Evastany

19 IV

19 IV

It has been a week or so since the commencement of Heli’s lessons, and Ori and Gio have contrived to have their supporting materials completed, which pleases everybody. Except perhaps Heliandor herself, for they have produced seemingly endless pages between them, all of which she is expected to read in due course.

I, however, am delighted. Such excellent work, and in so short a time! I have been most effusive in my praise.

But Faronni Nallay still has not arrived. I confess myself troubled, for we have received no word from her either — no notification of delay, no estimate as to her probable time of arrival. It is as though she never existed. I have even retrieved her letter once or twice and perused it afresh, just to reassure myself that I did not imagine her altogether.

Under ordinary circumstances, one would assume the most mundane of all possible explanations to be the true one. She is delayed by some mind-numbingly ordinary occurrence. She forgot to write to inform us, or her letter went astray somewhere in between Amori Tovia and Glour City. She will turn up tomorrow, or perhaps next week, and there will be an end of it.

On we would all go with our lives.

Consider, though, the fate of Susa, and then tell me that my concern is misplaced. We do not appear to be enjoying the blissful dullness of ordinary circumstances.

I may not have any idea, as yet, why somebody might consider it worth abducting a penniless ten-year-old girl from Sorcerer School. But in impersonating me at the time, whoever was responsible for it created a link between Susa’s disappearance and my new school. That person is worryingly well informed about our doings, has clearly been paying close attention to our activities, and I cannot imagine that such surveillance has been undertaken lightly, or without clear motive.

We must consider, then, the possibility that Faronni Nallay’s failure to arrive is not the fault of some commonplace happenstance. If, as I fear, she has been abstracted from Amori Tovia in the same way as Susa was removed from school, then she is in need of assistance and it falls to us to provide it.

I considered this full reason enough to abandon all other duties earlier today and depart the capital at once. Tren accompanies me. We go to Miss Nallay’s home in search of her.

I write this en route, though the swaying of the carriage does render it a tricky task, and my penmanship is not up to my usual standards. No matter; it is legible. I have some hopes of arriving at Miss Nallay’s house to find her still in residence, urgently occupied with the task of removing to Glour City. Tren’s disposition is more sanguine than mine, more optimistic, less cynical. He considers it likely, even, that we will find her hale and well and, above all, present.

Let us hope this shall be a victory for optimism over cynicism, for in my experience the opposite much more frequently proves true.

Spoken, of course, like a true cynic.