Chantel was exhausted. But she had to watch what was going on in the city. She couldn’t take her eyes off things for a moment. True, Lightning was watching everyone, but Lightning was a dragon, and he tended to miss some nuances. She turned to tell Anna this, and the flagstones came up to meet her. She was asleep before they did.
A lot happened in the days after that. The invaders withdrew from the city (which, after all, was remarkably full of dragon) and the new queen made certain decrees about the port fees and the road tolls, which the Sunbiters found satisfactory.
With the lower fees, more ships landed in the port, and soon there was more to eat in Lightning Pass. But the queen was most particular about shipments of serum for spotted swamp fever, which she insisted had to be landed without charge and without delay, and then carried up the toll roads as quickly as possible.
Meanwhile, there was that extra food stored in the castle subcellars. The new queen appointed a kind woman and her daughter from the harbor district to be in charge of distributing it.
Chantel supposed that later she would have to have a council or something with whom she would discuss such matters, but for now, she needed to get things done, and it was easiest to just do them.
She didn’t like the castle at all; it was too far away from things in general, and so she held court in the building that she was trying to get everyone to call the Hall of the People. She sat in a carved chair at a table that had once had nine chairs around it. And people came to see her. It seemed to her that at least half of these people were Sir Wolfgang. She had to keep sending him away.
A man who looked like death, only with a lot of bruises and a badly torn black robe, came and asked her for a job.
“I’m the royal summoner,” he said. “You’ll need me. When you want someone, I’ll bring ’em.”
Chantel thanked him politely and told him she could do her own summoning.
She saw the surviving sorceresses. They thought they should be put in charge of Miss Ellicott’s School for Magical Maidens. Miss Flivvers thought she ought to be.
Chantel thought Anna should be.
“What the school should be,” said Anna, “is a place for finding out about magic, for re-learning what’s been forgotten and for discovering new things.”
“And I suppose it will still just be for girls,” said Bowser.
He was using crutches, because he’d broken a leg in the battle. He had a scar on his face. He hadn’t done too badly at soldiering in the end. But he still just wanted to be a magician.
“In the Ago,” said Chantel, “when there were queens, women and girls were not the only ones who could do magic.”
Bowser brightened slightly.
“There were mages,” said Chantel. “Women and also men. Sorceresses and sorcerers.”
“Then we’ll have boys in the school,” said Anna. “We’ll let—well, I suppose we’ll let in everybody who wants to learn. Even Leila, I suppose.”
“Did Leila survive?” said Chantel.
“Of course,” said Anna. “People like Leila do. And I think we should still call the school Miss Ellicott’s.”
Chantel agreed. In memory of a woman who had been brave, but not brave enough to be who she was meant to be.
So the sign on the door was changed, with some scratchings out and writings in, and now it said
MISS ELLICOTT’S SCHOOL FOR the MAGICALly
MAIDENS Minded
SPELLS, POTIONS, WARDS, SUMMONINGS
AND DEPORTMENT
the making of new magic
TAUGHT TO DESERVING SURPLUS FEMALES
The girls, however, decided they wanted to stay in the caves, and Bowser liked it down there too, and Anna and the queen agreed there was room there for many more students. Provided they weren’t afraid of dragons.
Anna interviewed the sorceresses to decide which ones to hire as teachers, and one of the questions she asked was whether they were willing to try new magic, and another was how they felt about caves.
As for Miss Flivvers, she was not at all interested in caves. She found them simply shocking. So she was sent back to the house on Fate’s Turning. It was arranged that students would visit her to learn reading, writing, and as much deportment as they needed to get by. And Anna and Chantel agreed between them that they’d just keep an eye on her and make sure she didn’t get out of hand and start teaching anybody to be shamefast and biddable.
All of these decisions and discussions were constantly interrupted by Sir Wolfgang, who kept demanding audiences with the queen and was very hard to get rid of.
One day Mr. Less, the clerk, came to see the queen. He had come through the war pretty well—he had his arm in a sling, and a bandage around his head, but his mustache was as curly as ever. He wanted a job.
“I’m the only one who understands the filing system, Your Majesty,” he explained.
“Yes, that’s good, Mr. Less,” said Chantel. “But you might also be the only one who cares about it.”
“Have you thought about how you’re going to pay for all these changes you’re making, Your Majesty?”
Chantel had, actually. “Well, there are port fees—”
“You just lowered them.”
“And taxes—”
“How do you intend to collect those?”
Chantel looked at him doubtfully. He was right, of course. The things she wanted to do for Lightning Pass would cost money, and she had learned nothing about money at Miss Ellicott’s School. In fact, she realized, she needed someone to teach her, and quickly.
She wasn’t sure she quite approved of Mr. Less. He had to do with the patriarchs. But they were gone now, and—
Sir Wolfgang burst into the room. “What’s this I hear about schools in caves?”
“I don’t know,” said Chantel, truthfully.
“Look, gir—er, Your Majesty, I don’t think you’re capable of appreciating the kind of minds that designed this city’s educational system!”
“That’s true,” said Chantel, in the neutral tone she’d learned to adopt with Sir Wolfgang.
“And I heard some nonsense about lower port fees, and I’ll have you know—”
The queen held up a hand, so regally that Sir Wolfgang was momentarily stilled. “Sir Wolfgang, this is my clerk, Mr. Less. If you’ll go along with him to his office, he will listen to all of your concerns, and take notes, and ah”—she shot the clerk a look—“file them.”
The clerk bowed. “Certainly, Your Majesty.”
And Sir Wolfgang, sure that he’d just been passed on to someone with more authority, went off with the clerk, complaining happily.
The queen turned to receive some people from the harbor district who wanted something. Everybody wanted something.
And then one day a messenger came from the Sunbiter tribe and said that their chieftain would like an audience with the new queen.
The queen was seeing everybody—it felt as if she’d done nothing for months but see everybody, though it had really only been a week. So the chieftain in the red-horned helmet was ushered into her presence.
The chieftain did not bring attendants, and he did not toss his helmet over his shoulder. He set it on the floor, and he bowed, and bent over the queen’s hand, which Chantel privately thought was a bit much.
But she was so glad to see Franklin alive that she didn’t care.
“What happened?” she asked him.
“Karl the Bloody was killed in the flood when the walls burst,” said Franklin.