That evening, I got a message from Sheila saying “It’s taken care of. Sorry you had to deal with that.”
She didn’t need to apologize, it was my father who had caused everything. But it seemed Sheila had worked out a solution, one adult to another. She said something about investigations taking some time, but what had she been investigating?
A few days later, Ribbons still hadn’t returned to the academy. I saw her flunkies from time to time, but they had all dispersed to different groups. I also caught the third prince occasionally giving me concerned looks. Did he know something? Sticking my nose in seemed like it would only get me burned, so I left well enough alone. Danger is best avoided, and I knew not to put my hand on a hot burner.
We were entering the good part of festival preparations. After practicing inside their barriers, the various teams had successfully gotten their parts down, and now that everyone had their bit mastered we sounded even better putting it all together. The pictures were getting finished and we were making progress integrating them into our spells.
They were planning to put the illustrations on display in the academy once the festival was over. Our performance was sort of like an advertisement for them, which I thought was nice. What better way to utilize the academy festival?
Now that classes had come to a full stop so we could allot all our time to preparations, the big day didn’t feel far off at all. That said, we still had a month to go. I don’t know, it just felt like we had already been practicing for at least a few months. I guess it was just my imagination. I’m sure it was my sense of time getting thrown out of whack by Ribbons’s pestering and my father’s sudden offensive.
Now days had taken a peaceful turn, so I hoped it would stay that way as we made our final sprint before the festival.
Hoping for serenity only ever brought me trouble.
“Hm? They’re withdrawing from the festival?”
Right as we were entering the final stages, some of the older students began to announce that they wouldn’t be participating. This info came from the third prince, delivered with a sour look.
“It’s odd that so many of them are saying this at the last moment. Apparently Mr. Fulmanson threatened to remove them from general magic if they didn’t agree to stay in the festival, but that didn’t change their minds.”
They had real guts if Bear couldn’t intimidate them. Not that this was a good time for them to be showing it. The Humerson boy, our chairman, had tried talking to some of the deserters in private, but they still refused to explain why they were leaving.
Could this be...
“Do you know which faction all the withdrawing students are from?” I asked on a hunch.
“Faction? Could that be it? Now that you mention it, they’re all from the noble faction.”
Ooh, leave it to him to know which house’s allegiances lie where.
Naturally, I didn’t know. It never came up in our lessons, though I recalled Colny saying this was the sort of thing you learned at home. Peylon didn’t interact much with the other houses, and I wasn’t just estranged from my birth family—I was pretty much cut off from them. There was no way someone like me would know something like who was in what faction.
But as I expected, there was a good chance the head of the noble faction, Marquess Bilbroza, was behind this. Or maybe it was the dimwit brother doing this.
That’s right. The competent younger brother said to watch out. So this is what they’re up to.
As a simple student chased from her house, there honestly wasn’t anything I could do. So I cried to an adult who could.
“And that’s what happened,” I sniffled.
“That’s certainly no good.” After contacting the Aspozat residence, Sheila had been put on. “We could do something if their plan was a bit more transparent.”
She sounded vexed, and I couldn’t really blame her. Asking the quitters to reverse their decision hadn’t gotten us anywhere. Just like last year, participating in the festival wasn’t absolutely necessary; it just did a lot to improve your grades. Anyone looking to improve their grades took part.
These students must have had a strong reason if they were willing to quit despite the consequences. Maybe they were promised that their work or marriage prospects wouldn’t be affected even if their grades dropped.
“For now, we’ll see if we can find some hard evidence. Lera, do your best to ensure the event is a success even if they pull out.”
“Okaaay.”
Ensure the event is a success, you say?
Filling the holes that had been opened would be a pain, but not impossible. I could cast coordinated spells by myself, and I wasn’t planning on letting that skill go to waste. It wasn’t just me either. General magic had other excellent students that could pull through. And none of the remaining lot belonged to the noble faction. With them, we should be able to make something work.
The only problem was that our enemy might try something else if they learned that we could still put on our performance in our current state. We’d have to push forward in secret.
So the next day, at our training spot, the chairman—all right, let’s just call him the Humerson boy—the third prince, a few of the older students, and I all had a little talk. Needless to say, we used a barrier to ensure nobody could hear us. Once we made sure the others knew we were having a strategy meeting, we dyed the barrier so nobody could see inside it.
I gave a quick explanation of what was going on. It included plenty of conjecture, so I was going to tell them to keep what I said a secret. But they all seemed to know where I was going.
“I mean, considering which houses all our quitters are from, the connection is obvious,” the chairman said with a wry grin.
So they all knew the allegiances of their classmates’ houses. Maybe I was the only one who didn’t. That shocked me a bit, but it made our conversation easier.