The Cursed Extra-Chapter 79: [2.27] The Letter That Changed Everything

"Information is just data until you know what to do with it. Then it becomes a weapon."

***

Penny’s face crumpled with gratitude at being noticed. At being asked. Her lower lip trembled, and for a moment it seemed she might cry from the simple relief of human acknowledgment.

"It’s just... there’s so much, you see, and I’m always so afraid I’ll mix something up and get in trouble for it. Yesterday I almost put Master Thorne’s silk shirt in with the work clothes." Her voice cracked. "Can you imagine? He would have had my head if I’d ruined it."

She glanced around nervously as though half-expecting the noble to materialize from the steam.

"That would have been most unfortunate," Lyra agreed. She began to help sort through the pile of garments on the table. Her fingers moved automatically, separating colors from whites, delicates from rougher fabrics. Her mind catalogued each item and its owner. "Whose is this one?"

She held up a worn tunic. Its original color was hard to determine beneath the layers of careful mending.

"Oh, that belongs to Rhys Blackwood. Poor boy." Penny’s voice dropped to a whisper. "Everything he owns has been mended so many times there’s more patch than original fabric. And the smell. Not bad, mind you. Just... earthy. Like he’s been working in gardens or fields instead of attending classes."

Lyra lifted the tunic closer. Examined the complex patchwork with something approaching professional appreciation.

The stitching was neat. Careful. Done by hands that knew the value of preserving what little they had. Each repair had been executed with obvious skill. Not hasty, functional mending. This was the careful attention of someone who took pride in extending a garment’s life well beyond its intended span.

These stitches came from someone who loved him. A mother’s hands, most likely. The kind of stitches that take twice as long because they’re done properly.

The scent was earth and honest sweat. So fundamentally different from the perfumed, artificial softness of other students’ belongings that it might as well have come from a different world entirely.

"He’s the commoner on scholarship, isn’t he? The one everyone whispers about?"

"That’s right. From some border village, I heard. Blackwood Glade. Somewhere on the edge of the Whisperwood where the monsters are." Penny’s voice carried genuine sympathy now. "Keeps to himself mostly. Doesn’t cause trouble for anyone. Never complains, even when his things come back still damp because we ran out of drying time."

She smoothed the sleeve of the tunic with unconscious tenderness.

"I try to take extra care with his things when I can. But there’s only so much you can do with fabric that’s hanging together by threads and prayers."

As Lyra folded the tunic, her fingers encountered something unexpected. A stiff, crinkled texture that didn’t belong to fabric. A paper that had somehow survived the washing process, protected by the thickness of the material around it.

She palmed it with the smoothness of long practice. The movement was so natural that even someone watching closely might have missed it. The paper disappeared into her sleeve as though it had never existed.

She continued her conversation with Penny without missing a beat.

"The nobles think their silk is difficult to manage," Penny confided, warming to the topic. "But silk at least knows what it is. These old clothes. They’re like elderly relatives. Stubborn, set in their ways, and liable to fall apart if you handle them too roughly."

Lyra laughed. A genuine sound, surprised out of her by the apt comparison.

She stored the observation away as yet another piece of the puzzle.

Later, in the kitchens where copper pots gleamed on hooks and the scent of fresh bread competed with roasting meat, Agnes the cook grumbled about Vance Thorne.

"Third time this week, the little peacock, demanding special treatment for his so-called ’delicate constitution.’" Her broad face was flushed from the heat of the ovens. Her impressive arms, thick from years of kneading dough and hefting cast iron, were folded across her flour-dusted apron. "The boy’s just picky and thinks his father’s coin makes him king of my kitchen."

Lyra arranged tea cakes on a serving platter with care, each pastry placed in an elegant spiral pattern.

"What did he want this time?"

"Imported honey for his morning tea, if you can believe it. Says the local variety gives him headaches." Agnes’s rolling pin cracked against the marble counter. Several nearby scullery maids jumped. "I told him straight to his face that if he wanted to be so particular, he could take it up with the Headmaster himself. The nerve!"

Another strike of the rolling pin. The innocent mound of dough didn’t deserve such treatment.

Useful information. Vance was establishing patterns of entitled behavior that were beginning to grate on even the most patient servants. The staff were developing active resentment toward him. The kind of slow-burning hostility that could prove remarkably useful when the time came.

Servants talked. Servants remembered. And servants had access to places and moments that nobles often forgot were observed at all.

When the Master moves against House Aurum, Lyra thought, accepting a sample bite of honey cake from Agnes with appropriate gratitude, Vance Thorne will find himself with remarkably few friends among those who might warn him.

Evening found Lyra finally alone in her small private room. One of the few privileges that came with being personal maid to a noble, even a disgraced one.

The chamber was barely larger than a generous closet. A narrow bed. A small wooden chest for her belongings. A single chair positioned beneath the room’s only window.

But it was private. It was hers. That made it the most valuable real estate in all of Solamere.

She lit a single candle and carefully unfolded Rhys’s letter. The ink had run in places, blurring words into grey smears. But enough remained legible.

My dearest son,

I pray this letter finds you well and thriving in your studies. Your father sends his love, though he grumbles endlessly about the cost of paper and ink. You know how he is. Showing affection through complaints about expenses, as though admitting he misses you would cost more than the postage. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

I must be honest with you, my darling boy. Elara has taken another turn for the worse. The coughing fits last longer now, and the blood comes more frequently. Some nights I sit beside her bed and count the seconds between attacks, praying each time that this will be the last bad spell.

Dr. Hendricks says we must increase the frequency of her treatments if we hope to slow the progression. The new medicine costs eight silver pieces per bottle, and she needs a bottle every fortnight without fail.

I know this is a terrible burden to place upon you, and I would give anything to spare you this worry. But we have no choice. Without the medicine, Dr. Hendricks says she has perhaps six months. With it, she might see another year. Perhaps more. Perhaps enough time for you to learn something at that grand academy that might help her.

She asks about you constantly, you know. When the pain is at its worst and she cannot sleep, I sit beside her bed and tell her stories about your grand adventures at the academy. It brings her such joy to imagine you learning the magic that might someday help others like her.

She wants to know everything. What the great halls look like. What the other students are like. Whether the food is as fancy as she imagines. I embellish shamelessly, of course. You wouldn’t believe the feasts I’ve invented for your dining hall.

We’re managing as best we can. Please don’t let this consume your thoughts when you should be focusing on your future. Your father has taken extra work with the caravans, despite his bad back. I’m selling my preserves at the market every week. We’ve sold the good furniture. The oak dresser your grandmother left us. The dining chairs.

We will find a way, as we always have.

Focus on your studies and make us proud. That is all we ask.

Your devoted mother,

Sarah Blackwood

PS: Elara made me promise to tell you that she will write you a proper letter herself once she’s feeling stronger. She wants to hear all about the magic you’re learning. She’s particularly curious about whether wizards really do wear those funny pointed hats.