The breakfast table was nearly cleared when the Duke set down his cup and looked at Fainyx with the particular quality of attention that meant he had something to say and had been waiting for a reasonable moment to say it.
Fainyx looked back at him.
"I have arranged two instructors for your studies," the Duke said. "Are you agreeable to having both?"
Fainyx nodded once, unhurried, the way he agreed to most things that had already been decided before he was consulted about them.
"Both are S rank," the Duke continued. "One is an adventurer. The other holds a noble title. A marquis." He said it simply, as if this were perfectly ordinary information that required no further elaboration, which from the Duke's perspective it probably was.
Fainyx absorbed this with his expression perfectly composed.
'A marquis huh...'
He was curious despite himself. An S rank adventurer who was also a marquis was not a common combination and the Duke had volunteered nothing further about who either of them actually were which meant he was going to have to wait and find out in person.
He reached for his notebook.
[ When will I meet them? ]
"After breakfast," the Duke said. "They will introduce themselves today. Lessons begin tomorrow."
Fainyx nodded and set his pen down.
Across the table Liam had been listening to all of this with the focused attention he reserved for things he found genuinely exciting and could no longer contain himself.
"S rank instructors?!" He leaned forward with both hands on the table. "Fainyx is getting S rank adventurers?!"
Adam looked at him with the mild expression of someone who was going to say something measured. "We also have high ranking instructors."
"Knights and historians are different!" Liam said immediately. "S rank adventurers are amazing! Can I meet them?"
"You have lessons," the Duke said.
Liam's expression went through several stages of protest before arriving at resigned acceptance. "...Yes, Father."
Adam glanced at Fainyx briefly with the quiet attentiveness he sometimes directed at him when something had happened that he hadn't fully processed yet. Fainyx met his gaze with complete neutrality and Adam looked away and returned to his food.
Fainyx picked up his tea and finished it and thought about marquises and S rank adventurers and waited for breakfast to end.
---
The receiving room was comfortable and well lit, tall windows letting in the late morning light, and Fainyx sat with his notebook in his lap and Estrella standing slightly behind him. The Duke stood nearby with the calm presence of someone who had arranged something and was waiting for it to proceed as arranged.
The door opened.
Two people walked in.
Fainyx looked at the first one and recognized that she is strong immediately from the way she moved, the controlled economy of someone who had spent years making sure every motion served a purpose. Long gray hair pulled back neatly. Yellow eyes that assessed the room in a single practiced sweep before settling on Fainyx with quiet focus. She looked to be in her mid twenties but carried herself with considerably more weight than that suggested.
She stopped and bowed, respectful and clean.
"Ambrosia Verdant," she said. "S rank adventurer. I have been asked to oversee your basic physical training." She looked at Fainyx directly. "Nothing strenuous. His Grace has informed me of your condition. We will work within your limits."
Strict and serious. But something underneath it that wasn't cold, just contained.
Fainyx nodded politely.
Then the second person walked in.
Black hair and black eyes. Hands in his pockets.
Fainyx's internal state went from calm to considerably less calm in the span of approximately one second.
'Master Yong?!'
He kept his face perfectly still.
'W-why is master Yong here!?'
His expression did not change.
Yong stepped fully into the room and took in the space with the easy unhurried interest of someone who had walked into a great many rooms and found most of them manageable. His gaze moved across the Duke, across Estrella, across Ambrosia, and then landed on Fainyx.
For a fraction of a second, something moved at the corner of Yong's mouth.
Not quite a smile.
More like the specific expression of someone exerting genuine effort not to laugh.
His lips twitched.
Fainyx looked at him with the polite blankness of a child encountering a complete stranger for the first time in his life and felt a considerable amount of internal irritation that he had absolutely no outlet for.
Yong composed himself admirably and gave a proper bow.
"Yong Hae Shi," he said, his tone settling into something appropriately formal. "I hold the title of a Marquis and I run an establishment in the capital. I will be covering the history of the kingdom and noble houses." A brief pause. "I look forward to working with you, young master."
He met Fainyx's eyes.
His lips twitched again.
Fainyx looked back at him with complete serenity and the internal equivalent of a very long sigh.
He was going to have to do this every single day.
He opened his notebook, wrote with the careful deliberateness of someone composing their very first impression of a person they had definitely never met before, and held it up.
[ It is nice to meet you. ]
"Likewise," Yong said pleasantly.
His expression was perfectly composed now except for the very slight quality around his eyes that suggested he was finding this considerably more amusing than was appropriate for the situation.
Fainyx closed his notebook.
Ambrosia glanced between the two of them briefly with those sharp yellow eyes and said nothing.
Behind Fainyx, Estrella had gone still in the particular way she went still when something had caught her attention and she was working through it quietly. He could feel her focus shifting toward Ambrosia with a careful consideration that suggested she was looking at something she almost recognized but hadn't quite placed yet.
He gave it time.
The Duke looked at Fainyx. "Are you agreeable?"
Fainyx nodded.
"Good." The Duke addressed both instructors with the efficient brevity he brought to most things. "Lessons begin tomorrow morning. The arrangements have been prepared."
"Understood," Ambrosia said.
"Of course," Yong agreed, still in that pleasant composed tone that Fainyx had never once heard him use during any of their midnight sessions in the garden.
The introduction concluded and the Duke excused himself and the room shifted into something slightly less formal. Ambrosia stood with her hands folded and her expression thoughtful, her yellow eyes moving over Fainyx with the quiet assessment of someone cataloguing what they were working with. Yong rolled his shoulders slightly and looked around the room with an expression of mild interest.
His gaze drifted toward the window.
Toward the garden.
He didn't look at Fainyx when it happened.
But Fainyx noticed.
He sighed internally for what felt like the fourteenth time that morning and thought that having Yong as an official instructor was objectively useful because it gave them legitimate reasons to be in the same space without anyone asking questions.
It was also going to require him to maintain a fiction every single day in front of Estrella and Ambrosia and anyone else who happened to be present and the fact that Yong clearly found this funny was not making it easier.
He looked at Yong one more time.
Yong was talking to Estrella about the lesson schedule with the composed attentiveness of a responsible instructor who was taking his duties seriously.
His lips were perfectly still.
Fainyx looked back down at his notebook.
He was going to need significantly more pages.