would be ashamed what his children had done with his legacy! We will unite the nations of Halkeginia and together we will launch a crusade that will stain the land red with the blood of those who deny us our ancient home!"

The prisoner saw the fervor in those eyes, the unnatural light of something driving the man in front of him. This was not the Charles he knew. Charles was quiet and thoughtful man, prone to dry humor when he cared. He wasn't some raving fanatic. The prisoner didn't know who this man was at all. "What have they done to you?" he whispered.

"We showed him the light." A new voice echoed in. The prisoner turned his head to see a new person emerging from the shadows, this one a woman. He could not make out many features underneath the cloak that covered her, but he did see long black hair framing an almost cruel face. "Though I must admit, it took far less… convincing than I originally thought."

Charles knelt at her appearance. "Lady Sheffield. It is an honor to be in the presence of a servant of the Apostle."

For whatever reason, the woman did not seem to enjoy the praise, a small frown crossing her face as she continued to look at the chained airship captain. "I must admit, this was not how I planned to meet you." She paused and glanced at the still kneeling nobleman. "In fact, there have been a lot of developments that have not been as planned…" She said in a slightly troubled tone before she looked back. "But regardless, I am not one to turn away good fortune. The Reconquista has been looking for you for some time, Prince Wales."

Wales Tudor, Crown Prince of Albion spat at her, though it only made it half the distance between them. "So you have finally found me, so what? I won't do a thing you ask of me. You can torture me all you like, but I will not betray the people."

Sheffield laughed at that. "Oh, where do I even begin? Aside from how I doubt you know the… skill of certain men in my employ, your capture has already helped the cause. Both in how we can announce that we have captured the last of the Albion royalty, and for a certain… bit of evidence we found amid your belongings." The woman reached into her cloak and pulled out a folded piece of paper.

Wales's eyes widened in fear when he saw it. The rational part of he told him that it could have been a trick or a fake, but his instincts were telling him that she was holding that letter. "No… you-you mustn't-"

"Of course I must." Sheffield replied with sadistic glee. "Why, it is my duty to the newly formed Republic of Albion to inform them of the transgressions of their former leaders." She tisked at him as she put the letter away. "Such naughty children you have been. And if it helps pave the way for our glorious revolution into another stagnant nation, all the better."

Horror crept through the prince's body as the implications sunk in. "That's insane! You're not content to ravage my country, but you must also ruin another! Where will this madness end?!"

"When all of Halkeginia is united in holy crusade." Sheffield replied with a vicious grin.

Helplessly, Wales turned back to Charles. "How can you agree with this?! You speak of ending conflict, and yet you already plan to start another?! What in God's name is wrong with you?! "

"…They showed me the light." His old friend replied simply, his gaze still unnaturally focused. "And soon so shall you." Charles then turned and walked away, Sheffield following him after giving one last cruel smirk at the prince. Wales screamed at them long after they had left and the door had shut. He scream in rage at the betrayal, in fury for what they were doing to his people. He screamed until his voice became hoarse and all he could do was draw ragged breaths. In the silence his anger faded, replaced with fear and despair. As the darkness pressed around him, Wales felt more helpless than he ever had before.

The man allowed himself a brief moment to think of the one he would never see again. "Henrietta," he sobbed.

Jean walked across courtyard, tiredness weighing down his body like a physical thing. What class did he have to teach today? Wait, did he even have class today? There is no way I can keep this up, he thought to himself, arriving at the ground where all of the second year students had summoned their familiars a little over a month ago. He swept at the ground carefully to reveal the summoning circle, casting a number of spells to see if he could glean any information he might have missed earlier. Try as he might though, his mind was unfocused on the task at hand.

One would have thought that the loss of the Staff of Destruction would mean the end of the Academy's involvement in the matter, considering how it was in the hands of the Royal Envoy when the theft occurred. However, Osmund was predictably angry when he learned the news, and had been spending no small amount of time railing against the Crown to fix the matter and get the artifact back. This was starting to become a problem as the old man was pawning his duties off to both Jean and Miss Longueville in order to pursue this course of action. Osmund had even started to talk about a leave of absence to do some 'investigating of his own', a prospect that terrified the professor on a number of levels.

Even that wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have other extra-curricular activities, he thought wearily as he went over the summoning circle another time. While there had been no official visits or orders given to him, crown officials of various kinds had been showing up at the academy weekly to check in on his progress with finding the cause of the magical drain which had started this mess. The various men and women were always polite and non-confrontational, but Jean never failed to notice how insistent they were. It wasn't hard to understand why they wanted him to analyze it, and the Headmaster agreed: Tristan nobility were interested in a potential new weapon, one that could turn the tide in any magical engagement. It wasn't hard to guess why either, what with Albion nearly being turned on its head with the sudden civil war.

Still, Jean had concerns about such a thing being weaponized, especially because he was quite certain what, or more actually who, caused it. He paused in his search of the ground when his spells finally found something. It wasn't much, but inside the circle there was the faintest indentation of more symbols and script. He had not failed to notice the denser sigil that had appeared during Louise's summoning, but he had not been able to get a good look at it before it disappeared. Since then he had spent some time researching a spell that could reconstruct traces of magical energy, and now it seemed that it worked on the summoning circle to a limited extent. Before his eyes Jean saw shallow furrows dig into the ground, replicating the patterns he had seen before. It was too late for the magic to get a full impression of it, but he was able to copy some of the patterns and iconography into his journal, both of which in a style he had never seen before. He took his time to copy it down in as much detail as possible.

After he was done he sighed and stood back up, having gained what little he could from the circle. There was no doubt in his mind that Louise's summoning of her familiar is what caused the magic drain, but the exact how or why eluded him. The obvious reason was simply that the summoning needed more power than usual, but if Louise was truly a Void mage she should have been brimming with power. Could it have been a matter of distance? The man did claim to have come from an entirely different world after all.

Unconsciously, Jean turned his head to look at the man in question. Georgius, as the man frequently had since he first arrived, was helping the servants carrying out their duties. Today he was some distance away near the entrance to the larder, helping the servants offload the weekly shipment of food goods. There were so many questions revolving around that man, questions which he himself were unable to answer. Whatever the case may be though, Jean was getting the creeping feeling that Louise and Georgius were going to get pulled into some complicated matters if things kept going the way they were, regardless of what the headmaster wanted for them.

Jean's thoughts were interrupted when he notice something interesting hiding behind a nearby tree to the side, observing the same thing he was. Or more accurately, someone. Jean moved silently until he was behind the person and said "You seem awfully interested in busy work."

Miss Longueville spun faster than he would have thought possible to face him, her arm whipping in front of her. She almost looked like she was going to jump away from him before she realized who it was and stopped. "J-Jean!" She exclaimed. "Don't sneak up on me like that! And how can a professor be that quiet anyway?!"

"Oh, you pick things up." The man replied vaguely, his brow furrowing slightly at the secretary's behavior. "Miss Longueville, are you feeling alright? You have been… distracted as of late." It was his polite way of saying stressed. For the past month the woman was usually found buried in her work or off by herself. Jean had offered her his company on a few occasions, but she turned him down. The fact that she was so high strung that she moved so defensively made him suspect that there was something wrong.

Miss Longueville however just waved him off. "I'm fine, fine. Can't a woman clear her head by watching the help do their job?"

Jean tilted his head to the side. "I suppose, but that is odd choice. Besides which, you didn't seem to be watching the servants so much as-" he paused as a thought occurred to him. Miss Longueville was frequently asking about the man, and there was the fact that he had managed to recuse her from Fouquet. Jean felt his heart sink a little as he put the pieces together. "Ah, of course. I see that you have your eye set on him."

The woman blinked, her expression shifting to one of confusion. "What are you taking about?"

"It's quite understandable," Jean continued. "Georgius is a fine man, and in the short time he's been here he has already proven to be quite heroic. It is only natural that you would want him for yourself-"

"What?!" The woman said in alarm. "Oh no! No no no! I am most certainly not attracted to that man!"

"… Then why have you spent so much time over the past month watching him?" Jean replied, arching an eyebrow as he did so.

"That's-! I-!" she sputtered for a few moments before she put a hand over her face and took a breath to calm herself. "That's just a coincidence. My interest in him is… academic. Trust me, I'd like to spend as little time around him as possible."

Jean frowned at this, unsure of how to respond. The woman seemed to be sincere as far as he could tell, but that last comment confused him. Really, everything about the woman in front of him confused him, though he supposed that he was never terribly good with women in general. Except for the one… but he didn't want to dwell on the past. Regardless, if he couldn't do so skillfully, he figured the best he could do was be direct and simply ask. "I see. In any case, you still have been very unsettled as of late. Is there something wrong?"

Miss Longueville sighed and looked off to the side, and for a long moment she didn't say anything. "…It's my family." She said after a long moment, reluctance in her voice. "Well, let's say those I consider my family. I'm worried about them."

"Why? Is something wrong?" Jean asked.

She paused again before she answered. "They live in Albion."

Jean stiffened at that, a feeling of dread coming over him. While the unrest in the nation had been obvious, no one had expected the sudden burst of violence and civil war that had erupted. There was even talk of some kind of religious moment that was gaining traction, even spurring some of the commoner population into revolt against the royalty. Naturally this spurred more rumors that the Loyalist army was putting whole towns to the torch in retaliation. How much was true and how much was hearsay was difficult to tell from his position at the Academy, but Jean knew that Albion was a very dangerous place for anyone to be right now. "I… see. I am sorry."

Miss Longueville shifted uncomfortably. "They are fine for the moment. They live in an out of the way place. But something could happen to them. I want to r- go to them, but I can't. I have to stay here."

"I am sure if you explain it the Headmaster-" Jean started.

"I can't afford to leave!" She snapped at him, before she let out grunt and her tone softened a little. "I have things I need to take care of here, obligations I have to fulfill. It's… all very personal."

Jean was silent for a long while trying to think of how to respond to that, but nothing came to him. As much as he wanted to be able to say the right thing to comfort her, he had no idea what that would be. Quoting the odds of a family surviving in Albion at the moment would be too impersonal, and she clearly was uncomfortable talking about it anymore. Jean felt a little helpless as he said. "Well, if there is anything you need, I'd be willing to help."

Miss Longueville blinked at looked at him for a long moment before an almost bitter laugh escaped her lips. "I can't remember the last time someone honestly said that to me…" she muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing, nothing…" She said with a wave of her hand. "You know what? If you want to help, start talking about one of those many fascinating things you know. Something to distract me from my current worries."

"Oh. Err… well, did you know that there is actually evidence that there are 'fey lands' which are parallel yet separate from our own?"

"Really?"

"Oh yes!" Jean said, the conversation slipping into something he was more comfortable with. "At first I thought that such references were synonymous with the Holy Land, but I've found several texts dealing with magical creatures that…" The man continued to talk and the two walked away, previous concerns forgotten.

Georgius's felt the pleasant burn in his muscles as he moved another heavy crate off the back of the wagon and into the larder, thankful for something to occupy his mind. He had been restless for the past month to say the least. The Spear was out in the world somewhere and he and his master had been denied the chance to go retrieve it, in spite of their willingness to do so. The meeting with the princess once they had got to Tristania had been surprisingly brief, only giving her their report before they left. Princess Henrietta seemed very… distracted when they met, worry and uncertainty making the purple haired girl seem very young. He had heard talk of an upcoming marriage arrangement between her and the Emperor of Germania, but he did not speculate much further.

Regardless, he had tried to impress the importance of the Spear to the princess in order to be sent to retrieve it, but she simply assured him that she would send agents to recover it. Louise was loyal to the princess, so she agreed and promptly went back to the academy to resume her studies, which left Georgius without much to do. He did not want to break his oath to Louise to pursue the Spear on his own, and he imagined that informing them of the true history of the artifact would range from disbelief to… less pleasant things.

On the matter of religion though, he had not been entirely idle for the past few weeks. He had been spending his free time writing down scripture from memory. If and when Georgius decided that it was time to show the people of this land the way of Christ, he wanted to be ready for it. Not that his current work would do them much good; Roman script only had a cursor resemblance to Brimiric, so he was the only one who could read it. If nothing else though it would help his memory for later, as he did not have the best mind for fine details.

Georgius wiped his brow as he walked back out into the bright spring day, taking a moment to pause and look up into the sky. He felt a small tension running through him, like a bow pulled tight. He had faith that his situation would change, and he planned to be ready when it did.

"Would you like some water?" Georgius blinked that the sudden question and turned his head, greeted by the sight of Siesta holding a large clay cup out to him. "I saw you working and thought that you might be thirsty."

"Yes, thank you." He replied, taking the offered water and drinking it. He finished and handed the cup back to her. "How is it that you always seem to be around with some kind of refreshment when I am exerting myself?"

"Oh, I am sure that it just a coincidence." She said, a sly smile crossing her face before she looked past him. "Oh, there's only a little bit left. Here, let me help." Much to Georgius's surprise, the woman then move past him and climbed up onto the cart, dragging the supplies in the back closer to the front.

"You don't have to if you don't want to." Geogius protested, though he still took a sack of vegetables from her when she offered them. "There is no reason for a maid to do such heavy lifting."

"It's alright, I'm used to this sort of thing." Siesta replied, offloading more sacks from the cart. "I grew up on a farm, so I'm used to doing manual labor."

"Really?" He said in mild surprise. "So was I. Well, for a short while in any case."

"Really? What do you mean?" Siesta asked. Georgius then proceeded to tell the maid what he had told Louise, of how he had been abducted by a witch as a child only to be released many years later. He was on the cusp of manhood when he was finally reunited with his parents, who had been equally surprise and overjoyed that he was not dead. They had expected never to see him again, never mind with an enchanted sword and magical horse in tow.

Towards the end of his tale, he had noticed that Siesta had become teary eyed. "That's horrible!" She said. "How could that awful woman keep you from your family?!"

Georgius sighed. "I don't know. I can only imagine that her life was a harsh one up to that point. In any case, I never saw her again, even when I sought her out years later." He paused in reflection for a moment before he said "Still, I did get to see my family and home again, if not for very long. I joined the Roman Legions shortly after my return. I am a little embarrassed to say that I have very little farming experience. Someday, perhaps, I'll be able to have a farm of my own."

"I can help!" Siesta blurted out, and Georgius's eyes widened in surprise. The woman let out a small gasp and covered her mouth with her hands, realizing the implication of her being around to 'help on his farm'. "Ah! I mean-! I don't presume-!" She blushed and paused for a moment before she said "What I meant was that I could teach you about farming. It's not as much as my father or brothers would know, but it's a start."

Georgius gave a small smile at this and said "Thank you for the offer, but there are other things I should focus on learning first." He looked off to the side and muttered "Like how to read Brimiric script."

"I can help with that too!" He looked back at Siesta in surprise and she continued. "I know how to read. My grandfather insisted that all of the kids in our family learned, even though most of my brothers and sisters don't use it much. He always remarked that Tristian was lacking in a 'public school system', though I am not sure what he meant by that."

Georgius looked at her for a moment longer before he beamed at her. "I would like that very much. At the very least it will give me something academic to do while Louise is attending class."

Siesta blinked. "Oh, that's right. I thought you attended class with her."

"I did at first, but it quickly became apparent that I did not have much of a use there." Georgius replied. While the first week or so of classes had been helpful for him to gleam the basics of this land's system of magic, most of the material they went over was ether beyond him or foreign to what little he actually knew. "Though I agreed to help my master with her magic, she has already accepted that my trying to learn what has already proven ineffective for her is not a good use of my time."

The maid tilted her head curiously. "If she thinks that, then why is she still going to classes at all?"

To this the man gave a small shrug. "She says that it would be unbecoming of her to suddenly drop her education, especially if she didn't have a clear course of action to pursue otherwise." He gestured. "Regardless, she still intends to try her best, which is admirable even if-"

The man was cut off as a sudden blast rocked one of the towers along the wall, telltale signs of white smoke pouring out the window. There was a brief moment of fear from the assembled men in the courtyard at this, but it quickly vanished as it became apparent that this wasn't another attack. There was a far more familiar explanation for this one.

"… even if she still stumbles a bit with traditional spells." Goergius completed before he let out a sigh. "I'm afraid that I have to go now. I suspect that my master will need help cleaning up after herself."

"In that case, that is most certainly something a maid is needed for." Siesta replied. Georgius simply hummed at this and the two head off towards the tower.

It was just one little spell. She had never succeeded before, but this time she felt she could do it. She had been practicing. She was determined. She knew that she could cast magic that the world had never seen before. In light of that, what harm could one little spell to turn clay into brass cause?

A ruined classroom, apparently.

Louise sighed in defeat as stood at the center of the destruction, the podium which stood on the raised dais at the front of the classroom now splinters. The blast that had resulted from her little spell had also taken out the first three rows of desk, the amphitheater design of the room only aiding in the ruin. As the rest of the soot covered students filed out of the room (while leering at her), the teacher ordered her to pick up the mess she had made and handed her a broom. Louise was so despondent she did didn't even try to protest, reaching out to take the broom without looking. She spent a minute or so standing where she was after everyone had left before she started to dully push the refuse around.

Was this it for her? One successful spell, a babble of success, and that was as far as she could go? Even after a month of practice and experimenting, the only things she could do were cast Translate and explode things. Why did everything have to be so hard for her?

"Louise?" She blinked as she snapped out of her own thoughts, her head turning to see Georgius standing in the doorway of the classroom, looking at her with concern. "Are you alright?"

"…I'm fine." She said flatly before she turned back to sweeping. "Go clean up the broken furniture." The man silently did has he was told and began collecting the larger pieces of wood and metal that were beyond repair, gathering them into a pile in the corner of the room. Louise absently noticed that that maid who seemed to always be following Georgius around was there as well, but she didn't care.

She didn't know how long it took the three of them to clear the classroom, but sooner than she thought all of the debris had been swept into neat piles. Georgius let out a breath. "There. I will go see if I can get a wheelbarrow. You can move on to your next class, I'm sure you're already late for it."

"There's no point." Louise said flatly. "I can't do normal magic no matter how hard I try. I'm still a failure."

"You shouldn't say that-"

"I'll say what I damn well please!" She snapped back at him, turning to face the man. "As soon as I start to have even a little bit of success, my life finds a way to remind me that I'm still a Zero!"

"Louise that's not-" He started.

"Of course it is! I lost the Staff! The princess put her faith in me and I failed her! I wish I never had any success to begin with so she wouldn't have made the mistake of trusting me in the first place!"

Georgius sighed. "Do not act like it is your sole failure, my Master. I failed to apprehend the thief when I was but feet away from him. The entire Royal Envoy failed to notice that the theft had happened at all until it was too late. Even Agnès declared herself responsible for the failure to her liege, who might I remind you was not nearly as disappointed in our failing as you are."

Louise blushed a little in embarrassment and looked off to the side. Princes Henrietta had been far more gracious about the loss of the priceless artifact than she had any reason to be. She said that the salvation of the town was more important, but that didn't change how humiliated Louise felt about the whole thing. Fouquet incapacitated her instantly and with practically no effort, and the girl had been completely powerless to stop him. She had felt so ashamed by incident that she had refused to stay in Tristania any longer than she had too, even though the princess asked her otherwise. "So what, you think I should just forget about it?" The pink haired girl said sullenly. "Just pretend that it never happened and move on?"

"Of course not." The man replied. "You learn from your failures so that you can do better the next time. You can always pick yourself up after your mistakes, but if you don't learn you will simply fall again."

Intellectually Louise knew that it was sound advice, but she still grumbled a bit. "I guess… but I don't know what in the Founder's name I'm supposed to learn from this." She said, gesturing to the wreckage around her. "I still don't know what I'm doing wrong."

"I am afraid that I still cannot say, other than that I doubt traditional teaching methods will help you, given past experience." Georgius paused for a moment and looked off to the side before looking back at her. "If you are feeling like you are stuck in a rut here, then perhaps a different goal is best for the time being. The Spe- Staff of Destruction is still missing after all. I would recommend that we set out on a quest and retrieve it. You can spend the time traveling instigating other approaches to your magic, and item itself is a worthy cause as well."

"But that could take months!" The maid suddenly spoke up, and then blushed a little when the two looked at her. "I-I mean, it seems like you just got here and all…"

Louise ignored the maid and looked back at Georgius, unable to stop herself from raising an eyebrow. This wasn't the first time that the man had suggested that they drop everything and go after the lost Staff. He had suggested as much to the Princess during their audience, but Henrietta had insisted on using her own agents rather than pulling Louise away from her studies. Regardless, Georgius still brought it up every so often, and he was clearly anxious about it. Normally Louise would attribute this to the man's pride having been hurt when he lost the Staff to Fouquet, but that didn't sit right with her for some reason. There were many words she could use to describe her familiar, but prideful was not one of them.

"…No." she eventually replied. "I keep telling you that I am not as free to run off and do whatever I please as you seem to think. My mother… would disapprove of me abandoning my studies, however ineffectual they may be." That said, the idea was more temping than Louise cared to admit. Running away from this Academy that did nothing but remind her of her failures to go on an adventure, hunting down a lost treasure that would let her regain face in Henrietta's eyes. She shook her head to get rid of the daydream and continued. "Maybe I could ask Professor Colbert if I could focus on my own private studies instead of my general classes."

In what little time the professor could spare, he had been studying Louise's magic to see what it was capable of, even if he had not made much headway. All Colbert was certain of was that he could now understand any language and be understood by anyone with a language, and while that was interesting in its own right, it didn't exactly tell her what else she was capable of. There was some speculation on his and her familiar's part that she may be attuned to magic involving knowledge and the mind. Of course, Louise almost wished that wasn't the case for how close it sounded to illegal mind magic.

"So, does that mean that you are going to your next class?" Georgius asked with a raised eyebrow of his own.

Louise frowned at him. True, she wasn't feeling quite as bitter as she was a few moments ago, but… "I think done enough for today. I don't care to have the rest of the students here glaring at me for the rest of the day." She began to walk out of the classroom. "Come on, let's see if we can find you that wheelbarrow."

The three of them walked out of the tower and back into the courtyard. However, before Louise could hunt down the groundskeeper she noticed something of a commotion at the front gate to the Academy. "What is going on?" she muttered to herself. It looked like there was a gentleman on horseback arguing with one of the gate porters. The rider was very well dressed and looked to be of some import.

"Another Royal official, I think." Georgius said with a frown. "I know that they have been coming here a lot lately, but this is even earlier than usual."

They watched for a few moments more before the courier handed a scroll to the gate porter, and then much to their surprise, turned and rode off. The other man started to run towards the main tower, alarm clear in his stride. "That cannot bode well." Georgius remarked.

"Agreed. Let's find out what it is." Louise said, her curiosity getting the better of her as she took off after the man. The porter didn't get far before he was nearly crashed into Professor Colbert, who happened to be leading around that secretary woman. "Easy there! What the devil are you in such a rush for?"

"Dire news for the capital, sir! I figured that the headmaster would want to know as soon as possible!"

"Really? Well, out with it man, what is so important?" The professor asked, and Louise moved closer to hear.

The gate porter gulped before he said "The Republic of Albion claims to have evidence bigamy on the part of the princess! Princes Henrietta is to be put on trial!"

Through the shock at hearing those words, Louise felt that a large part of her world had just come crashing to the ground.

A/N: Thanks to chronodekar for betaing.

Welcome back everyone! I'm done focusing on ASoF for now, and I'm happy to finally start act 2 of this. Not too much to say about the chapter itself, other than that it's mostly setup. Some time needed to pass before the story could get moving, so there we have a bit of a breather here. Next time we get to see just how things aren't quite going to plan…

Till next time.