This is really upsetting, especially the not knowing. She's smart enough to guess that whatever Gonie had been crying about could be related to all of this, but she doesn't know where he lives and has no way of contacting him and even though he promised they'd see each other again it's been three weeks and there's still no word from him. 

She throws herself wholeheartedly into her apprenticeship and her side projects, because that's better than wallowing and feeling frustrated. Making her chair capable of actually hovering proves a tough nut to crack, so she has plenty to distract her.

There's less work at the workshop than usual, but on the other hand the alchemist is apparently seeing quite a lot more interest recently.

...okay, you know what, she is kind of curious about that. The alchemist was a close second place in her heart when she was flitting from trade to trade like a workaholic butterfly with ADHD (should she figure out butterfly wings? would they be better at flying/hovering? food for thought), she might as well check them out now that she has some extra free time.

"Oh, Lucky, hello, good to see you," says the alchemist when she spots Lucky rolling in through the door. "Be with you in a moment." There are a couple of customers there, and she's discussing some potion parameters with them.

Yeah, sure, she can wait. ...though she can't wait very still, and she'll start slowly making a round to look at all the fascinating, bizarre, mysterious reagents used for alchemy.

Once the customers are out of the store she turns back to Lucky. "Hi, dear, did Jon need anything? I don't think I got any orders from him but I can check..."

"No, no, I'm here for me."

"Oh? Do you wanna buy something?"

"No, I wanna help."

"...don't you have things to do for Jon?"

"I can't be your apprentice but I can help a bit. And learn a bit. You've been having a lot of work, and my master hasn't, and so I have a lot of free time." In which to fret.

"...well, it would be useful to have a little bit of extra help," she agrees. "And Jon has been nothing but complimentary of you."

"—really?"

Olga laughs. "Yes, really. Are you surprised? You do good work!"

"I'm just ten, I think, I don't do a lot."

"Maybe, but the things you do are very good."

"Oh."

......she squirms happily in her chair a bit.

Olga laughs again. "Come on, I have an idea or two of where you could help."

Even though a big part of the reason why she'd wanted to start helping the alchemist out was to figure out what the heck had happened in Einbech, that gets forgotten very quickly in favour of learning alchemy. She doesn't have the clear innate skill with it that she does with engineering, but she makes up for it in enthusiasm and curiosity. And it's very similar, actually, if you look at it a certain way, how you're combining things to create something that's more than just the sum of its parts.

Another month passes, and Einbech slowly recovers from whatever funk had first swallowed it. Or perhaps it's better to say that the pain of the wound gets duller, and people get used to the new normal. Not that it's particularly transparent to Lucky, what it is that people are getting used to; her master continues to not tell her about it, and neither does Olga, and neither does any other adult she talks to. And the children she talks to, of course, don't know anything either.

A month passes, and one day Gonie walks into the workshop.

"—you!!!" She's manning the counter on her own so she spots him as soon as he walks in and then rolls over to him and stops just short of bowling him over. "You disappeared! You told me I'd see you again!"

He looks at her, conflicting expressions warring for dominance over his face—guilt, sadness, happiness, exhaustion—and doesn't say anything.

"Well? You're just gonna stand there and pretend you can't talk? I know you can! I've seen you do it!"

"Lucky?" calls Jon from the back of the workshop. "What's going on out there—oh. Gonie, hello," he says, stepping out to check what the ruckus is about.