The prince had come to give out awards to the Conservatory’s top graduates and hosted a reception for them afterward.
“Isn’t he a very fine young man?”
“I for one am glad he is the Master of the Domain.”
He had been very courteous to everyone present, even though Iolanthe could sense that he did not enjoy such occasions that required him to make small talk.
“We have not had one so worthy of that title in a while,” Mrs. Hinderstone said decisively.
On Iolanthe’s way out, Mrs. Hinderstone presented her with a large, beautiful box of chocolates, a thank-you gift. The chocolates attracted several friendly comments as she walked across the great lawn of the Conservatory.
On the far side of the great lawn, which was otherwise free of any arboreal species, stood a magnificent starflower tree, which the prince had planted in memory of his partner, the great elemental mage. On mild, sunny days, Iolanthe often spread open a blanket under the shade of the tree, to study or to share a scoop of pinemelon ice with her friends.
She reached home a few minutes before eight o’clock. Soon after she’d arrived in Delamer from the remote Midsouth March, she had been told of an opportunity to look after a professor’s house while the latter did his research abroad. She’d applied for the position, never thinking it would come to her. But it had. And for living in this lovely house, all she had to do was to make sure that it stayed clean and well maintained.
Almost a bit too much luck for a very ordinary girl from the middle of nowhere.
She entered the rather modest-looking front door of the house, set Mrs. Hinderstone’s present on an occasion table, and walked to the balcony at the back. The Conservatory of Magical Arts and Sciences sat on the hip of the Serpentine Hills. From the balcony, she had a spectacular view of the capital city, all the way to the dramatic coastline. She stood for almost ten minutes, gazing at the Right Hand of Titus, upon the ring finger of which sat the Citadel, the prince’s official residence in the capital city.
With a sigh, she headed back inside to fetch the thick stack of laboratory reports sitting on her desk, waiting to be dealt with. As she walked out again, her gaze fell upon the portrait that had been taken at her graduation, of the Master of the Domain handing over her certificate and her medal of excellence.
She halted in her tracks.
The portrait had been moved from her nightstand to her desk, then to the top of the bookshelves, and at last to the back of a cabinet with all kinds of knickknacks inside. Still it distracted her. Still it made her stop whatever she was doing to stare. And remember.
And wish.
Stupid. It was so stupid it was humiliating. Girls all over the Domain were in love with the prince—at the annual coronation day parade they fainted by the score along Palace Avenue. Understandably enough—he was an attractive young man in a position of tremendous power, and the hero of the Last Great Rebellion, no less. But they were starry-eyed adolescents and Iolanthe was a woman of twenty-three in the last year of her postgraduate work. She taught advanced practicals to first- and second-year Conservatory students. And for heaven’s sake, she was sensible and disciplined enough to grade their laboratory reports bright and early on a Saturday morning!
And yet it persisted, this somewhat unhealthy fixation on the prince. She didn’t go to coronation day parades; she didn’t buy memorabilia affixed with his likeness; and she never made a fool of herself in front of the Citadel waving a Will you marry me? sign—she didn’t even go anywhere near the Citadel, if she could help it.
But his least doings mattered to her. She studied his schedule as published by the Citadel, followed media coverage of the ceremonial events he attended, and parsed the language of his statements and speeches for his true assessment of the state of the Domain.
It was complicated enough, the realm’s transition to democracy from a millennium of autocratic rule followed by years of foreign occupation. On his twenty-first birthday, he had also made the unprecedented move to acknowledge his Sihar heritage.
The next month, as debate raged among her fellow students, with one of them declaring, “The Master of the Domain is the exception that proves the rule,” she had stood up and asked, even as her