My left hand wrote like it had a personal disagreement with the pen. I tried my name again.
Kael Ashborne.
The letters leaned in three different directions. A drop of ink gathered at the end of the last one, and I lifted the nib before it could make the name less readable.
Good enough.
It had been two days since the examination. My right hand remained wrapped, my left arm still complained when I raised it, and the household had become much less interested in whether I spent the morning on a floor cushion.
His Grace had ordered restricted practice.
Apparently, rest was respectable when someone else authorized it.
I had asked for a small bound notebook with plain pages. No family crest. No decorated clasp. Something that would fit inside a coat without requiring a servant to carry the coat.
The clerk had sent two for approval.
I chose the thinner one and returned the other before it became another household expense I was expected to admire.
Now the first page held my name. My actual name.
I stared at it longer than the handwriting deserved.
For nineteen days, everyone who spoke to me had called me Cedric, Lord Cedric, or young master. I answered to all three before thinking about it now.
That was useful in the corridor.
Here, with the door shut, I wanted to write something that had belonged to me before any of this.
I turned the page. At first, I considered starting with the date of my arrival. Then the game. Then everything I knew about my damaged core.
Those already filled the loose sheets in the folder.
I wrote Hana instead.
Under it, after some thought, I added: She hated the clean kettle sound.
The sentence looked ridiculous without an explanation. I could hear her objecting to that too.
"It sounds too good."
She had been sitting on the end of my bed with the headphones pressed against both ears. The recording played from my computer while I waited beside the desk, pleased with myself.
I had found a cleaner whistle. No footsteps behind it. No June laughing over the last second. No phone microphone turning the loudest part into a crackle.
Exactly the sort of improvement someone should have thanked me for.
Hana took the headphones off.
"Use ours."
"Ours sounds like someone stepped on a kettle."
"That's why it's funny."
I played the cleaner version again, this time over the little speakers.
She waited until it finished.
"Still no."
"At least let me remove June's laugh."
"After the whistle. Leave the bit at the start."
I looked at the sound track. The bit at the start was exactly what I had spent ten minutes trying to cut without damaging the noise underneath.
"You're making this harder."
"You're the one who changed it."
She had a point. I disliked that enough to move the mouse farther from her hand.
Her phone buzzed on the blanket.
June wanted to know whether they should record the captain's last line again. I could see the message from where I sat.
"Tell her no," I said. "The old one is fine."
Hana picked up the phone.
"I'll answer."
"I meant the recording."
"I know what you meant. Let me answer her."
She turned slightly away and started typing.
I went back to the cleaner whistle, listened to half of it, and stopped.
The new version was clearer. It also sounded like an actual kettle rather than a spaceship crew making a terrible mistake.
I dragged their recording back into place.
"Original?" Hana asked without looking up.
"Don't make me change my mind."
"You don't get a vote."
"You asked me to edit."
"I asked you to show me where the cut button was."
I had no answer that made me look better, so I adjusted the volume instead.
She came back to the desk when June replied. They had decided to record another version and choose between them afterward.
Twice the work. Entirely their decision.
June sent a second message before Hana had reached the desk.
"She has to finish her homework first," Hana said.
"Then use the old take."
Hana looked at me.
I raised both hands.
"Right. You're answering."
"Tomorrow is fine. We still need the ending announcement."
"I thought that was done."
"The ending of the play is done. The bit where we say thank you isn't."
I turned toward the microphone.
"Thank you for listening."
She shook her head.
"What was wrong with that?"
"You sound like you're asking everyone to leave."
"I am. It's the end."
She laughed, then tried her own version. Halfway through it, she forgot the name of the teacher who had given them the time slot.
We had to stop while she searched her messages.
No argument mattered enough to hurry that part. She wanted the right name in the recording, and I waited while she found it.
When she finally read the announcement, I left the small breath before the first word. She sounded pleased, as if people had already heard the whole thing and stayed to the end.
Hana reached for the spoon and tapped her mug twice.
...
The pen had stopped moving. I looked at the open notebook and finished the explanation slowly, leaving out the parts I wasn't certain about. I remembered her words. I couldn't remember whether the blanket had been blue or the faded gray one my mother kept telling me to replace.
It didn't matter to the argument. It mattered a little to me.
I left the color out rather than choose one because the page looked incomplete.
Next came June's name and the play's title. Then the two taps, with a note about finding the take on the audio track.
They had meant something ordinary. I wanted that ordinary reason beside them.
For the first time since arriving, I was writing without trying to keep someone from killing me.
The relief made my throat tighten.
I put the pen down and waited until I could pick it up without pressing too hard.
On the next page, I wrote my mother's words.
Eat while it's warm, Kael. I'm here.
I remembered the roughness in her voice after a long shift. The small pause before my name. The way she had waited for me to move my elbow so she could set down her own bowl.
I added those details beneath the sentence.
Reading them back didn't sound like her. I could still supply the sound myself, but the ink held only the words.
That would have to do.
A knock came at the door.
I closed the notebook before answering. The attendant brought the midday meal. He noticed the pen in my left hand and moved the tray to the other side of the desk without asking why.
"The dressing needs changing," he said.
"After I eat."
He glanced at the open space on the table.
I moved the notebook into the drawer and made room for the bowl.
"Now is fine."
He fetched clean cloth and unwrapped the hand carefully. The wet layer beneath had stuck near the base of my fingers. I stared at a mark in the wood while he loosened it with water.
Passing the examination hadn't made the damaged skin close. I still had to open the same hand tomorrow.
"Does it look worse?" I asked.
"No, young master. The edge is cleaner."
I took that without asking for a promise he couldn't give.
He finished the wrap, left the spare cloth within reach, and carried away the old dressing.
I ate while the meal was warm.
Later, the clerk arrived with the first of the departure papers. Most concerned clothes, luggage, and an account I was beginning to understand well enough to dislike.
One sheet was different.
HOUSEHOLD CORRESPONDENCE.
Below the heading were blank spaces for an academy address, a receiving office, and reports attached to formal assessments.
I read it twice.
"These go with my luggage?"
"With your papers, young master."
"Who completes them?"
"You provide the address once accommodation is assigned. Official reports can then be requested through the proper office. His Grace's instructions will accompany your departure clearance."
The clerk placed a second sheet beside it, listing the household's return address and the mark used on incoming correspondence.
Ordinary details. Someone had gone to the trouble of making sure I could be found after I left.
"A personal letter is separate?" I asked.
"Of course."
I wondered who he thought I would write one to.
"Leave these."
He bowed and withdrew.
I kept the household forms in the travel folder. The small notebook went back into the drawer, beneath my own loose pages.
I would have to keep the household forms up to date. The little notebook had room for more whenever I wanted to write.
I opened the notebook once more before bed and read the first line.
Kael Ashborne.
The handwriting was poor. I decided not to correct it.