Juliana Leffoy de Marigny (standingwave) wrote in lightning_war, @ 2008-12-17 10:28:00 |
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Current mood: | playful |
Thursday morning, 17 September 1942, in the arithmancy classroom at the Royal Academy of Wizardry...
Addie entered and stood in the doorway, smiling shyly, a folder tucked under her arm. “I’m Adele Kyteler,” she said, pleased that Scalara was nowhere to be seen. She’d never liked Scalara, but since Lavinia’s revelations, she didn’t even respect her, now. She was a little nervous; she had never met Rosenthal before, and she barely knew Liane, who’d been a wreck when Endymion had introduced them. “Which Liane already knows.”
Liane grinned at Addie. “We ran her off,” she said conspiratorially, noting the way Addie had searched the room for Scalara. “Apparently she thinks I laugh too much when we’re working, or something.” She rolled her eyes. “I’ve only known her a day longer than you, Michel,” she said as she slid back into her seat.
“Laugh too much? But arithmancy is fun,” Michel said, puzzled, then shook his head. Lavinia’s sister was certainly living up to all the stories he’d heard. “Michel Rosenthal,” he said, as he pulled an extra chair over to the table where they had been working. “Please, have a seat. I’m looking forward to seeing your thesis—Lavinia has had nothing but praise for it.”
“I think ‘fun’ wouldn’t really be her word for it,” Addie said, and took her seat. “Maybe not for anything. Pleased to meet you Magister Rosenthal. I hope what Lavinia said isn’t too much of a stretch. I don’t really have a thesis as such, it’s more a set of notes. I’ve tried to put them in some kind of sensible order, but we’ve been awfully busy here.” She laid her folder on the desk and broke the wards to let Michel read the pages within.
With evident effort, Liane restrained herself from looking over his shoulder and instead smiled at Addie hopefully. She had made three female friends in the past week: Bella and Charis. And maybe Tirtzah was four. Tirtzah had smiled at her that morning before breakfast. Dare she try for more? “Sounds like you’re still at the really interesting part: you know you figured something out but you’re still not sure what?” she asked, watching Michel look through the papers. She picked up the tie she’d thrown at Scalara and began to loop it around her wrist.
Liane didn’t really want to be at the Academy another minute if she didn’t have to be, especially given the terrible headaches she’d had during the drill the night before, and the dreams that had followed them. Her mind was racing ahead to the work they would do, the time they would spend together, but she knew she shouldn’t babble while Michel was reading, and Addie would probably not appreciate hearing every thought that went through her mind. It had to be nerve-wracking for her—she didn’t know how kind and brilliant Michel was, nor how much he would do to nurture her in her work.
Michel could tell just from the first page that Lavinia’s praise had been justified. He read on, increasingly oblivious to the two girls, lost in the beauty of numbers and equations. He could see—just—how Addie had chosen each step in her proof, yet the whole had a simplicity and elegance that made it seem almost obvious. “This is really, really nice,” he said. “Beautiful. Do you have any thoughts on a proof for the generalisations you’ve made here?”
“Yes,” Addie said hesitantly, not used to much praise of her arithmantic work. “I haven’t been able to write it up yet though.” She smiled back at Liane. “I suppose you’re right. I am not really sure what this is, yes.”
“Well,” said Liane, “sometimes it takes a while to figure it out. I know with my own work I draw on patterns I encounter in the world, but sometimes I don’t immediately recognise them in a different context. But if he says it’s beautiful…it must be good.” She glanced thoughtfully at the papers. “Is it all right if I look? Mine’s…I don’t mind if you see it, but the War Bureau might.” She ran a hand through her hair. “I’d offer my thoughts, but we might not see each other much for a while. I’m going back to Londinium with Michel on the first train tomorrow, I’m going to work for…your stepmother, I suppose she is?” She glanced shyly from Michel to Addie.
“Lavinia? She will be,” Addie said. “I think. Fia is her daughter, she’s in my house. Maybe when Magister Rosenthal is done, I can show you the problem I was working on?” Addie felt shy about sharing her work; the solution was so new to her. She hoped Liane wouldn’t find it too trivial.
“He won’t mind if I look, so long as you don’t mind,” said Liane, smiling from Addie to Michel. She had moved her chair a little away so as not to see over his shoulder, but she slid it back to where it had been when Scalara had snapped at them and cocked her head to see it better. “We worked together for years at Ker-Ys; we didn’t stand on ceremony much.”
Michel shifted a bit to allow Liane a better view. “Yes. Collaboration is an essential part of the research process; it lets you see things from a different perspective than you might have otherwise,” he said. “Sometimes it’s easy to focus so much on either theory or practice that you forget they’re all part of a whole. Here—” Michel flipped through the pages. “See this sequence of equations? On their own, they’re an elegant proof and beautiful in their own right, but combine them with Liane’s work on harmonics…” He trailed off, waiting for them to make the connection on their own.
Liane slid closer to see. She felt a brief pang of jealousy because the other girl thought these equations were nothing terribly special or difficult, and they were something she’d have never thought of herself, but then her mouth fell slightly open. “I’ll get right on that,” she said under her breath, glancing up at Michel sidewise, her mind half present and half in the world of her work. “But Addie hasn’t seen my work yet, Michel…is it all right for me to show her? I want to, but…you said it was going to have to go straight to the War Bureau…is she going to come back with us too, then?”
Michel thought for a moment, then shook his head. He wasn’t particularly worried that Addie might intentionally reveal anything she saw, but it was bound to have an effect on her work that would be noticeable if anyone thought to look. “No, there’s no reason for that, we just have to be careful what we show her,” he said. “Not the parts we were discussing earlier, but the abstract, yes, and perhaps a few of the more general equations.” He smiled at Addie. “I think you’ll find it interesting to see how your work and hers fits together. Theory provides the foundation for practical work, you know, though sometimes artificers overlook that.”
Liane looked sympathetically at Addie. “Sorry you have to stay,” she said. “They treat us like children here,” she told Michel. “Remember how Scalara snapped at you, just for sitting close to me while we worked?” She shook her head, fumbling through her papers. “Here’s a second copy of the abstract,” she told Addie, thrusting it across the table to her, and then she stood up to write the first of the general equations on the board with the pink stick of chalk, leaving the white and the yellow for Michel and Addie to use.
“Oh,” Addie said, and trailed off, picturing herself leaving school that day. Of course Liane had only just arrived, school meant nothing to her, but Addie found her enthusiasm impossible to share. Scalara was not a good teacher for her and had been worse this year, and of course it would be good to live at home, but so much of her life was at school as well. She read over the abstract carefully and looked at the equation in pink. “There is a theorem a little later in my notes, I think, that is related to that,” Addie said. “I don’t even know if it’s novel, I’m sorry. Can I have my notes, for a moment, Magister?” she asked Michel.
“Of course,” said Michel, as he handed them over.
Addie began to leaf through them looking for the equation she had in mind, her hands shaking a little. She had to go through one section twice before she pulled out a sheet of paper and smiled suddenly. She placed the rest of the folder down on the desk. “Ah,” she said, looking it over. “There’s a couple of definitions here that I don’t think are standard, and I want someone to check this proof but…so, I’ll just frame this in terms of the fourth sphere, and hope the proof holds at least there, and then…” She scribbled on the board in yellow for a moment and stood back from an equation.
Liane sucked air through her teeth. “The fourth sphere,” she said softly, “is the highest material sphere. I don’t know if that would work or not, but if it did, it is not…” She shook her head. “I haven’t meant this to be worked much higher than the seventh. My work is not…it’s meant to be applied.” She swallowed. “Let’s not frame that in terms of the fourth harmonic. The sixth, maybe.” She glanced nervously at Michel. Working a gate through the fourth sphere would discorporate anyone mortal who tried to pass through it. And while there were times she might concede that was a good idea, it was liable to send echoes down through the lower spheres and create…a lot more dark matter shells, which wouldn’t be good for anyone, anywhere. She ought to know; she’d done enough of that already. “It would probably work. Once.”
“Oh,” Addie said, and frowned. “But it’s a pretty result though.” She reflected on it. “The fourth sphere is just the easiest set of bases to work with, for this result. I could show you the generalisation, but I haven’t even checked it, and I often miss something until I have. I don’t want to have you work with it until I know it holds!”
Liane smiled at her a little nervously. “You can’t run gating harmonics any higher than the seventh sphere, and you shouldn’t try to apply them past eight if you can safely handle iron,” she said gently. “I mean, it does no harm to work out the maths, but we can’t use those energies safely down here, and if we did, we’d either attract all kinds of unwanted attention, or we’d completely destabilise the local leys. Probably the arrays needed to handle the energy would fail, but if you did succeed…well, I don’t think I really want to know what would happen. That is too much raw creative energy to unleash on the material plane.” She looked at it wistfully. “It is a pretty result though. I’d have never thought of it.” She glanced at Michel, and smiled, trying to look as absolutely thrilled as she was sure he would expect her to be. It was a really brilliant thing to do, if wholly impractical and…possibly world-destroying.
Addie was smarter than she was. She was used to that with Sharolt Halász, whom neither of them could follow. But not someone Michel could possibly follow, that maybe she wouldn’t be able to.
“It is a pretty result,” Michel agreed. “Don’t worry if it’s not practical. Pure research often isn’t, but it’s valuable for what it teaches us about the way the universe works.” He picked up a piece of chalk and stared at the board for a few moments. “What I think you’re missing is this…” he said, as he added some more equations to the board. “See? It’s more complicated, but it has to be to work on the lower spheres. There just aren’t any good generalisations that apply across more than a few spheres; it’s one of the more interesting problems in harmonics research, you know. I’d love to see what you’ve done.”
“Of course I didn’t mean that there was anything wrong with pure research!” Liane said hastily, flushing. “I just…can’t test that one, Michel.” She sucked her lower lip almost entirely into her mouth, then mentally slapped herself for acting like a Parrillaud, or something, and forced herself to pay attention to what Michel was writing on the board. What a great way for her to start acting the first time she saw him alive again in two years.
After a few minutes’ concentration, she forgot what had been bothering her. “That’s perfect for eight and nine,” she said, glancing up at Michel. “For seven…” She began to write herself, just under him. “I’d do this in the seventh,” she said shyly. “I usually work in seven, when it really counts. Because most people can’t, and if you really don’t want to be followed…” She glanced at Addie and shrugged. “Soldiers tend to carry iron. If iron can’t pass through a gate, then neither can they. At least not without messy results.”
Michel wondered what she’d been doing that she’d had to worry about soldiers, but put that aside for later. “Yes,” he said to Addie, nodding at what Liane had added. “You can see why the search for a universal solution is so important; the changes are subtle but mistakes can be disastrous.” He was finding it quite fascinating to compare Liane’s practical approach with Addie’s brilliant if untrained insights. He couldn’t begin to imagine what she would do with a deeper understanding of the subject. “I have some of my textbooks that I can send you, if you want.”
“Make sure to send her the one you wrote,” Liane said, with evident pride in him, but she leaned against the chalkboard with her arms crossed over her chest. “I’m not sure we’re going to find a universal solution,” she said. “I’m not even sure it’s a good idea any more, Michel. A universal theorem, upon which specific solutions can be built, absolutely—but a universal solution? That’s too close to finding the word that began the universe. Anything that could be practicably worked above the fourth sphere might change the nature of the multiversal plenum itself. And as broken as our world is, I’m not sure we can make a better one by trial and error, or that we have the right to make that decision for the inhabitants of all the other worlds we’d change.”
“There are many unsolvable problems in the world,” Michel said gently, wondering what exactly Liane had seen that made her react so strongly to this, “and this may well be one of them—it almost certainly is unlikely to have a practical solution, for all the reasons you’ve mentioned. But even if there is no universal solution, the search is interesting in itself.” He smiled. There were few things he enjoyed so much as a mathematical challenge, and he had a special fondness for the more difficult unsolved problems. “It could also reveal partial solutions—and those would be more practical, as well as much less dangerous.”
“True,” Liane said, and smiled at him brightly as she pulled herself up and away from the chalkboard. There was chalk dust in her hair, pink and white and yellow, and three more hairpins hit the ground. She picked them up. “And you’ll need someone with a natural affinity for gating theory to collaborate with on the search for that solution,” she said, smiling. “Just as long as we don’t break the universe. It’s a mess, but it’s all we’ve got.” She held one of the hairpins out to him. “You can’t fix everything you break with one of these…but keep it, just in case you ever need a quantum mechanic?”
Michel smiled as he took the hairpin. “Thank you,” he said, in a nearly-serious tone, a playful smile on his lips. “You never know when such a thing will come in handy. Brass, too, so I don’t need to worry about taking it through gates. Let’s just hope we don’t ever need to fix the universe.”
Liane beamed at him for a moment. “I hope we don’t, too. It would be difficult; I either know where we’re going or where we are, never both!” After a moment she remembered that they had been discussing Addie’s work in relation to hers, though, and she blushed. “Um, Addie, you’ll want to read Heisenberg if you’re interested in higher-sphere harmonics. I can make you copies of what I have. He’s a mundane, and he’s on the other side of the war, but…he’s still brilliant.”
She did want to be friends with this girl. And there was no reason, really, that she couldn’t learn to factor the highest spheres, even if there was no practical use for it. She had even been interested in them once, before she’d had to prioritise winning the war, avenging her loved ones, learning to get herself and her work out of places where someone might steal it or kill her…
Addie smiled uncertainly. It was very much like being with Hadrian and Endymion, except that these two weren’t alluding to what they did in bed as much. And, she reminded herself, neither of them could read her mind, or so she hoped. She wondered what it would be like to have such a close working relationship with anyone, with or without sex. She had never had anything like it. “Thank you,” she said. “I’m so…I mean. Two weeks ago, I thought I was just treading ground everyone must have been on already. I need all the help I can get!”
“Oh no,” said Liane, “not at all. I’ve never seen anything quite like your work, it’s remarkable really. It’s just…rarefied. It’s been years since I looked at the nonmaterial spheres. I’m afraid the Occupation’s done a lot to influence the direction of my research. I’ve needed to develop theories that I could use to help the Resistance.” She smiled, and flushed a little. “We haven’t seen each other in two years,” she said, glancing down at the stick of chalk in her hand. “I was sure that he had been killed, and I still don’t know what news he’s had of me, but all of it would have been very misleading and none of it good.” She smiled ruefully, carefully not looking up at Michel.
Addie nodded. She’d heard the rumours. Everyone had, by now. It made sense that Liane was so oriented toward applied research, if she’d been using it so much.
“Anyhow,” she told Addie, “I wish you didn’t have to stay here, because you do need people to work with and help you develop your ideas, and I know they’re not here. But we’ll write to you. He said he’s going to be your sponsor now, in the Guild, and I’ll write to you too, if you like. Really, you are going to be so much better than me. You might even be smarter than he is,” she teased, “and I don’t say that lightly.”
“I agree,” Michel said to Addie, smiling. It was always amazing to find a student who was capable of going beyond what he could teach. “I’m looking forward to working with you. You really do have an amazing talent, you know. I think the two of you could do some interesting work together; your talents definitely complement each other.” He wanted to reassure Liane that he understood she’d only done what was necessary, but now was not the time. She really needed to talk to Vince, who would actually know how she felt.
“I do look forward to working with you,” Liane assured Addie, then glanced up sidewise at Michel, wondering why she had said all that in front of the other girl and not before, when they were alone. He didn’t seem to be angry or worried though; possibly he hadn’t heard a word about her from anyone, or maybe Vince had, and had made sure he did not. She smiled, then, a little.
At that point the classroom door opened again. Scalara came in, and stared at the board. She was obviously both intrigued and vaguely horrified, and Liane stepped in front of it, not wanting to erase it but at the same time, not wanting Scalara to see her equations, or Addie’s.
Scalara’s eyes narrowed. “I just came to tell you that my sister means for you to take them into town for luncheon, and you’d best go now, if you plan to be back in time for my seminar.” She glanced out into the hallway. “Also, Miss Leffoy, your shadow has been restless. Are we to assume that she is leaving school as well?”
“Probably,” said Liane. “It’s not as though people here have received her well. Mori, come in,” she called out, and glanced up at Michel with an apologetic half-smile. “I have a friend who wants to come to luncheon with us. She’s been showing me some interesting things too, although her training is primarily musical and not mathematical.”
Moruith didn’t have to be told twice to come into the room. She gave Scalara a guarded look, then sauntered in, looking around. Michel she gave a long, appraising look. So this was Liane’s mate, even if she hadn’t admitted it yet. She was not sure yet if she was impressed, but she liked the way they smelled together.
“Michel, Addie…this is Moruith myr’Steren. Mori, this is Michel Rosenthal, I’ve told you about him—”
“Repeatedly,” Moruith said, and beamed at her.
“And this is Addie Kyteler,” Liane finished, blushing.
Addie was puzzled altogether. She had heard all the rumours about Moruith, she’d also heard Hadrian’s opinions of the rumours. Moruith was some kind of bodyguard, but even Florian Leffoy didn’t have one, and neither had Estrid Frealaf. “I am pleased to meet you,” she said awkwardly. It was hard to avoid staring, or smiling, both of which the fey woman could take as a threat. But her tattoos were incredibly bold, and the effect was overall, rather beautiful. Addie blushed and looked at her feet.
Moruith laughed, a pretty, bell-like sound. “You can smile at me,” she said, “I do it too sometimes…my father was a trickster, and tricksters do smile. I am pleased to meet you, Miss Addie Kyteler!” She was amused, and pleased, and a little embarrassed; no-one had ever been really attracted to her before, but she could scent the other girl’s interest. In the Bois they all knew she was only barely old enough, and here people thought she was strange.
“And you as well,” she told Michel, after a moment, because she did not want to be rude. “We shall have to be very good friends, you and I, for the sake of our princess.” The word ‘princess’ still came to her lips with a certain amount of difficulty, but Liane had told her that people would really dislike it if she was called ‘queen’, and that a princess was a fledgling queen.
“I’d be delighted,” Michel said. He wasn’t quite sure what Moruith meant by Liane being a princess, much less the implication that they were both her subjects, but he hadn’t had much dealings with the fey folk and he didn’t want to offend. He cast a charm to copy the contents of the chalkboards into his notebook, followed with a cleaning charm to remove every trace of their work. “Shall we go, then?”
Addie smiled hesitantly at Moruith and put the sheets she had taken out of her folder back into them. “Do you want to take this?” she asked Michel hesitantly. “I actually don’t have a copy of it all…”
“I know a charm that will copy it,” said Liane, digging in her bag for clean parchment. The Leffoys made her nervous but she was grateful to them for the things they had given her; she’d done so much work on paper she’d reclaimed. “But it depends on how you’ve warded it. If it’s sealed to you then it won’t work till you’ve removed the seals. You did seal it, didn’t you? Otherwise anyone could tamper with it.”
Addie looked at her. “Yes, I have sealed it,” she said, not mentioning that this was only after Lavinia and her father had suggested that her work needed to be warded far more strongly. “I’ll have to break them anyway, if you are going to take it,” Addie said to Michel.
“I’d like a copy, yes,” Michel said, and smiled. He’d missed teaching more than he’d thought, and Addie really was exceptional. “I just wish I didn’t have to spend so much time on other research, because I really am looking forward to working with you on this. It’s absolutely brilliant.”
“I’ll show you how to copy it,” Liane offered quietly. “If you want.” It occurred to her that Addie might want to work on it more first, but she wanted to offer to show her the spell, at least.
Addie put down her folder and broke the seals on it to let Liane copy it. “I’m sorry I didn’t have a chance to write it out well,” Addie said to Michel. She felt uncomfortable thinking about it, she preferred to draft and re-draft her writings. “I’ll send some better versions to you soon I hope.”
“That’s quite all right,” Michel said. “It looks better than most of my first drafts, and if I have any questions I’ll let you know. That reminds me—I need to show you one of the wards we use in the War Bureau.”
Liane laid the pages out on the table where she and Michel had been working, face up, and took out as many sheets of clean parchment as there were pages. As she did so, Scalara came closer, but Moruith stepped directly in front of her. “I don’t think the princess would like me to let you look at her friend’s work,” she said softly.
“No, Mori, I wouldn’t,” said Liane. “Sorry, Magistra, Miss Kyteler is Michel’s apprentice, not yours, and it’s up to him if you see this or not.”
Scalara frowned. “My sister’s doing, no doubt,” she said tightly. “Careful, girl. People will think you’re Rosenthal’s wife, not his journeyman.”
“I don’t care if they do,” said Liane.
“She is right, though,” Michel said to Scalara, trying to defuse the situation, while he considered that she was taking this rivalry with her sister too far. There was no call to say such things about Liane; it was only natural that she was defensive of him, after all she’d been through, but he didn’t think Scalara would listen. “This may have applications for the war effort, so I’d like to keep the number of people who know about it to a minimum.”
Scalara fixed him with a suspicious look. It was simply amazing how many things produced by attractive teenage girls Rosenthal believed had applications for the war effort. After a moment, she shrugged. “You’d better hurry up and get going,” she said, and walked out of the room. Moruith snorted loudly.
Liane turned to Addie. “Watch me do the first few pages,” she said, “then you do the next.” She laid the blank parchment over a sheet that Addie had made notes on, and intoned the charm; the words and equations appeared on the top sheet, exactly as Addie had written them.
Addie noted the charm carefully, lifted off the top sheet and its copy, and began copying the others. After she finished, she gathered the sheets into two piles and handed one to Michel. She took a small pair of scissors from her bag and cut a strand of her hair to use to reseal the original set of papers.
Liane smiled approvingly. “Can we go now? If you don’t want to teach us the ward, which I don’t know either, at wherever we’re having luncheon, I know some more private places than this,” she told Michel. “Scalara is really irritating. She’s lucky I’m not your wife, I’d have been a lot nastier! And if I know her sort she’s probably watching us anyway.”
At that she frowned, and carefully bent over to collect all her hairpins, making sure that no strands of her hair were caught on a fallen pin or stuck to the back of a chair. Michel she trusted, Addie seemed harmless enough, but never Scalara. She put all but one of the pins back into her bag. The last one she stuck through the buttonhole on the lapel of Michel’s coat. “Always carry spares. In case of universe, break glass, and all. Instead of the other way round.”
Michel raised his eyebrows at Liane, amused that he’d been designated a keeper of spare ribbons and pins. “Redundancy is always a sound policy, yes. I’ll show you both the ward later, after we eat. I’d like to be certain we won’t be interrupted.”
Liane just smiled at him playfully. “Quantum mechanic,” she reminded him.
Moruith caught Addie’s gaze and rolled her eyes at them. “Yet,” she mouthed silently. “Not his wife yet. Oh, he is so brilliant.”
Addie looked at Moruith in astonishment. Was she trying to say that Liane and Michel didn’t even know they were in love? They were like her father and Lavinia, her mother and Amadeo, her brother and Endymion rolled into one. She rolled her eyes back at Moruith. “I’m ready,” she said, picking up her folder of papers.
“Good,” said Liane, “I’m starving.” She slung her bag back over her shoulder and glanced speculatively at Michel. Addie and Moruith were having some kind of wordless conversation, and she wondered if he’d noticed—probably not, given the way he got lost in his own thoughts. Which was even more adorable than whatever it was that Addie and Moruith were doing. She took a deep breath and prepared to go out and face the world again; it would be so nice if they could all be friends.
finaldefence, michelrosenthal, moruith, sabedoria (Hypatia Scalara) and standingwave