Elaine of Antwerd

Isolation

Juliet vanished from classes. Everyone noticed her absence. For the first couple of days, whispers circulated, but no one knew where she had gone. Elaine expressed concerns to Anna that Juliet was not coming to meals either, but Anna seemed dismissive.

"If you ask me, she quit," she stated calmly, focusing on her food. "Left town, went back to traveling. I don't blame her, I mean, she wasn't going anywhere in class. It was kind of pathetic."

Elaine glanced at Boar, who shrugged.

Juliet hadn't been the only one to disappear. In the first tenday or so, a portion of the students had left the school, never to return. Some were discouraged by the course load, but a few of the older ones apparently escaped in pairs without returning to their parents or notifying the academy. Students became especially giggly when discussing those.

However, Elaine doubted that Juliet had quit entirely. So instead of leaving an empty plate at the table, she whispered an apology to whoever cleaned the dishes and took her plate of dinner with her.

She had noticed long ago that each dormitory door was marked. Placed next to the door was a holder with little wooden letters spelling out the names of the occupants. While she wasn't quite sure how "Juliet" was spelled, she was fairly certain that if she sounded out each first name, she could find the room Juliet stayed in.

Every other room had two names, but when she did eventually find Juliet's, she noticed to her surprise that Juliet's was the only name next to the door. Holding a plate of food in one hand, she knocked gently on the door.

There was no reply for several seconds. Steeling herself, Elaine called out, "Juliet? Are you there?" She knocked again.

Silence.

"You, uh, you haven't been coming to meals, so I brought you some dinner. You okay?"

Elaine started to feel a little awkward talking to a door.

"Okay, I'll leave the food here. Please eat something if you're there. Hope you feel better soon." She gently laid the plate on the floor in front of the door and walked back to her own room, but just before she reached it, she heard the door open behind her. Turning back, she saw Juliet's face and one hand as she leaned out of the door to pick up the plate.

The sight was somewhat sobering. Juliet's eyes were dull and puffy, and she was blinking like an owl. Her face was always pretty stern, but now it looked like she was carved of marble, still and secretive. Her hair was left untied and looked like it hadn't been brushed in days, and most concerning, her knuckles were clumsily bandaged with a scrap of fabric stained brown.

Elaine resisted the urge to call out. If Juliet had wanted to talk, she would have answered the door. Instead, she returned to her room, where Boar was lounging comfortably on his bed, squinting at his wire again.

Boar looked up as she came in. "How'd it go?"

"I mean, not well. She didn't answer the door, but I know she's there. She didn't run off."

"Huh. Weird." Boar returned to his wire. He didn't seem to be casting. Instead, he looked like he was... studying the wire. "Do you ever wonder where they got all of these?"

"Um... no. Not really." Elaine pulled the wire out of her pants pocket and looked it over. It was a reddish brown metal, and very thin, but she had no idea what kind of information Boar was getting, studying it so closely. "I guess they got a bunch from a craftsman for the students?"

"These things aren't really that easy to make. The process of drawing wire requires special equipment. And wire is in pretty high demand. Wire netting is used for fencing, thinner wires like this are used for jewelry. But I've never seen a wire this color. And I've been trying to cast on... something else, but it's so much harder to get the same steady glow."

Elaine looked at the wire again. "Now that I think about it, I've seen this metal before, but not this thin."

"You've seen it before?"

"Yeah, a lot of the stuff in the study is made out of this."
"I've only seen it in clockwork and baths. It's not frequently used, and I've only seen it this small in clocks. And those break so easily. Or the pieces get lost. But it's so much easier to cast on." Boar shook his head. "So how did anyone teach how to cast before they started using it?"

The two sat in silence, pondering their wires. Elaine put hers on the desk and cast on it, watching the glow. Wondering.

Shrugging, Boar tucked his into his jacket, hanging on the edge of the bed. "I guess we could ask a feral," he said.

Elaine blinked. "What?"

"I mean, they have to teach without this kind of thing. They don't exactly have the tools to make wire?"

"Why not?"

Boar looked like he was trying to decide if she'd asked something stupid or he'd said something stupid. "Ferals live in the middle of nowhere, right? They're not exactly in cities. So how would they even get metal, much less this? They'd lose it." He nodded to himself.

"So then how would we ask them?" Elaine asked, somewhat more sarcastically than she'd intended.

Boar blinked. "Well, you know a feral. Where does he live?"

"With his husband. A few hours out, in the farmland. You know, like most people." Elaine shook her head. "He doesn't come to town very often, but then, neither does William, and neither did I."

"Really? I thought ferals never came to town. I thought they couldn't."

"Why not?"
He shrugged.

"I mean, Sterling doesn't like coming to town. He says if everyone knew he was a feral magic user, he'd get things thrown at him. But there's nothing stopping him. He brought me to the school the first time I came to ask for a scholarship."

"No one knows? That he's feral?"

"I mean, a few family friends know. A couple of neighbors. But no one else." Elaine's brow furrowed. "Come to think of it, we wouldn't need to ask a feral, right? Lots of people teach their own kids magic, without wire."

"Oh. Right." Boar cocked his head, looking at the ground.