The Exiled Gem

A Clash and A Confession

Master George did NOT like the idea of Diana in the council.

'Why?' He asked as soon as they had suggested it.

'Why not?' Asked Diana, though it was not a wrong thing to ask, her tone infuriated Alexandra. She loved Diana, but nobody spoke to Master George that way.

'We're talking,' Alexandra told her, gently, but firmly, then looked at Watson, as though saying, do something. He nodded and pulled the Sister away. Daniel had left for getting Everly's replies from the supervisory. Nobody was quite interested in invading Daniel's letter-reading space. It left Alexandra, Fannel and Kane to press Master George until he agreed. It was good, because none of them were very prone to losing their temper, knew the subtle art of bribing and buttering, and were diplomatic.

Of course, he finally gave in.

Not without conditions though.

A list of seven huge points. By the time he reached his seventh condition, Alexandra had forgotten what the first had been. In any case, when he was done, they nodded as if every word had been engraved in their heads.

'I trust you three and so I'm allowing it. Personally - I did not like her attitude. I would not believe she was your sister, Mark Fannel, unless five spies were giving me their word.' he added in a grumble.

'If you would only duel her, Sir.' Mark replied, with a tilt of head. The prospect of a duel always brightened up their teacher, and he walked with a new spring in his step later on. But not before he had given them six months of supervisory, to which Kane had had some objection. That had been resolved only when Master George had mentioned an alternative of cleaning the weaponry in place of supervisory. Watching him go, and deciding that it had been quite a while of it, Alexandra decided to challenge her brother to a duel. A casual match - which he claimed she would lose in a minute. 

* * *

Alexandra and Mark - drenched after the long duel, because it had been raining outside when they had been at it - stepped into the Supervisory center the next night. The rains had stopped a quarter of an hour earlier, but their match had lasted three quarters of it.

'So, what happened?' Kane asked, with polite interest. Daniel didn't indulge in combat much, and as Alexandra soon registered - Watson was having an animated conversation with Diana.

'Huh - close match,' she told Kane, 'I lost.'

'Honest compliment - she is getting dangerously good,' Fannel told him, dropping down. He had a level of understanding with Kane that Alexandra didn't think she could reach soon. They both talked could almost talk with their eyes. Then Mark's eyes fell on Diana. 'You?' he demanded, 'Come on, this is spy business, Diana.'

She tilted her head in a soft challenge. And Mark would have picked up his fallen dagger in acceptance of it, had he not been tired out.

'Let her stay,' Watson offered, scrambling to Fannel's side, which he could now finally occupy without getting smacked. 'She'd anyhow be a better spy than you, had she got the chance to be one.' and then he got smacked.

Alexandra had put up on the floor too, trying to make herself comfortable against a hard chair, because she couldn't pick herself up the ground. Like all the other times when she rested, Liam had almost started coming into her mind, and she had started rolling her eyes at him without making any true efforts to push him out. Diana was leaning on the wall and twisting an iron ring on her finger, watching Watson make another go at Mark (which was duly returned in equal brutality of comment). 

What's going on between Watson and Diana? Alexandra asked herself, Mark Fannel will never let them be a couple. 

Mark himself was remarking to Kane with a shake of head, how the batch of Alexandra's year would never grow up. And Kane was talking, at the same time to both Daniel and Mark, somehow managing to listen to both and reply aptly enough to have them thinking awhile for a reply.