The investigation took two days.
Arthur helped with the rumors. Not fabrications — the actual sequence of events, moved through the spider network from one casual conversation to another, spreading through the student body with the organic speed of true information. The prince had hired a professional assassin to target a beautiful blonde student who refused his advances. Offended at being turned down and use to always getting his way he sought revenge. A truly despicable display of abuse of royalty and wealth. The professional had gone to a female student's room in the night with a knife. The student in question was the same one the prince had assaulted three days earlier in the arena.
The noble students were furious. Several of them came from houses that had diplomatic relationships with the prince's kingdom and were now in the position of being associated with someone who had attempted to have a classmate murdered in her bed. The commoner students were all fearful, if this could happen to a farmer's daughter in the middle of the night, were any of them safe? Discontent and anger spread through campus. Protest's formed outside of the Headmaster's office. The other enrolled royalty — three minor princes and a duke's daughter from different countries — formally requested the academy take action, which was a political development that the academy administration had not anticipated and could not ignore.
The prince, from his medical bed, denied everything.
The assassin, facing a choice between the academy's interrogators and whatever the prince's retribution might look like from a prison cell, chose the interrogators.
On the fifth day the academy expelled the prince, issued a formal statement that was notable for how specifically it described what had occurred, and notified the relevant diplomatic office that the individual in question was being transferred to kingdom custody pending negotiation with his country of origin regarding appropriate terms.
The prince was carried out of the medical wing in a chair. He looked at the academy courtyard — the students watching his departure — and his gaze stopped on Clara, who was standing with a group of her friends and who met his eyes with the specific composure of someone who had nothing particular to say.
He looked away first.
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Life at the academy settled back into something more ordinary after that, which Clara appeared to find slightly disappointing and adapted to with the practical efficiency she brought to everything.
She trained. She attended lectures. She took on hunting and collection missions with rotating groups of students, which served the dual purpose of building relationships and giving her something physically demanding to do, the absence of which she found significantly worse than its presence.
She noticed Franscene on the third week.
The girl was in the practice yard in the early morning, working a spear form against a post, when Clara came through on her way to the morning run. She was small — not short exactly, but slight, with brown hair and the specific quality of someone who was trying very hard at something and had not yet seen the results they were hoping for. Clara watched for a moment. The form was technically correct. The power behind it was not what it needed to be.
She also noticed the three girls watching from the yard's edge with the specific quality of people who were watching in order to comment rather than to learn.
She ran her morning route. On the way back she went through the practice yard again. The three girls were still there. Franscene was still working, with the focused determination of someone who had decided she was not going to leave until she had done what she came to do, regardless of the audience.
One of the watching girls said something. The other two laughed.
Clara stopped.
She looked at the three girls. She looked at Franscene, who had looked like she was use to to bullying.
She walked over to Franscene.
She said: 'Your hand position on the back grip is costing you leverage. Drop it two inches.'
Franscene looked at her. The expression of someone who had been approached by the most talked-about person on campus and had not yet determined whether this was good or bad.
'Try it,' Clara said.
Franscene adjusted. Ran the form. The difference in the strike weight was immediate and audible.
She looked at Clara.
'I'm Clara,' Clara said, and held out her hand.
'I know who you are,' Franscene said. 'Everyone knows who you are.'
'And you're Franscene,' Clara said. 'I've seen you out here every morning this week. You're committed. That matters more than people think.' She glanced at the three girls at the fence, who were now watching with the expression of people who had been interrupted in an activity and were recalibrating. 'Ignore them. They're here to watch. You're here to work. Those are different things.'
The three girls left.
Franscene looked at the space they had vacated. She looked at Clara.
'Thank you,' she said.
'Don't thank me,' Clara said. 'Come on the morning run tomorrow. I go at six.'
◆ ◆ ◆
She called Arthur that evening.
'There's a girl I want to help,' she said. 'She's working hard but she's not improving the way she should be. Her baseline is limiting her.'
'What are you asking,' Arthur said, with the tone of someone who already knew what she was asking.
'One capsule a day,' Clara said. 'Just a gold one. Not even a black one. Just enough to give her body something to work with.'
'You want to secretly enhance a classmate.'
'I want to help her,' Clara said. 'She's been given nothing and she's trying anyway. She deserves a fair start.'
Arthur was quiet for a moment on the other end of the device.
'One gold capsule per day,' he said. 'Maximum seven days. Then we stop and let her adjust to what she has before considering more.'
'Thank you,' Clara said.
'Put it in water,' he said. 'She doesn't need to know.'
'I know,' Clara said.
He sent a supply through the spider the following morning — a small vial, enough for a week, the capsules dissolved in a solution that had no taste and no color. Clara mixed the day's dose into the water flask she brought to their morning training and handed it to Franscene at the start of the session.
Over seven days Franscene became noticeably stronger. Not dramatically — a gold capsule was not a dragon absorption — but the kind of increase that the right person with the right commitment translated into visible results faster than the increase itself would suggest. By the end of the week she was keeping pace with Clara on the morning run for the first section, which she had not been able to do before, and the strike weight on her spear form had improved enough that the post they were practicing on was showing wear.
Arthur told Clara to stop.
Clara stopped, the way she stopped when Arthur was firm about something, which was without argument and without sulking, because she had learned over the years that when he stopped her it was for a reason worth respecting.
He sent word through the spider: *her body needs time. What she has now is real. Let her find out it's real.*
Clara watched Franscene that week with the specific satisfaction of someone who had given a gift that could not be traced back to them. Franscene trained with the energy of someone who had discovered that the work was producing results and had recalibrated upward, and that energy was its own kind of fuel.
One afternoon Franscene said: 'I don't know what changed. But ever since training with you, I have seen noticable improvements.'
Clara said: 'You worked for it. That's what changed.'
This was true, she had decided. The capsule had given Franscene's body resources it didn't have. Franscene had done everything else herself.
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