Chapter 129 - Aetherion’s Letter

Chapter 129: 129 - Aetherion’s Letter

Adrien already knew who he needed to ask.

With the opened envelope still in one hand, he left his room and started through the manor. There were not many places Evelyne was likely to be at this hour, which should have made finding her simple.

The letter stayed folded inside the envelope as he walked. Adrien had thought about reading it again on the way, though there was little point, since he had already memorised the important part and especially the final line about the grimoire.

That was what he needed explained.

If Evelyne and Ariane knew Aetherion as well as the director claimed, one of them should be able to tell him whether an invitation like that was normal, rare, or something he ought to be far more suspicious about.

Most days there were three possibilities.

If Evelyne had taken a break she would be having tea somewhere quiet, if she was working the office was the obvious place, and after what Ariane told him the previous day there was now a third option in the training grounds.

Adrien checked the first. The sitting room Evelyne normally used for tea stood empty when he arrived, a tray left on a side table with no cup, no open book and no sign she had been there recently.

’Not here.’ He turned around and headed for the office instead. The door was already open, and Adrien stepped inside expecting Evelyne behind the desk, only to find Garrick beside a table covered in papers. Several documents had been sorted into small stacks, each marked with the name of a different squad.

Garrick looked up when he entered. "Do you need something, my lord? Your mother asked me to organize the documents for the new squads."

"Keep doing what you’re doing. I was looking for my mother."

"She isn’t here."

Adrien gave a small nod and left him to it. That alone felt strange, since a few weeks earlier Evelyne’s office had practically been the safest place to look for her.

Now that she had hired more people and begun handing work down, she spent far less time buried behind the same desk, which was probably for the best.

Adrien crossed the manor again and stepped outside. The family training grounds came next, not the private clearing he had rebuilt deeper in the woods, but the larger field used by Clairmont soldiers and members of the household.

Several squads were already working when he arrived. Swords clashed in one section while farther off a group practised coordinated movement under one of Garrick’s officers.

Nobody stopped when Adrien passed. A few soldiers noticed him and went back to their drills almost at once, which suited him. If anyone asked whether he wanted every man to halt training just to greet him, the answer would always be no.

He searched the grounds from one end to the other and found neither Evelyne nor Ariane. Adrien stopped near the edge of the field, looked back toward the manor and only then remembered the most obvious tool he had. ’Tch, I’m an idiot sometimes.’

Absolute Mana Sense spread outward. The familiar awareness rolled across the estate, through the manor, over the courtyards and out into the surrounding gardens, and dozens of signatures surfaced inside his perception, each one distinct once he focused on it. He found Evelyne almost immediately, with Ariane beside her.

Neither was moving much, which meant they were probably sitting somewhere. Adrien pulled the talent back once he had their position and turned toward one of the eastern gardens, mildly annoyed at himself for spending several minutes searching the ordinary way when he could have done that from the start.

The walk took only a few minutes. Adrien had crossed these gardens plenty of times since moving into Greymoor, though now that he was not rushing anywhere he noticed how much they had changed.

When the Clairmonts first arrived, the grounds had been kept well enough to function and nothing more.

Now the hedges were properly shaped, the flower beds restored and several trees trimmed into deliberate forms. Two fountains had been added along the main path, and Adrien could feel mana moving faintly through both, probably driving whatever mechanism kept the water circulating without servants tending them all day.

For the first time, the gardens looked like the grounds of a noble family.

Adrien followed the stone path farther in until the trees opened around a smaller private section. At its centre stood a pavilion of pale stone and dark polished wood, slender columns holding up a curved tiled roof with carved detail running beneath the edges.

Evelyne and Ariane sat there at a low table with a small spread between them: tea, fruit, bread and several pastries. Neither of them appeared to be working, which was probably the rarest thing Adrien had seen all day.

His footsteps reached them before he did. Evelyne turned first, Ariane a second later, and both looked mildly surprised to see him, which he understood well enough.

He spent so much time at the training clearing that even when nobody could see him, the estate could usually hear him. Hundreds of Frost Lances striking targets, repeated explosions and the occasional heavier cast had turned into ordinary background noise around Greymoor, and today that noise had stopped earlier than usual.

"Adrien?" Evelyne looked toward him. "Is something wrong, or did you come to join us?"

"I can sit for a while."

Ariane shifted to one side while Evelyne moved the tea set, leaving enough room for him between them. Adrien stepped beneath the pavilion and took the empty seat.

For a moment neither of them asked why he was carrying an opened envelope. Then both noticed it. Evelyne’s attention went first to the black wax still clinging to one side, and her expression changed so slightly that anyone else would have missed it, while Ariane reacted far more openly, leaning forward to stare at the raven pressed into the wax.

Adrien had barely put the letter on the table when her eyes widened.

"A letter from Aetherion Institute of Magic!?"