Ranara and her little daughter Azabel move to Urtho's Tower when the latter can say six words ("up", "mama", "milk", "no", "now", and "please") and hasn't started to walk yet. Ranara sets up to teach little children to read, ones who don't have evident Gifts yet - Ranara herself has Mindspeech, is all, with about a classroom's worth of range. Azabel sits in on classes, worn on her mother's back or later plopped in a corner with toys or, when she's only four, plopped in a corner with a book, younger than the other kids in the class. When Azabel has in fact sat through her mother's curriculum she is turned somewhat loose, to walk very carefully up and down and around the Tower, exploring.
:I don't remember all their names - there were three of them in on it, I think one of them was called Conn. I...can think their faces at you if you want to check if you know them?:
Ma'ar holds their faces up in his surface thoughts as clearly as he can.
One of the boys, a tall redhead, is unfamiliar to Azabel, but 'Conn' she recognizes as one of the hanger's-on who Skan pinned in the earlier incident, and the third one is the boy who lost his temper at her and tried to attack with magic after she set-commanded his friend.
:He's the one who - attacked me hardest: Ma'ar clarifies. :Conn is the one who was trying to scare me first but after I started fighting, I mean:
:Number three's the one who tried to set me on fire months ago! Conn was with him, didn't do anything just ran off, I don't know the redhead. Who's your teacher, was anyone else involving themselves in the situation -:
:The teaching assistant who broke up the fight is Journeyman Levitt. Our teacher for the whole class is Adept Liora but she wasn't there for the practice session. Some of the other students for the class were sort of - gawking in the background, but no one else talked or did anything: He shudders. :I think I scared Illa a lot: He feels terrible about it.
:I don't know if I can get you back into the class but they shouldn't just get away with dangerous sabotage and I think them having a track record'll help - is there anything else I should know? Do you know which of them actually changed her notes?:
:I...don't know for sure but I think it was probably Conn, I saw him go by her desk for no reason when she was in the bathroom - I wasn't really paying attention...: He'd been working on his own preparation. Stupidly - well, except, why should he have been expecting it? Students don't normally go around sabotaging each other's work. And it's not like they'd dared do it to him.
:Dunno: He's miserable and in pain and scared, but he doesn't plead for her not to leave, that would be stupid.
:I'm going to finish up these wards so you can sleep and go talk to people, okay?:
:Okay:
It feels like he's way too scared to possibly be sleepy, but Ma'ar closes his eyes anyway and tries to get comfortable, which isn't trivial when neither of his arms are that usable.
The wards he can sense vaguely with mage-sight are soothing. By the time Azabel finishes, he is in fact fast asleep.
She figures he can Mindspeak her from here if he needs anything else.
She goes and looks for Illa. Hertasi if no one else will know where to find her.
One of the hertasi can help! Illa sleeps in a girls' dorm room on the other end of the floor from where Ma'ar once shared a room with some not-very-welcoming roommates, and the hertasi can take her over there.
Aza sits. "So the problem with your spell, how bad was it? Did the shield save your life or just your eyebrows?"
Illa flinches, then takes a deep breath. "...I don't know, I wasn't - I guess it looked wrong and I was - being an idiot and should've noticed it wasn't right, but I wasn't done, I'd only put half the power in and then Ma'ar - surprised me, and I triggered it early. It...made a loud scary noise, it singed my notes and they were behind us, but I - I had my eyes closed and it was Ma'ar's shield not mine, I dunno how much force he caught with it." Shrug. "He said it would've killed me, if I'd tried to finish it."