The king was much impressed, and said so.

“It is good,” Clarence agreed.

“It’s amazing,” said the king. It was so good it overcame his usual antipathy toward looking at plans. “We don’t have anything like it. I love it. I’ll be able to see it from my window, won’t I?”

“It should be bigger.”

The king glanced back at the drawings. “It’s already bigger than the old forestry office.”

“But it’ll fill up in no time.”

“You think?”

“Of course,” said Clarence, and rattled off a few statistics about the rate of employment at the bureau, which the king had no intention of checking. Clarence had a good memory for that sort of detail and the king relied on him to get such things right.

As usual the king was torn between wanting a city that worked for the people who lived here, with enough space and facilities for everyone, and getting the place finished. The city’s needs kept growing in spite of his efforts to keep it stable. It seemed there was nothing anyone could do about this.

Eventually the king was convinced by Clarence’s argument that a bigger building would be more future-proofed—they didn’t want to have to knock it down in a few years and start again because the city had outgrown it. The king picked up a pencil and located the space on the edge of the paper that had been left blank for his notes. He scribbled Looks awesome, pls make bigger, great work, and then a smiley face. Clarence jumped off the table and the king removed his shoes and put them back on his feet. The paper rolled back up of its own accord and the king left it on the table for his attendants to collect and take back down to planning.

* * *

Alyssa arrived late for their first tutorial, apologizing and claiming to have gotten lost on the way. She was not wearing the hat, although she was wearing a long, thick coat that seemed quite unnecessary for the weather today.

“You can hang up your coat over there.” Iona pointed to the ornately carved hat stand next to the door.

Alyssa glanced at the hat stand, then turned back to Iona. “I’m fine. I’ll keep it on. Can we start?” She seemed on edge. She was looking around a lot, and kept glancing over Iona’s shoulder to the window.

Iona was a little uneasy herself. The hat may have been absent but Alyssa’s appearance, her manner, her speech—all of them were strange in a way Iona still couldn’t put her finger on.

Yet Iona had kept the appointment. So maybe she wanted to put her finger on it.

Iona started to outline what she was going to cover in this first session—a heavily condensed version of a ten-session first-term course on foundations she had taught more times than she could count, covering principles, methods, and common difficulties. Then she stopped and asked Alyssa if she was following along so far, because the young woman was giving her a blank stare.