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In the basement of the mansion of the Pendor estate in Atianus, one can find all the expected usual contents. The chef keeps well-stocked, climate-controlled cellars of wine, cheese and cured meats, as well as more mundane stores of root vegetables and dry, canned, and pickled goods. The house steward maintains a lumber room for spare furniture and other household goods. Carson, the butler, keeps Mother’s personal collection of sparkling wine, Dorian sake and our house label brandy, the primary product of the estate vineyards. And finally, his wife Benedetta, the head maid and housekeeper, has her storeroom for tea, silver and fine china.
On this day, I learned that Benedetta’s storeroom actually exists to house a secret. On the floor, a permanent magic circle connects to a matching formation at Mother’s castle in Pendor, which was formerly my father, Duke Egon’s stronghold.
“It’s magic I can’t do often, Young Mistress, as it is quite a strain on me. And it is a secret of the Duchy, so please keep it confidential.”
“I have always understood teleportation magic to be impossible,” I noted.
“Dark magic has the ability to pass through solid objects and travel through shadows, Young Mistress,” she answered. “It is not teleportation, as one travels through every point from origin to destination. It’s just that, in this case, one travels an unusually long distance.”
Naturally, my royal knight mind was imagining all sorts of uses for such a magic that bad guys and enemy tacticians might find. A little worried, I wondered, “What sort of constraints are on it?”
“The other side must be unobstructed, and I must have my magic circle at both ends,” she said simply. “I can’t just send somebody anywhere they choose.”
“So it only works between here and Narses at the moment?”
That being the capital of Pendor and the location of the castle.
“That’s correct, Young Mistress,” she stated with a bow of the head. With a musing tone, she added, “And, I suppose that it is also a constraint that I must place any mortals traveling with me in a trance.”
“Why?” I asked, honestly puzzled.
“Traveling for several minutes through a thousand miles of solid rock turns out to be quite terrifying for mortals, Young Mistress,” she replied with a rare smile. “I find it to be best if they don’t remember it.”
Suddenly worried, I asked, “How’s Genette?”
“My trances are quite deep, Young Mistress,” Benedetta answered with an arched eyebrow. “She doesn’t remember a thing. She didn’t even see the magic circle. She only knows that I brought her here.”
I wanted to see her anyway, so, regardless of Benedetta’s assurances, I went quickly up to my suite on the second floor. The wolfkin lady’s maid was in the middle of dusting along with a housemaid whom she was quietly criticizing for having slacked off in her absence.
“Genette,” I greeted her warmly.
“Young Mistress!” she yelped as she whirled and sprinted at me. She tackleglomped me as hard as Ceria ever did.
“I’m glad to see you, too,” I answered as I hugged her back while marveling at how fast her tail was whipping back and forth.
“They said you were okay, but I’ve been so worried!” she exclaimed as she leaned away from me. In rather un-maid-ly fashion she didn’t let go completely. Perhaps she was worried I would vanish if she did, but she continued hanging onto my arms.
“I was more worried about you,” I said. “The circumstances in Copen were really bad when I last saw you.”
“Mr. Basil saw to it that I returned safely here, Young Mistress,” she told me with a smile, finally releasing me and assuming more appropriate behavior for a maid. “The house staff there wanted me gone as soon as possible.”
Basil was the gardener and de facto house steward. He and my school attendants had been my only allies when I was thrown in jail by the school. It seems the rest of the staff had been accomplices in withholding food from Genette and me.
I frowned. “I’m surprised Mother didn’t fire anyone over that.”
“She didn’t have a chance to,” Genette answered. “Mr. Carson went to Copen as soon as I let him know how they had responded when we were in jail. He fired everyone except Mr. Basil on the spot.”
I had misgivings about that. Without any time to form positive opinions about me, like Basil and my attendants had, they were just as much at the mercy of Fate magic as everyone in the school.
Then I grew alarmed, “My attendants…”
Cord the house knight and the maids Ferna and Esrene had tried to help me.
“They went North with His Highness Gerald, along with the rest of the loyalist students,” she explained.
That caught me a bit by surprise. I remembered how fearful the two maids had been when war was declared, since students of the academy are technically serving in the military. They probably could have gotten out of it with Mother’s help, but apparently they hadn’t.
Had they been there with me on the battlefield, the past few days?
“Carson knows they were on our side, right?”
The war would end someday, and I wanted to be sure they had jobs to come home to.
“I told him everything that happened, Young Mistress,” she assured me. Then, “Will you want to dress for dinner?”
I looked down at my Court Formal uniform, then asked in a doubtful voice, “Is this not dressed enough?”
She giggled. “It’s plenty dressed, Young Mistress. But I hear that His Highness has come. We have so many wonderful gowns for you to show him…”
I held up my hand. “I just finished going through this, Genette. Everyone else had their eye on those evening gowns in the closet too. This was our compromise and I’m sticking to it.”
Her ears drooped a little. “Her Grace has designed so many fine dresses that you’ve never worn. They would all showcase your beauty so well.”
“And well over half of them should never be seen outside the bedroom, in my opinion,” I replied firmly.
Genette was going to reply, then stopped and thought, then looked rather warmly at me.
Then, out of the blue, she declared, “You’ve grown up well, Young Mistress. It’s truly an honor to serve you.”
I blinked a few times before finally replying, “Where in heck did that come from?”
Her smile grew wider. “It’s just… only a few months ago, you would never have stated your feelings so clearly. I knew it when I watched you in Copen, but now it should be plain for everyone to see. You’ve grown stronger, Young Mistress.”
I found a blush growing on my cheeks, and shook my head. “Enough. I’ll grow arrogant if you talk like that.”
She tipped her nose up slightly. “You’re the First Daughter of our duchy, Young Mistress. Arrogance is appropriate for you.”
I brushed that off with a smile, and we chatted for a bit more. After that, I went back downstairs, where Benedetta once again met me at the entrance to the receiving room.
“As His Highness brought several guests, shall I open the parlor, Young Mistress?”
For a moment, I wondered if she was trying to keep me out of the receiving room. She had intercepted me before I entered it twice now. But I decided it was probably just a coincidence.
The receiving room and the parlor have similar functions, to entertain guests too important to keep in the front hall, but the parlor is larger, fancier, and doubles as a venue for formal events. On particularly fancy occasions, it also functions as an antechamber for the formal dining room, a place to serve pre-meal tea and after-dinner drinks.
“That seems appropriate,” I agreed. “Lead His Highness and the others there directly when they come down for the meal. But I would like to see you and Mr. Carson for a moment before dinner, so I will wait for you in the receiving room first.”
“Certainly, Young Mistress,” she stated, and led me in to seat me beside a side table in one of the armless chairs designed for a woman in a skirt inflated with several petticoats. Thanks to such clothing, armchairs are for men in this society.
I never saw anything like communication from her as she prepared tea for me, but Carson appeared shortly after I was seated.
“Close the doors for a moment, please,” I told him. His eyebrows went up, but he complied, although he spoke as he went.
“Young Mistress, the staff has allocated guest rooms for everyone,” he reported. “I’m afraid we have to double most of them up, but the Sage and His Highness have rooms of their own.”
I thought, then asked, “Did the fairies object to room sharing?”
“They declined to stay in the mansion, My Lady,” he answered. Then he grew a wry smile. “Which is fortunate, frankly. We only have eight guest rooms, so it would have been quite tight, otherwise. I did offer to open the guest cottage for them, but they declined that as well.”
The guest rooms are huge, so I wasn’t sure what his definition of ‘tight’ was, exactly. My lips quirked slightly before I controlled my expression. I also didn’t feel like the terms ‘only’ and ‘eight guest rooms’ belonged in the same sentence.
The fact that the fairies declined to stay in a mortal house was not surprising. Fairies often prefer to sleep outdoors, and those that do sleep indoors prefer fairy abodes. Mortal houses are very uncomfortable for them. I thought the fact that Mother owned this mansion might make them consider it a fairy abode as well, but it seems that wasn’t the case.
Benedetta reported, “I’ve instructed our seamstress to make new Royal Army uniforms, Young Mistress. I have detailed some housemaids to assist her, so she can provide new sets for the prince and the young lady that came with him, and spares for the royal knights as well.”
Seeing my perplexed frown, she explained, “It seems that Lady Dilorè picked them up in the location where they had fled after the demonic attack. The knights judged it too dangerous to retrieve their belongings, so they went directly to Dausindiu and relayed his departing orders from there.”
I understood the rest from there. Judging from Rod’s uniform blouse, they hadn’t even stayed in Dausindiu long enough to get him fresh clothing. They had simply grabbed Matthias and flown off. Considering the timing, and Reia’s low top speed, there wasn’t time for them to shop for replacements.
“Will the staff be able to manage the guests’ needs? They may only stay here overnight, at most a day longer, until we can clearly sort out the situation.”
Her eyebrow went up, then she nodded. “I shall have the staff work late and provide the new attire in the morning.”
“Good,” I declared, trying to affect the same tone that Mother used when she was managing her house. I took a sip of my tea to buy time to ponder how to ask my main question.
I nodded. “Very well. Now I have an important question for you two, if you would be so kind as to give me plain answers.”
Carson’s face darkened and his brow furrowed. Benedetta simply maintained her poker face. I knew I was slightly rude just then, but I wanted to make clear I wasn’t going to allow placating or comforting answers to this question.
“I understand, Young Mistress,” he stated gravely as Benedetta set a teacup down on the table beside me.
“Unless Mother was fibbing to me, you two are not human, even though you can somehow hide your nature from my fairy sight,” I stated. “You are Dark elementals. Correct?”
“That is correct, Young Mistress,” he stated with a nod.
“And for a number of centuries, you two have both been contracted to the Lord of Pendor, which originally meant Duke Egon, but currently means Mother.”
Benedetta looked over at her husband, whose lips had tightened slightly, reluctant to answer. She answered for him.
“We are, indeed, Young Mistress.”
“How is she?” I asked. “You two should know, through your contract. She has remained out of contact with both Pendor and us since yesterday, when she apparently disappeared without warning prior to the attacks, but you two should know if anything has happened to your contractor.”
Since Mother has to know how we would react to silence under the current circumstances, I needed an explanation for why she would remain incommunicado and leave us in uncertainty. I wanted these two, who should have a special connection with her to reassure me that everything was fine. Mother is strong, and there was no way she was in danger…
Instead, with Carson’s expression growing blank, then reluctant, my anxiety hit a new peak. My heart began screaming that I shouldn’t be sitting here, playing Mother’s stand-in as hostess, I should be putting my armor back on and heading out, instantly, this very moment…
After much too long a pause, he admitted, “That is true. And right now, we cannot…”
He broke off as Benedetta’s face grew severe. She stated, harshly, “We don’t know anything, yet. Our hearts are not yet severed from her.”
Perhaps she meant to reassure me, but her word choice only increased my dread.
“What do you sense from her?” I demanded. “Tell me!”
Carson drew in a breath, then admitted, “We do not sense that Her Grace is dead, but we also cannot sense that she is alive.”
“You’re her contracted spirits,” I protested, almost in a whisper.
“Even so, Young Mistress,” he nodded.
“How can you simply wait here? Why aren’t you going out to find her?”
Benedetta’s expression finally slipped, becoming troubled. “Young Mistress… Her Grace ordered us not to follow her. We cannot disobey.”
