I’m in a thoughtful mood after seeing that weird phenomenon again, yet there’s not exactly anything I can really do. It doesn’t come up in any of the many stories I’ve read, never heard of it from any magic teachers, and I really did get my father’s money’s worth out of Ms Oare all those years ago. No one actually saw real faeries, only the myths and legends.

But I’m more sure this time and, since we’re at the flower garden already, I quietly check my talent for earth magic when Julian isn’t watching.

It’s really good, better than the last time I tried.

The rainy weather has left the soil quite muddy, yet my whispered chant draws out the water into a puddle above the ground; quickly switching to a water magic chant, I sort of sweep the water to the edge of the flowerbed.

Now that I know, there’s really no more point thinking about this. So I finish the lesson, saying strange yet sincere things to Julian, and then go see Violet and my other friends for the evening. Talking, laughing. My heart light even as we’re pulled into another study session.

Friday, I wonder if the dance lesson will pair us up like calisthenics did. I guess it’s unlikely. The Valentine’s Dance at Queen Anne’s was strange enough to begin with, and we were both “equals” in calisthenics and didn’t even touch each other, the ring indirectly joining us. My guess is proved right, once again more of an aerobics class that happens to use dance steps and leg stretches. So far, we’ve mostly done waltzes, that being all the rage.

At the end, I quickly change (wiping myself down as I do) and head off to club. Although my friends have shown interest in how my dress is coming along, they haven’t, well, I haven’t felt any interest from them in joining the club. That’s fine, though. Embroidery may be an acceptable hobby for an upper-class lady, but that doesn’t mean it’s popular.

Besides, I have a feeling that Violet knows this is the only time I can freely spend with Evan and Cyril, thus is giving me some space. This concern might be left over from before, but I can’t say she’s wrong to think so. I probably would feel restricted if everyone came with me, not for what they think of me but for what they think of Evan and how he would feel. It’s one thing to be teased by me in front of Cyril, another to be teased in front of four other ladies he doesn’t really know.

Those thoughts follow me on the walk to the clubroom. Cyril is usually the first to arrive as he doesn’t have PE today. (His class shares the Wednesday PE slot with Evan, but not the Friday one.) Whether I arrive before Evan or not depends on whether his PE teacher lets them go early. If it’s cold or raining, he shows them some pity. Today being muddy, but not raining, and cold, but not overly so, he gets here after me and before Ms Berks.

He still has a dirtiness to his hair that a quick rinse didn’t entirely wash out. Hardly noticeable given his already brown hair, yet I can tell the olive green highlights are a muddier colour. I think about asking how the lesson went, but it’s more funny imagining just how he managed to muddy his head.

Club has been quite quiet for me recently, my focus devoted to sewing. How many weeks have I been working on this dress? This… is the third. Good progress. I should be able to finish this one and most of the next one by the end of term. As long as the exhibition isn’t too early in the last term, I should be fine working at a pace of roughly one dress a month.

Today, I continue work on the pattern, the reflection of distant mountains on the surface of the sea. Every stitch is careful yet not tardy, meaningful yet not pedantic. Just thinking of the eventual exhibition helps to keep me in a state of tension that focuses my mind without causing needless anxiety.

However, I’ve been recovering the shamelessness of my youth, and so I say, “Lord Canterbury, you have been writing for so long—won’t you share some of your work with us?”

I can only glance at him between stitches, but I catch the flickers of emotion on his face. While he’s not as transparent as Evan and I don’t know him as well as Violet, he doesn’t look upset with me, I think more like fear or worry, maybe unsure? I know it’s not easy to share such a personal thing.

Given that, I think I should give him some encouragement. “We probably won’t laugh, even if it’s a comedy,” I say.

Just like that, his head drops forward and he brings a hand up to rub the bridge of his nose. Ah, if only this wasn’t such a weirdly perfect world, he would probably look good with a pair of glasses.

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“Is that supposed to encourage me?” he asks.

Wonderful, he understood my intention. “Yes.”

Raising his head, his gaze falls on his notebook and there’s a subtle smile on his face, a little thin and crooked. “Fine.”

He takes some time to flick through the pages before he settles on what he wants to read, and then clears his throat and begins reading. In Snowdrop and the Seven Princes, he was apparently a master writer, his poetry and short stories captivating and moving.

Real life isn’t quite so magical.

I’m not saying he’s bad or anything, but his penchant for sounding poetic results in purple prose. He’s also only seventeen. It probably doesn’t help that Ellie was studying literature at university and I have inherited some knowledge from her on picking apart writing.

“Moonlight cascaded across her scattered hair, each strand glistening as if woven from diamonds, something which both begged to be stared at and yet left a guilt in any who would dare look upon such a goddess in human form,” he said, his tone level but not monotonous, at times slow and other times fast while always measured.

That is one of several sentences he uses to describe a blonde woman in her late teens who is voluptuous (but not overly so) and slim. After he gets through that, his story falls into a Romeo and Juliet pattern of star-crossed lovers—two people who fall for each other at first sight yet they can’t be together.

Still, the story itself is good and compelling. A princess who has been betrothed since birth to a neighbouring country’s prince, and she is found stargazing by the prince’s knight-attendant (I’m not entirely sure that’s a thing?). This if their first time meeting and neither knows who the other is—the princess not supposed to be outside at this hour; the knight introducing himself simply as a guest.

From there, it goes through all the dramas expected of such a story, culminating in the prince preparing to execute the knight by sword and the princess standing in the way, ending with both knight and princess impaled together.

Cyril’s voice is a little strained by now, more from a dry throat than emotion. He probably hasn’t spoken this much before; we had reading duty at Queen Anne’s, but I’m not sure about the boys’ schools.

“So? What do you think?” he asks.

While I put my thoughts together, Evan says, “It, um, was good, I think.”

Very convincing.

Cyril turns his attention to me next, his mildly amused smirk saying, “Come on, then, do you regret asking?” Okay, maybe not the “regret” part, but he certainly expects something from me.

Without pausing in my sewing, I give him my thoughts. “I’m pleasantly surprised you kept your nerve to write the tragic ending. The building up of the inevitability of fate makes this feel like the only reasonable end to the story, yet my desire to see the protagonists have a happily ever after meant that the punch hit hard all the same. I think you handle the ending well too, subtly highlighting that this shared death as an expression of their love allows them to die happy and without regrets.”

If it was an essay, I’d start at the beginning of the story, but I’m going backwards since the end is what’s freshest in my mind. As such, my next chunk of thoughts are less detailed, mostly to do with pacing. When I work back to the start of his story, well, I bite my tongue a little and couch my criticism in gender: most women don’t want such a detailed description of another woman and the audience for romance stories is mostly women.

Of course, I make sure to end with a couple positive remarks. His choice of vocabulary is good, not focused on throwing in obscure and pretentious words while still imparting an elegance that adds to the story’s atmosphere. I also liked his characterisations and the voices he gave the characters.

My overall opinion on it, which I keep to myself, is that it’s, like, twice as long as it needs to be. That is, a story should either focus on one idea and do it well, or focus on several ideas and how they interact.

In a fantasy epic, good and evil don’t just clash once, do they? Things like whether to spare the enemy, who to help when two innocent towns or countries are attacked, how much can be sacrificed to defeat the enemy before the cost is too high. For Cyril’s ill-fated romance, I think it would work better to focus on the couple, the worldbuilding and politics diluting the themes, distracting.

I’m not the one writing it, though, so I don’t want to put my own meaning on his work. I told him it felt slow at times and some parts felt unnecessary, and that’s the extent of my opinion I’ll give him. Ellie’s short time at university included a workshop on giving feedback, so I feel confident I handled it well.

As for Cyril, he’s still staring at me whenever I glance up from my sewing, a blank look that’s quite funny compared to his usual grumpy face. The silence dragging, I give up on waiting for him.

“We spoke about books often over the break, didn’t we? Or did you think I wouldn’t hold you to the same standard?” I ask, humour in my tone. I mean it, though. He shouldn’t be surprised to hear that I can put together a competent criticism.

He clears his throat, a rough sound that makes it clear he needs a drink. “Thank you. It is enlightening to hear what someone else thinks of my work,” he says, his eyes looking down at the notebook in front of him. “I have to make do with my own mind, so I do worry that all I am doing is writing what I want to say rather than what others would like to hear.”

Oh, that’s a nice line. If adjusted, it could be an elegant quip for a ruler worried about his advisors’ honesty, or a person in love who is struggling to court someone.

However, I feel like a change of mood is more important—a good story isn’t made of a single line. Turning around, I ask, “Miss, what did you think of it?”

I can’t hear Cyril gasp, but I’m sure he froze at my question, knowing as well as I how Ms Berks likes to amuse herself at our expense from time to time. True to form, all she says is, “Would hair that is like diamonds not look truly awful?”

You’re not wrong, miss.