@inthegroundontime From Here!
Jane sits in the kitchen, at the table, face buried in one of Rudyard’s magic books. Raiding the attic had been a fruitful endeavor, providing them with plenty of learning material, which will well-occupy their time now that there are a dearth of funerals for Rudyard to oversee and he has agreed to let Jane study him. He studies her, too, in his own way. It isn’t scientific, but he’s learned that he cannot start a conversation with her as she reads because even though she’ll be polite about it, all she will want to do is return to her book. He can’t blame her, really. The magic books are fascinating. He has also learned that the look of consternation which tugs at her face now means that something in the book she is reading is at odds with something she’s either read before or observed in action. Her hand twitches on the table, as if in search of a pen and paper. Instead, she alights upon her tea and she takes a sip. It relaxes her, but only just. The drafty kitchen can’t be as comfortable as a grand university library. Rudyard approaches her quietly. Sliding out of his jacket, he studies her teacup and it refills as he stares at it concentratedly. When she startles, he slips his jacket over her shoulders and sits opposite her. “The Billington funeral was a success. Only one person had to be ejected for violence and it wasn’t me,” he informs her. “How has your research been going?”
She’d tried to look at it as an adventure. After hours of digging through boxes, finding mostly sentimental children’s trophies and old records. But then, in the big steamer chest under a taxidermied cat, she found the jackpot. Jane hadn’t cheered that hard since she’d gotten accepted to Cambridge.
Once everyone knew she hadn’t found anything dangerous up in the attic, Jane had gotten right to work. She cross referenced with what little information she had, as well as with her observations of Rudyard over the last few weeks. He was already improving so quickly! His mastery of tiny magics still impressed her, and he was doing more and more of them every day. Jane was almost getting used to them, but she still noticed when something warm settled over her shoulders.
“Oh! Oh I’m glad to hear that.” Which was true. She was glad to see that no one needed bailing out of jail or a ride to the hospital, especially Rudyard. Jane pulled the jacket a bit tighter around her and looked back at her notes. “It’s been, ah, difficult.”
She didn’t want to admit just how difficult to him. Jane had found dozens of ‘rules’ that conflicted themseves, paragraphs of explanation negated by one or two sentences later on. She wonderedif that was simply the nature of magic, or if she was somehow missing something. “But I have made some progress, I think. Of course, you’ll have to be the final judge of that.”
