Amélie hadn’t yet made it off the front porch.

Sylvain waited for her after locking the door, looking over her for any sign that he should rush back inside for a coat or a hat to shield her eyes from the late-autumn sun. She turned her face to the warmth of it, closing her eyes and tilting up on her toes.

He’d rigorously tested the endurance potion, ensuring that there were no subtle adverse effects that flew over Rémi and Louis’ inexperienced heads. Luckily, after adjusting the quantities of particular dried roots to counteract the quickened heartbeat and drastic come-down, it became perfectly suitable for a couple hours of increased–yet manageable–stamina. It was a potion of unreal potential.

He felt stupid for not having made it before.

Sylvain offered his sister his elbow. Amélie took it, settling her cane comfortably in her other hand, and so he supported her much in the same way he would when heading down the stairs or when coming to sit on this very porch with tea and a book. This time, though, she pulled him into the yard with an insistence that seemed to surprise even her.

They first explored the winding residential streets. Amélie pointed out all the plants she could name thanks to her close study of his textbooks, and then all the insects that settled on leaves long enough for her to examine them. In town, she wanted to pop into every shop and say hello to every clerk.

Sylvain watched Amélie fluttering among the shoppers–fluttering, yes, that was the right word. She was small enough to be picked up by the wind and whisked away. She walked while tilting forwards on her toes, unfamiliar with the movements and leaning awkwardly into them.

Villagers turned to stare at her as she glided by; maybe that was because she was smiling at all of them. So open, naive…

These strangers…they didn’t know she was a floating little thing caught up in their current.

They were surrounded by things he took for granted every day. Their home was so isolated, even in this quaint hamlet–she’d lost so much that her books and songs could never fill. Why didn’t she ask him about his life anymore? Maybe because it was full of classes and boring lectures, hardly any friends? Maybe she didn’t want to hear it when it was merely steps away, and yet denied to her.

Was this potion taunting her with something that wasn’t permanent?

Amélie wanted to stay in a coffee shop–he ordered them tea and a couple danishes, and they sat together in companionable silence as they sipped. Amélie had brought him a newspaper off the stand; meanwhile, she seemed plenty happy to just people-watch.

“Sylvain! Look at what she’s reading,” Amélie eventually whispered, surreptitiously pointing at the next table.

The young woman next to them must have been a student from La Belle Lavande: a fresh copy of the freshman class’s most-hated assigned book, Lure the Midnight Hour, was propped open against a tower of cups so she could write notes and sip her coffee as she read.

“Excuse me,” Amélie said, leaning towards the young woman’s table, “how far are you in that book?”

Sylvain cringed. The young woman blinked in surprise, then said, “Well, the lead’s just left for his kingdom tour. He’s boarded the train…”

“Oh, the tour section is my favourite.”

“You’ve read it?”

“Only a half-dozen times!”

The woman laughed lightly. “I wish I had your enthusiasm. I’m reading it for class. The only sections I really like are when he’s in court–I like the clever dialogue of the lawyers, you know, and the intrigue.”

“Ooh, is that so? You might prefer the author’s other books, then, they…”

As Amélie spoke, she nudged Sylvain’s foot under the table. He obediently turned back to his paper and tried to tune them out as they traded book titles back and forth. He’d given Amélie his copy of Midnight Hour after he’d burned through it and the subsequent assignments, not thinking it’d be worth much more to her than a way to occupy her busy mind in that bedroom, but she’d ended up understanding it even more deeply than he did.

Apparently she found the wrongly-convicted man at the center of the story (and the endless court scenes surrounding him) thrilling and interesting, while they left a sour taste in Sylvain’s mouth.

A few pages of the newspaper later, the young woman was packing up her things. Amélie drank her tea that she’d been neglecting and stood up, so fast that she swayed.

Sylvain made to tidy up too, until Amélie interjected, “No, you can stay, brother. Sophie and I are going to talk about books.”

“Where?”

Sophie glanced between them. Perhaps his tone had been too sharp. “I was going to take her for a walk around the main square. You said you haven’t seen the bookstore yet, right?”

Amélie nodded. “Sophie tells me that they have signed copies of Midnight Hour that they can’t get rid of!” She laughed, totally unembarrassed of how loud she was in the small coffee shop. “Can I borrow your wallet?”

“I should come. I don’t want to lose you in town.”

“It’s only a few minutes away. You don’t have to follow me around.”

Accurately reading the air, Sophie said, “I’m going to bring our dishes to the counter.” She gathered up both her and Amélie’s dishes then wove between the tables.

Once she was out of earshot, Sylvain insisted, “I should stay with you, in case anything happens. Besides,” he added, “I don’t want to miss anything.”

“I’m not a child learning how to walk and speak, Sylvain.” Amélie set her fingertips on the back of his hand. “I think I could be her friend. Please?”

“You very well might vanish from town after today, you know.”

“Let me pretend I won’t.”

He’d never heard her so certain before. Much less heard her deny him what he thought was best–and so Sylvain had no choice but to let her go.

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Amélie and Sophie strolled out of the coffee shop, Amélie stepping even more confidently with her cane, hugging the billfold Sylvain gave her. Sylvain let them get a few blocks away before leaving the shop, too, and then finding a seat on a bench near the mermaid fountain in the center of the main thoroughfare. The bookstore really wasn’t far: Sylvain watched them both stop outside, prowling the tables of donated books together.

“Is that your sister?”

Sylvain turned to see Antoinette. Her red hair was tied up in a bun made of braids, and she was carrying a small sketchbook in the crook of her arm, with a satchel of pencils hooked into her chunky leather belt over her skirt.

“Ah…it is.”

“I should have guessed you’d give her a taste of that potion of yours.”

Yours. He had to admit–he liked hearing it phrased that way. “I took a vial with me over the break; I perfected it.”

“You didn’t trust your friends to get it right?”

Friends? “Maybe it was good enough for a competition, but not good enough for her.”

Antoinette sat beside him and opened her sketchbook. For a moment she only sketched the contours of the town square, not looking at him, and he was content to be in her silence. “Autumn break project,” she said simply.

It had been a while since Antoinette elected to spend time with him alone. Ever since Chloé appeared, in fact. They had always been good at enjoying the silence, so he took advantage of it for a few minutes, letting her work.

Eventually he asked, “Are you feeling much better?”

She hesitated. Antoinette was not one to hesitate, so he was surprised enough to look at her; she shook her head and said, “Yes. I suppose.”

“You suppose?”

“I haven’t felt like myself,” she admitted stiffly. “But that’s been going on since before the poison.”

What did she mean? Why keep it a secret from him?

She continued, “Rémi kept insisting that I use that damn potion too. I refused.”

“I told him not to even try that…”

“They’re all excited about their invention. It’s a bit sweet.” She blew an autumn leaf off her page. “You were once excited about things like that. I remember your first potion.”

Amélie was showing Sophie a handful of books, talking a mile a minute, though he couldn’t hear her. She often talked about things he didn’t understand or wasn’t interested in, but he enjoyed listening to her regardless.

“You even chided me when I wasn’t excited like you were.”

“Sorry?”

She frowned at him. “Don’t you remember? When you were tutoring me. You’re a stoic old man, now. Back then, you practically expected me to dance a jig with you when my potion worked.”

A few years ago, when Antoinette’s mother, Gabrielle Delphine, fell ill, Antoinette’s marks dropped severely. The heiress ended up on Sylvain’s doorstep, demanding that he help her with her classes. She’d pay him a salary that was even more than his father was getting, working at Aconitum, but he couldn’t say a damned word.

She must have thought very little of him back then, the son of a mere factory worker. But M. Laflamme floated around Georges Delphine’s upper echelon so often, trying to get into their good graces, that Antoinette must have overheard that Sylvain was very intelligent. Maybe Sylvain’s father used that as a way to get Georges to pay attention.

Sylvain did help her. After a couple months, she’d regained her foothold in academia, Antoinette and Sylvain were sort of friends, Gabrielle’s condition did not improve, and Sylvain had no idea what to do with the salary. Shortly after that–once his father was arrested–he used it to pay the entry fee into La Belle Lavande.

Sylvain asked something he’d always wondered. “Why did you come to me, anyhow? I was only a student. A public school student.”

“Your father made sure that even your headmasters dropped your name any chance they got. It was only a matter of time before that name got to me. Besides, if I’d asked for a formal tutor, my father would know something was wrong.” She rolled her eyes. “And then we know what would happen.”

“Something similar to why you won’t let us talk about the poisoning?”

“Obviously.”

Amélie and Sophie finished looking over the outdoor books. Amélie had a whole stack of battered paperbacks in her arms and shook her head when Sophie held out her hands to take them. Amélie’s cane caught on the edge of the door and she stumbled.

Antoinette grabbed his sleeve moments before he could spring to his feet. “Oh, let her be.”

“She doesn’t–”

“She wants to try out being a young woman without her brother hanging over her shoulder like a ghoul.”

Amélie vanished into the bookstore. His chest constricted, very similarly to how his first dosage of the potion felt, coursing energy through a heart that wasn’t trained how to manage it.

Sylvain said sharply, “You don’t understand what’s going on.”

“No, I suppose I don’t. Though I know of some therapists who might.” Antoinette dashed a few impressionist lines on the page. “And some physicians.”

“I don’t trust that they know anything.”

She sighed. In typical Antoinette fashion, she went directly for the jugular: “Your stubbornness will cost that girl so much. You have the money, so I refuse to help you with that. It’s connections you need help with. Why not–”

“No.”

“Please. My family has countless physicians on-call.”

“They were all trained on old information. So much has changed since magic arrived.”

Antoinette scowled, sighing through her nose. “True. I suppose that’s why you want to cure her yourself, isn’t it?”

Lack of knowledge, the ignorance that ran through Eavredor like a poison…distrust, suspicion, in the elites, well-founded after all that happened to him.

In this kingdom, there were people like the Laflammes, and then people like Antoinette, Étienne, Rémi, and Louis. Even like Sophie. Those people could throw anyone in jail if they so pleased. Could turn Amélie into a curious medical anomaly, a sideshow, an experiment, and would openly lie about it to him. He’d done enough research to know that these sorts of things happen. Amélie’s sickness was a mystery and Sylvain would keep it a mystery from those who loved to make myths.

Sylvain folded his hands over his knee. “Have you found anything on Chloé yet?”

She took her time with the next bit of her drawing, giving extra care to the detailed stone masonry of the bakery. “I’m ending my search. There’s nothing of interest at all. I think her story really might be as simple as I originally posited–a very unlucky girl who had something to run away from, who schemed herself into the prince’s arms.”

“But why?”

Antoinette shot him her characteristic, “You’re kidding, right?” look. “You are not a girl. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Enlighten me.”

Her tone was sharp–yes, characteristic for Antoinette, but a little surprising considering the subject. Wasn’t it only a month ago that she told Sylvain she was going to use all her father’s resources and connections to find where Chloé came from? “You weren’t raised to be silly enough to believe that princes are all you have in this world. Or worse, raised smart enough to know that there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“I suppose I wasn’t.”

“So don’t bother with her. She’s simply doing what you’re too proud to do, and using her circumstances to her advantage. I don’t hate her half as much as I expected I would, and so, I don’t mind if I have to keep an eye on her for all of us.”

Sylvain wasn’t so sure. The girl brought spider web threads of danger with her. What did she know that no one else did? What was she hiding? Why not go to the guard?

Well…on that, he could understand. The guard never did anything to help Sylvain’s father. They only saw the coins that bought them out, not the evidence.

“Either way. It must be better to be ignorant and an amnesiac,” Antoinette said pointedly, “than someone who knows every detail and yet can do nothing about it. I hear that can drive a man mad.”

She folded up her sketchbook and clipped shut the pencil satchel on her hip. She stood, looking down on him, and said, “I’ll see you in class. Tell me how Amélie fares. Maybe integrate it into your potion project? A miracle story like that will win my father’s heart for sure. And most definitely a perfect score for you.”

To hell with your father.