Nanette's Tale

Epilogue

It was traditional, Lady Damia had discovered when she’d joined the staff, for the teachers to meet their gentleman callers in Pendle, rather than allowing them to visit the school. The tradition had never made sense to her — the girls knew the facts of life perfectly well — but she had to admit it provided cover for other activities, activities that would incur the wrath of the headmistress if she ever found out. Damia respected the older woman — and admired her — but her thinking could be quite limited at times. The school had a responsibility to the wider community as well as the sisterhood alone.

Master Lucknow raised his hand as she entered the inn, beckoning her to join him in his room. There was a certain irony there, Damia knew; he was about as interested in women as she was interested in men. But better to let them think it was a romantic meeting of the minds than a private chat about recent events. The headmistresses might let it pass, if she found out the truth, or she might demand Damia leave the school. And she didn’t want to leave the school.

“I swear,” she said, as they entered the room. “This place gets dingier every year.”

“There’s a bed,” Master Lucknow said. He cast a series of privacy spells, each one more complicated than the last. “And that’s all people want from a shithole like this.”

He sat on the bed, resting his hands on his knees. “I understand you had some excitement…?”

“That’s one way of putting it.” Damia sat on the hard, wooden chair. It wasn’t particularly comfortable, but she was fairly sure the bed would give her fleas — or something worse — if sat on the mattress. “And it just makes no sense.”

She ticked off points on her fingers as she spoke. “We had an intruder,” she said. “This intruder, who remains unidentified, replaced Lady Nadine of Hightower. The unfortunate girl was turned into a goldfish and left here, in Pendle, while the replacement sneaked into the school, enchanted another student, sabotaged the flying display and vanished. We didn’t even put the pieces together until hours after she was gone.”

“Ouch.” Master Lucknow stared at his hands. “Is Nadine alive?”

“She was a goldfish for a month,” Damia said. “She’s back to normal, but… a little traumatised by her experience. The healers think she’ll be having nightmares for a long time to come. Thankfully, she seems to have picked up a kind of glamour from the whole affair. The other girls aren’t being horrid to her.”

She ran her hand through her long hair. “We still haven’t figured out the point of the whole exercise.”

Master Lucknow considered it. “Nadine’s father is an important political figure in Zangaria,” he said. “The whole affair could have been designed to embarrass him — or her.”

“Perhaps,” Damia agreed. “It’s also possible that Penny — the enchanted girl — was the target. Or someone was trying to discredit the school. Or… maybe something went wrong and the intruder had to retreat without completing her mission. Penny did break out of her enchantment. Whatever she was trying to do…”

“You don’t know,” Master Lucknow said. “Just because you haven’t seen it doesn’t mean it isn’t there.”

Damia shot him a sharp look. “I can work that out for myself, thank you,” she said, unkindly. “Point is, everything she did, all the motives we can imagine… she could have done it without risking herself so drastically. It makes no sense. The planning alone would have required a quite remarkable degree of insight into Nadine’s schedules.”

“Which might help us to figure out who was behind it,” Master Lucknow pointed out.

“Apparently, one of Nadine’s former tutors vanished shortly after she left for school,” Damia said. “If that’s a coincidence, I’ll give up magic for good.”

She winced, inwardly. The reports had suggested Nadine was a brat. Damia had braced herself for entitlement, for an attitude that would rapidly make Nadine one of the most detested girls in school. It had been almost a relief to discover she wasn’t that bratty. She’d even helped a common-born girl against her tormentors. Damia knew she’d made a mistake. She should have noted the disparity and looked closer. But she’d been too relieved to ask more questions.

“We think the idea was to embarrass someone,” she said. She didn’t pretend to understand Zangarian politics, or mundane politics in general, but she knew they were important. “And yet, there were easier and simpler ways to embarrass Nadine, Penny, or Laughter itself without so much risk.”

“So we are left with a mystery,” Master Lucknow mused. “And one that may never be solved.”

“We have to solve it,” Damia said. Nadine, Penny, and Lillian had all been blameless. She was sure of that, after weeks of intensive interrogation. But none of them could shed light on what the intruder actually wanted. The whole exercise seemed pointless. “If the intruder managed to get into our school and… fit in, at least until she went to work… what is she going to do next?”

“I don’t know,” Master Lucknow said. “But I think we might be about to find out.”