Armand’s First Letter. Amelia’s First Letter.

19 June 1020, L’École du Sorciers

My dearest cousin Armand,

There is a new burned patch in the main quadrangle at L’École. It is perhaps four yards in width and five yards in length, with a thin ring of withered and blackened grass around the edge and baked black earth within…and a small tuft of dry, unburned grass in the exact center.

It is in no way remarkable, for there are others like it scattered here and there; you will recall that I wrote you of them when I first came to L’École. In no way remarkable—save that the new one is rather larger than the largest of the others, and altogether fresher, for I created it yesterday afternoon.

I had been trying so hard to keep my temper, Armand! To keep it despite Maximilian becoming ever more aloof, despite Janine Allard’s vicious and biting commentary, despite Jérôme Lavigne’s supercilious condescension, despite Dr. Laguerre’s stern and unwavering insistence on perfection, despite my continuing failure to get my never to be sufficiently damned name inscribed neatly by fire on the never sufficiently damned unending supply of wooden plaques.

I have spent the last three days in a quiet, frozen rage, my face a mask, my teeth clenched, my every move calculated. During the last week no one approached me but to stab with me with a verbal dagger. I have woken up in a rage and gone to bed in a rage and lain there staring at the ceiling in a rage.

Maximilian has spent the last two nights at the Embassy.

And then, yesterday afternoon, when presented with my latest blackened and crumbly plaque of wood, Dr. Laguerre looked at me sternly and said coldly, “This will not do. You must try harder, Mme. Archer.”

And with that, my cold rage turned hot. It began in my cheeks and swiftly flooded my person from head to toe. I am certain there was fire glowing behind my eyes, for the room took on an orange cast, and I saw them reflecting, bright and shining, from Dr. Laguerre’s pupils. I cried aloud, I am not sure what, while perspiration started from my every pore—

—and I do not know what horrible thing might have happened next save that an enormous fist seem to grasp me around my shoulders. It lifted me and carried me swiftly out of Dr. Laguerre’s sitting room, through her front door, which was inexplicably open, and out into the quadrangle, where I—

There are no words for it but the simplest. I exploded. There was a roar and a blast, and I saw nothing but flame, flame all about me. The echos of the blast faded, but my eyes remained filled with flame. I closed them, then, and stood there weeping, my face in my hands, my ears still ringing, feeling the waves of heat sweeping up from the ground all around me.

I do not know for how long I stood there; but I heard a quiet word and coolness descended; and then came Dr. Laguerre’s voice saying, “Come, Mme. Archer. It is time for you to rest.” Her voice was stern, as it ever is, but no longer cold.

I opened my eyes, but still all I could see was flame. Many hands took me, then, and led me to our lodging, where I heard a voice say, “Put her to bed. She will sleep for many hours,” and then Maximilian’s reply, “Yes, Dr. Guisman.”

I awoke this morning from a dream of Dr. Laguerre’s cottage burning like an inferno, to find that I could see. I felt no rage, only a great and deep emptiness, an emptiness bordering on despair. Maximilian fed me breakfast—a real breakfast, not merely a pastry and coffee—and bid me rise and dress, for the masters, he said, were waiting.

“They will cast me out,” I said. “It has all been for nought.”

He said nothing, but took my arm and led me out into the quadrangle, and then to Dr. Laguerre’s cottage.

Oh, Armand, the edge of the blackened spot was no more than a yard from the walkway in front of the cottage! That is how close I came to destroying everything!

Dr. Laguerre and Dr. Guisman were waiting in Dr. Laguerre’s sitting room.

“Must I leave L’École?” I said as I sat down, feeling utterly miserable.

“No, Mme. Archer,” said Dr. Guisman. His voice was warm and full of compassion. “Now the real work begins.”

I fear I gasped in dismay. “But I have been trying, I have been trying so hard!“

“We know,” said Dr. Laguerre. “We know very well. You have been doing your utmost to master your craft, and to hold in your anger. But instead you must learn to master yourself. And now you see why, n’est-ce pas?“

I thought of the scant feet of green grass between the blackened ground and Dr. Laguerre’s flower beds and nodded.

“You will attempt no magic until further notice,” said Dr. Guisman. “This is not a punishment, but it is a necessity.” And then he laid out for me a program that seemed to me more in keeping for a monastery than for a school.

L’École has a chapel in one corner of the grounds, a chapel that I have ignored, not being an adherent of the Old Religion. Dr. Guisman commanded me to go there and speak to the chaplain, Père Martin.

“It will be for the best, my heart,” said Maximilian.

As he led me across the grounds, I saw Janine Allard waiting beside the path, and I felt a stir of heat in my heart. I made as if to go around her, but Maximilian’s arm held me to our course.

“She has something to say to you,” he said.

As we approached her, I was shocked to see that she was weeping.

She came and embraced me: “I am so sorry, moi. But it will all be better now. Everything will be better.” Then she left.

I spent several hours speaking with Père Martin; and when I emerged I found Maximilian still waiting.

“They were doing it on purpose,” I said to him, quietly. “Everyone, on the orders of Dr. Guisman.”

“I know,” he said. “It was necessary.”

“For all those months?”

“Usually it takes only a week or two. I was with Dr. Guisman when he, ah, removed you from within Dr. Laguerre’s cottage. He was most impressed, he told me, at how long the process had taken. He said that Provençese students are generally more…choleric. I told him it was because you are a lady of Cumbria.”

Your insufficiently choleric cousin,

Amelia

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Photo by JEFF VRBA on Unsplash