Apparently, I bowed incorrectly.
Not terribly.
Not insultingly.
Just incorrectly enough that Veronica could spot it from across a room while holding a book over half her face.
"Again."
I bent at the waist.
"Too low."
I straightened.
"Too abrupt."
I bowed again.
"You are greeting a count, not searching for a dropped coin."
I looked at the ceiling.
Somewhere in the universe, my old drill instructor was laughing himself sick.
At least he had only cared whether I could salute.
This place had turned bending over into a branch of mathematics.
Mother took over etiquette lessons after Veronica threatened to tie a ruler to my spine.
She was gentler.
She was not easier.
"Courtesy is mostly attention," she told me.
Then she arranged six chairs in the drawing room.
Each represented a different person.
A duke. A visiting priest. A guild official. A foreign ambassador. An elderly baroness. A royal cousin with no meaningful title.
I stared at the chairs.
"Which one's most likely to start a war?"
"That depends on how you greet them."
I missed Veronica immediately.
Mother walked me through precedence, introductions, seating, and the delicate art of acknowledging someone without implying that everybody else could go hang.
At first, it seemed like an enormous waste of energy.
Then she explained why the ambassador's placement mattered.
Seat him below a lesser domestic official and his court might call it an insult.
Seat him too high and our own nobles might accuse the crown of favoring foreign interests.
One chair.
Two potential diplomatic incidents.
I began taking notes.
The academy had rules designed to flatten some of that nonsense.
Students wore uniforms.
Formal titles were discouraged during lessons.
Academic standing depended on examinations and practical work, not whose grandfather owned a hill.
I approved.
Then Mother continued.
"Discouraged does not mean forgotten."
There it was.
A common-born student could share a classroom with a prince.
That did not mean either would forget what waited outside the classroom.
"Don't demand deference," she said. "Don't punish someone for being cautious around you. And never assume a person is comfortable simply because they have smiled."
I thought about Elsie, the young kitchen maid who had invited me to walk in the gardens.
About Milo calling himself Trash.
About how many different things agreement could mean when one person possessed more power.
"I understand."
"I believe you are beginning to."
Mothers.
Apparently, they received a passive skill that prevented sons from sounding impressive.
Veronica handled the academic review.
Mathematics was merciful.
I could already manage more than the entry assessment required, though translating methods into this world's notation occasionally made me feel as if someone had rearranged my fingers.
Writing was worse.
My handwriting looked like a spider had escaped an inkpot during an earthquake.
"Legible," Veronica said, studying an essay.
"Thank you."
"That wasn't praise."
History required dates, causes, and the ability to distinguish what had happened from what patriotic poets claimed had happened.
Religious studies introduced me to several temples, competing traditions, and one extremely uncomfortable practice examination.
"Describe your understanding of the afterlife," Veronica said.
I froze.
Somewhere behind my eyes, eighty-eight years of Fantasarian commitment rose to attention.
I considered explaining the whole thing.
Then I pictured the essay being read aloud to a room full of serious scholars.
"Different faiths hold different interpretations," I wrote.
Diplomacy.
A beautiful invention.
Practical preparation was less forgiving.
Veronica took away my rifle for the first assessment.
"You've lost access to your preferred skill."
"I dislike this scenario."
"That is why we're practicing it."
I had to move between cover, reach a designated casualty, and get both of us to safety without turning the entire field into a smoking crater.
The casualty was a sack filled with sand.
She had named it Darien.
I did not appreciate the implication.
"You're dragging your own helpless body," she explained.
"Yes, thank you."
I learned how much healing I could afford before losing the ability to protect someone.
How quickly fatigue degraded my judgment.
How difficult carrying another person became when that person stubbornly insisted on being made of sand.
We practiced surrender signals.
Emergency instructions.
When to call for help.
When not to pursue.
That last lesson received several additional repetitions.
Completely unrelated to my personal history, I'm sure.
She also taught me what my equipment couldn't do.
Pocket Dimension required conscious access.
If I was unconscious, the bandages inside were no use to anyone.
So I wore a small physical medical pouch.
The mana reservoir belonged to the weapon.
That meant stored energy was useful for firing, but it wasn't an emergency drink I could pour into myself for healing.
Each mana rocket cost twenty MP.
With sixty MP in my personal pool and another twenty stored in the weapon's reservoir, I could manage four launches from fully charged reserves. Then I would be standing there with an empty launcher, no mana for healing, and whatever consequences I'd just created.
Powerful? Absolutely.
Something I should fire at every problem just because it looked cool?
Veronica insisted the answer was no.
Rockets were also conspicuous and wildly inappropriate in enclosed spaces.
"Describe a situation in which you should not use the launcher," Veronica said.
"A crowded dining room."
"Another."
"A library."
"Another."
"Your bedroom."
She stared.
I raised both hands.
"Because of the enclosed space."
"Ten laps."
Worth it.
The academy's rules concerning combat skills were straightforward.
No unsupervised dueling.
No deliberate interference with another student's casting.
No using summons or storage skills to bypass inspections.
No combat magic in dormitories.
I looked at that one for a long time.
"They had to write this down?"
"Repeatedly."
Young people given supernatural power.
I could see how that might produce paperwork.
All unusual skills had to be declared to the practical instructors.
Father insisted I register both gun configurations honestly.
"I don't want the first discussion of your launcher to occur after a wall has disappeared."
"That seems unnecessarily pessimistic."
"Does it?"
I signed the form.
Limitless Growth required a separate conversation.
We weren't concealing its existence, but Father advised against discussing every detail of its progression with casual acquaintances.
"Honesty does not require answering every question," he said.
Another irritatingly useful distinction.
As the weeks passed, the estate changed around us.
Two additional guards appeared at the eastern gate.
Father's correspondence increased.
A merchant at dinner complained about grain prices, then stopped when he noticed me listening.
Veronica noticed too.
Later, I asked her whether everyone had collectively decided I was deaf.
"No. They've collectively decided you are young."
"I can understand a supply shortage."
"You can. That doesn't mean every worried adult is required to share one with you."
I didn't like that answer.
It was still a fair answer.
War hadn't arrived.
There were no horns, no marching columns outside our windows.
Just little changes.
More sealed letters.
More riders arriving after dark.
The stablemaster being asked how many sound horses we could spare without interrupting harvest work.
Gentle rumblings.
I knew enough about thunder to respect them.
Milo became involved in my preparation almost by accident.
He started by helping carry books.
Then he learned which training supplies I needed.
Soon he could identify my ordinary medical pouch, distinguish clean bandages from used practice cloth, and remind me when I had left my gloves on a fence post.
Again.
"You'd lose your head if it wasn't attached," he informed me.
"That's dangerously close to something Veronica would say."
He looked pleased.
Concerning development.
One afternoon, he watched me pack and unpack a travel trunk.
"Do students take servants?"
"Some do."
"Will you?"
"I haven't decided."
He smoothed a folded shirt.
"I could."
I stopped.
He kept his eyes on the cloth.
"I know how you like things packed."
"You don't owe me service, Milo."
"I know."
I wasn't certain he did.
So I knelt beside the trunk.
"You can stay here. Keep your lessons. Work with the horses. Nothing changes."
His fingers tightened.
"I want to come."
"Because you want to, or because you're afraid I won't come back?"
The question hurt him.
I could see it.
Then he took a breath.
"A little of both."
There was more courage in that answer than in pretending.
We didn't decide that afternoon.
I spoke to Father.
Mother spoke to Milo.
The housekeeper spoke to everyone, because apparently no household decision truly existed until she had approved its laundry arrangements.
There would be conditions.
Lessons continued.
His duties would be light.
He would have wages, an account in his own name, and the right to ask to come home.
He would not enter training grounds during live exercises.
He would not carry messages through dangerous streets alone.
And Lottie would remain at the estate, where she was safe, learning, and beginning to laugh without immediately checking who had heard.
Milo listened to every condition.
Then he asked the only question that mattered to him.
"Can I write to her?"
Mother touched his shoulder.
"We will make certain of it."
That evening, I found him practicing his letters.
At the top of the page, very carefully, he had written:
Dear Lottie.