By the sixth year after Lucien has left for academy, The Stupids were no longer a secret that needed keeping. They were a problem that needed managing which, depending on who you asked, was either the same thing or the exact opposite.
The Imperial Concert had been the turning point. Not the first one, not the second the third, the one where Emperor Leon the First had been in the front row by personal arrangement rather than protocol, which was itself significant because the Emperor attending anything by personal arrangement rather than protocol was the kind of detail that every court observer in the capital noticed and filed away and spent the following week drawing conclusions from.
He had sat through the full performance. He had not left during the second song. He had not maintained the specific expression of polite endurance that senior officials deployed at cultural events they were attending out of obligation. He had watched the stage with the focused attention of a man genuinely interested in what was happening on it, and when the last note faded he had said something to the court chamberlain beside him that the chamberlain had written down and that had subsequently been copied by three separate people whose jobs involved knowing what the Emperor said to court chamberlains.
What he said was: "I have never heard anything like it. Find out who they are."
The Duchess Seraphina, who had been managing the band's anonymity for six years with the particular patience of someone who understood that a secret kept too long eventually becomes its own kind of power, had received the Emperor's inquiry through channels and had responded through channels with the information she had decided to provide and none of the information she had decided not to which was a distinction that the Emperor, who understood how information worked, had recognized and respected.
What he received was the band was called The Stupids, they were under the protection of House Valerius, their identities were private by choice and would remain so, and they would be honored to perform at whatever Imperial events His Majesty considered appropriate.
The Emperor had laughed. According to the chamberlain, who had been present, it was a genuine laugh the kind that arrives before dignity has time to intervene.
He had approved the arrangement.
After that, everything accelerated.
The band that had started in an alleyway with instruments nobody recognized was now second only to the Harmony and Unity Orchestra the kingdom's oldest and most decorated musical institution, whose founding predated three royal bloodlines and whose reputation was so established that it functioned less like a band and more like weather. Second to that, in six years, from an alley.
The albums a word Raviellis had introduced along with the format itself, recorded through a mana-crystal resonance process that the Hidden Theatre's staff had spent eight months developing had spread beyond Aurelionis entirely. Merchant caravans carried them. Diplomatic envoys requested copies. Three neighboring kingdoms had sent formal inquiries about touring arrangements. A duke from the eastern territories had offered a sum that Marianne had described as "impolite" for a private performance, which she had declined on the band's behalf with a politeness that had the same effect as a door closing.
The classical establishment had not given up. Lord Edvane Creston had published two formal papers and delivered one address to the Royal Conservatory council that was described by those present as thorough, compelling, and completely unable to change the fact that The Stupids' latest album had outsold every classical release of the past three years combined.
Aurelionis had, somewhat against its institutional preferences, developed a second kind of music.
And in the Valerius estate, on a Tuesday afternoon that was not significantly different from any other Tuesday afternoon, a letter arrived.
✦ ✦ ✦
The Valerius Estate — Raviellis and Elara's Study
The head butler delivered the formal letters to the Duke's study as was standard. The second letter the one sealed with no official mark, addressed in handwriting that was precise in the particular way of someone who had been trained in formal penmanship and had spent six years slowly relaxing it back toward their actual handwriting went to Raviellis directly, which the head butler did without comment because the head butler had been in this household long enough to understand that some things did not require comment.
Raviellis read it once. Then he went and found Elara.
She was in the practice room working through a new drum arrangement that she had been developing for two weeks and that had reached the stage where it was almost right, which was the most frustrating stage because almost right required you to keep looking for the thing that was wrong rather than simply playing.
"Letter from Lucien," Raviellis said from the doorway.
Elara set her sticks down immediately. "The formal one or the actual one?"
"There are two."
"Of course there are."
She stood up.
"He sent a formal one to father and then a real one to you."
"He says he sent separate ones to mother and father both."
"Smart, Father reads mother's letters." She crossed the room and held out her hand.
"Give it."
Raviellis handed it over. She read it standing in the middle of the practice room, her expression doing several things in sequence amusement, pride, something briefly and involuntarily soft that she smoothed over before it had time to establish itself, then amusement again, then the particular sharpness that arrived when she found something worth using.
"He beat Prince Nox in a sword duel," she said.
"I read that part."
"The first Imperial Prince lost all his points to Lucien and had to eat vegetables for a week."
"I read that part too."
"I love him so much," Elara said, in the tone she used for things that genuinely pleased her flat, matter-of-fact, entirely sincere.
She kept reading. Raviellis watched her face the way he watched most things without appearing to, which was different from not doing it.
"He can't use both cultivation method," she said, quieter now. "Sword and magic, He had to choose."
"He chose aura."
"He dreamed of being a magic sword user since he was eight."
She was looking at the letter.
"He doesn't sound upset about it."
"No," Raviellis said. "He wouldn't."
"Does that make it better or worse?"
Raviellis thought about this honestly. "Both," he said. "The way most things about Lucien are both."
She folded the letter. Opened it again. Read the last section and stopped.
Her expression changed in a specific way. The way Elara's expression changed when something had crossed a line she had not known she was going to find funny until she found it.
"He's a fan of the Cute Sister," she said.
"I read that part."
"He thinks she looks familiar."
"I read that part too."
"He says he's probably thinking too much."
"He is," Raviellis said, "thinking exactly the right amount."
A pause, Then Elara looked at him with the expression she had been perfecting since she was five the expression that meant she had found something excellent and intended to do something with it.
"We're going to tell Mira," she said.
"Yes," Raviellis agreed.
"Right now."
"Right now," he confirmed.
"This is the best Tuesday we've had in months."
"It's a strong Tuesday," he said.
✦ ✦ ✦
From — L.O. Valerius — Imperial Academy, Sixth Year
Dear Raviellis and Elara,
Your brother is now eighteen years old, objectively handsome, and a highly socially responsible person. I mention this because based on what I hear from Mira and Marianne, you two are only growing up physically, not mentally, and I want to establish the contrast clearly before we proceed.
I have already sent separate letters to mother and father. This one is only for you, which means you will burn it after reading, which means father will never know I described our sword instructor as a muscle brain, which is accurate but undiplomatic. You will also not tell mother I used the word muscle brain because she will side with the instructor on principle.
Academics are going well. In the sixth year I am ranked third overall. I cannot beat the first Imperial Princess Rose her sword form is technically flawless and I have accepted this and I lost to Nerissa, the heir of the White Magic Tower, in the mana practical, which was not a surprise given that I chose aura over mana as my primary medium. I want to say something about this. I dreamed of using both magic and sword together since I was small. I thought about it for a long time before I chose. But without a spatial constitution you cannot walk two paths properly you can stand at the intersection and look impressive, or you can walk one path completely and actually arrive somewhere. I chose to arrive. Aura suits me. I am not unhappy about it. I just wanted you both to know I thought about it.
The point system here is strict and elegant. No outside currency functions inside the academic city we earn points through task completion, duels, event participation, and class rankings. This applies to everyone including the royal family, which I find genuinely satisfying. After my duel with His Highness the First Imperial Prince Nox which I won, I am mentioning this again because it continues to please me he lost sufficient points that he was required to eat vegetables exclusively for one full week. He was not gracious about this. I respected him more for it, actually. A person who loses badly tells you very little. A person who is annoyed about losing fairly tells you something real.
Since you two will be joining the academy in a few months, some practical information bring your own ink. The academy supply is adequate and priced accordingly. Budget your points from the first week the students who spend freely early regret it by the second term without exception. The headmaster is an archmage, which confused me initially, but mages are patient and precise in ways that matter for administration, so I have made my peace with it. The sword instructor is, as previously noted, a muscle brain. His technique is impeccable. His explanations are physical demonstrations with sound effects. You will adapt.
One more thing, and I am aware this is slightly strange to include in a letter, but the popular topic in our academy recently is the band called The Stupids. Someone brought an album back from the western territories after a holiday break and it spread through the dormitory floors in approximately three days. I have listened to it many times. It is genuinely unlike anything I grew up hearing. I find myself thinking about the lyrics at inconvenient moments. Our dukedom apparently has exceptional musicians I did not know this and I am slightly embarrassed that I learned it from an academy dormitory rather than from home. You two are honestly lucky to have heard them perform live.
I want to note specifically that I am a considerable fan of the Cute Sister. There is something about her playing the timing, the way the drum arrives exactly where it needs to arrive that feels almost familiar in a way I cannot explain. I am probably thinking too much. I do this sometimes.
I truly missed you both. Elara who shouts and occasionally cries and pretends she does not. Raviellis who is silent and mature and somehow always three steps ahead of every conversation he is in. I have two years remaining here before leaving the academy. When you arrive we will have time together. I am looking forward to this more than I will say in a letter that is only slightly informal.
Tell Mira and Marianne I asked after them. And give them the enclosed separately I wrote them a few lines because they have been with our family since before I can properly remember and they deserve to be asked after by name and not as an afterthought in someone else's letter.
Burn this when you're done. Father will be disappointed by the muscle brain comment and I cannot afford to be disappointed by proxy from a different city.
Your one and only, genuinely impressive, and deeply missed elder brother
Lucien Octavius Valerius
✦ ✦ ✦
The East Corridor — Where Mira and Marianne Were Working
Mira was reorganizing the linen storage with the focused efficiency of someone who had been doing this for years and had opinions about the correct way to fold a fitted sheet that she had not been asked for and was going to have anyway. Marianne was beside her cataloguing the seasonal inventory with a precision that matched her sister's, which was what happened when two people had been doing the same work in the same household long enough that their organizational habits had quietly merged.
They heard the footsteps before they saw anyone not because the footsteps were loud but because both sisters had, through years of experience, developed the ability to distinguish Raviellis and Elara's approaching footsteps from all other footsteps in the estate by speed, rhythm, and the specific quality that meant they were coming somewhere with a purpose rather than passing through.
This particular approach had a purpose.
"They're coming here," Marianne said quietly.
"I know," Mira said, not looking up from the shelf.
"They have that walk."
"I know."
"When they have that walk it means—"
"It means something is about to happen to us, yes," Mira said.
"I am aware, I am choosing to finish this shelf first because I will need the sense of accomplishment."
Raviellis appeared in the doorway first, which was slightly unusual normally Elara arrived places first because Elara moved through the world at the pace of someone who had already decided where they were going and considered the distance between themselves and the destination a formality. The fact that Raviellis was in front meant he had managed the approach, which meant this was structured, which meant it was worse than it would have been if it were spontaneous.
"Mira," he said pleasantly. "Do you know that Lucien sent a letter today?"
Mira set down the sheet she was holding.
"Yes, young master, We are aware and We sent the formal correspondence directly to the Duke's study through the head butler as usual."
"Of course," Raviellis said. "The formal ones, yes."
He raised his hand. In it was a letter different paper, different seal, different handwriting than the formal ones. Clearly personal. Clearly not the letter that had gone to the Duke's study.
Marianne looked at it.
"Who sent that one? A fan?"
It was a reasonable guess. Since The Stupids had reached the level of popularity they had reached, the estate received a steady volume of correspondence directed toward the band through various channels some clever, some persistent, some simply addressed to "The Hidden Theatre, Western District, Valerius Territories" with no further specifics, as though the postal system would sort it out, which it usually did. The Duchess Seraphina's organization handled the public correspondence. The genuinely invasive correspondence went to a separate location entirely. The staff had learned to treat unusual letters as routine.
"Not ours," Raviellis said. He smiled in the specific way that meant he was about to enjoy the next thirty seconds considerably.
"Yours, Mira."
Mira stared at him.
"Mine?"
"Well, not exactly?," Elara said, stepping around Raviellis into the room with the energy of someone arriving at exactly the right moment, "technically it mentions you by name in a context that I think you will find relevant."
"Young mistress," Mira said carefully, "if this is another one of those situations where you two have decided that—"
"Let me read it to you," Elara said, already unfolding the letter with the ease of someone who had been planning this moment since before they left the study.
"Young mistress, I am in the middle of inventory—"
"The inventory can wait," Elara said. "This is important."
"Is it actually important or is it important in the way that you two have decided is important—"
"Extremely important," Raviellis confirmed, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed and the expression of someone settling in for something good.
Marianne set down her catalogue. She did this with the deliberate movement of someone who had decided that resistance was going to cost more than participation.
"Fine," she said. "Read it."
Elara cleared her throat with entirely unnecessary formality. She found the passage she wanted they could tell she had found it by the very slight change in her expression that meant she was about to enjoy reading something aloud and she read through the opening paragraphs with reasonable restraint, her voice carrying just enough of Lucien's formal cadence to make it recognizable.
Mira and Marianne listened. The letter was it was actually a good letter. Lucien's third-place ranking. The duel with Prince Nox and the week of vegetables. The note about choosing aura over magic, which both sisters heard with the particular attentiveness of people who had known him since before he was old enough to hold a sword. The practical advice about the academy point system, which was useful and characteristically thorough.
The tone relaxed them slightly. It was a nice letter. A kind letter. A letter from a young man who was doing well and missed his family and had organized his feelings about this into neat paragraphs, which was the most Lucien way of missing people that existed.
Then Elara reached the last section.
She paused the brief, loaded pause of a performer who knows exactly what is coming and has decided to give it space and then she looked up at Mira over the top of the letter with the expression of someone about to deliver a verdict.
Then she read it.
Loudly.
"I want to note specifically that I am a considerable fan of the Cute Sister. There is something about her playing the timing, the way the drum arrives exactly where it needs to arrive that feels almost familiar in a way I cannot explain. I am probably thinking too much."
Silence.
Mira's face did something that it did not typically do, which was turn a shade of red that started at the collar and moved upward with impressive speed. She opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
"That's—" she started.
"Lucien loves the Cute Sister," Elara announced to the linen storage room.
"That is not what that says—"
"He said considerable fan," Raviellis said helpfully.
"Considerable, He chose that word specifically. Lucien doesn't use words accidentally."
"He also said she looks familiar," Elara added, looking at the letter again. "Almost familiar in a way I cannot explain."
"He cannot explain it," Raviellis said, "because the explanation would require him to know something he doesn't know."
"Young master—"
"He's been at the academy for six years," Elara said, "listening to an album of your drum performances on repeat in a dormitory—"
"Young mistress—"
"And he said it feels familiar—"
"YOUNG MISTRESS."
The volume of Mira's last two words was sufficient to briefly halt both of them, which was an achievement that required, in Raviellis and Elara's case, genuine surprise.
Mira stood with her hands at her sides and her face still comprehensively red and the expression of someone who has run out of dignified responses and is now operating on pure instinct.
"He thinks too much," she said. Her voice was controlled in the specific way of someone controlling it very deliberately.
"He said so himself."
"He said he was probably thinking too much," Raviellis said. "That is not the same as actually thinking too much."
"He means he might be wrong—"
"Lucien is third in his year at the Imperial Academy," Elara said pleasantly. "He beat the first Imperial Prince in a sword duel. He identified a false report in an entrance examination by a messenger timeline discrepancy."
She folded the letter.
"When Lucien says he might be thinking too much, he means he has identified something and is being polite about it."
Mira put both hands over her ears.
"La la la," she said, with great dignity.
Marianne, who had been observing this entire exchange with the expression she reserved for situations that were simultaneously undignified and genuinely entertaining, looked at Raviellis.
"She's not going to stop being red for at least an hour," Marianne said conversationally.
"I know," Raviellis said.
"Are you done?"
"Almost," he said. He looked at Elara, who was still holding the letter and whose expression had reached the stage of enjoyment that was about to produce physical movement.
Elara raised both arms above her head.
"LUCIEN LOVES THE CUTE SISTER!" she announced to the linen storage room, the corridor beyond it, and approximately one third of the estate's east wing.
Mira made a sound that was not a word and grabbed a folded sheet from the nearest shelf and held it in front of her face, which helped nothing but gave her hands something to do.
Marianne covered her mouth. She was laughing. She was trying not to be, but she was laughing in the quiet internal way of someone who finds something funny and is aware that finding it funny is not appropriate and has decided they are going to find it funny anyway.
"Hehehe," Elara said, slightly more quietly.
"Hahaha," Raviellis added, which was not a sound he made very often, which made it worse.
"Ughhhh," Mira said into the sheet, which was muffled but expressive.
✦ ✦ ✦
It took approximately ten minutes for the situation to return to something resembling composure, which happened gradually and with the specific quality of a room recovering from weather the storm passing, the air settling, everyone pretending the last ten minutes had been slightly less chaotic than they were.
Mira had set down the sheet and was looking at the middle distance with the expression of a person who had made peace with something and would be revisiting that peace several times over the next few days.
"He doesn't know," she said finally. Not upset. Just establishing the fact.
"He doesn't know," Raviellis confirmed.
"He will figure it out eventually," Elara said.
"He might not," Raviellis said. "He's been at the academy. The albums don't show faces. The performances use stage names. The only reason he finds it familiar is six years of knowing the actual person behind the name, which is a familiarity he can't source because he doesn't know he should be sourcing it."
"So he might genuinely never connect it," Mira said, with what might have been relief she was not going to be asked to specify which.
"He might not," Raviellis agreed. "Or he might walk into the academy two months from now, hear us perform, and connect it in approximately four seconds."
Mira looked at him. "Four seconds."
"He's third in his year," Raviellis said. "He's not going to miss it forever."
Another silence. This one had a different quality from the previous ones less comedic, more something that didn't have a clean name but sat in the room comfortably anyway.
"He said he missed you," Marianne said, to Raviellis and Elara both. Her voice had the quiet that she used when she meant something simply and didn't need to dress it up.
"I know," Raviellis said.
"Elara who always cries and shouts," Marianne said, glancing at Elara.
"I do not always cry," Elara said, with somewhat less conviction than usual.
"He wrote it down," Marianne said. "In a letter he told you to burn. So he knew you would read it before burning it."
Elara looked at the letter in her hand. "He also said silent but mature Raviellis." She looked at her twin. "He called you mature."
"I heard," Raviellis said.
"How does it feel?"
"Like something I have been waiting for him to put in writing for approximately six years," Raviellis said.
Elara laughed at that a real one, the kind that arrived without warning, and Raviellis let it happen and Marianne smiled and even Mira, who was still somewhere in the middle of her recovery, made a sound that was several degrees warmer than her previous sounds.
"He also said to tell you both he asked after you," Elara said to Mira and Marianne. "And that you deserved to be asked after by name and not as an afterthought."
Mira was quiet for a moment.
"He wrote us separate lines," Marianne said.
"Enclosed separately."
"He did," Raviellis said.
"That's—" Mira stopped Started again. "That's kind of him."
"He's a kind person," Raviellis said simply.
"He just packages it inside other things so it doesn't look like kindness. You have to read the whole letter."
✦ ✦ ✦
Later, after the east wing had returned to its usual afternoon quiet and Mira had finished the linen inventory with only slightly less efficiency than usual, Raviellis sat in the small courtyard outside the practice room with the letter in his hands.
He had read it four times. He was not sure why he kept reading it the content was clear, the information had been absorbed, there was no practical reason to return to it. But there was something about Lucien's voice in the letter the formal structure with the informal current running underneath it, the careful arrangement of every important thing into something that looked like just a report on his academic year that he kept wanting to sit inside for a little longer.
Elara who always cries and shouts and our silent but mature Raviellis.
Six years. Lucien had been at the academy for six years, and in six years had beaten Imperial Princes and ranked third in his year and lost to a princess whose sword form he called technically flawless and accepted the loss without bitterness, which was the most Lucien thing in the letter.
He had also been listening to an album in a dormitory and finding it familiar without knowing why.
Raviellis looked at the letter for a long moment. Then he folded it carefully and put it in his pocket, which was not burning it, which was technically not following instructions.
He would burn it eventually. Just not yet.
Some things you held onto a little longer than you were supposed to, and the value of that was exactly as personal as it sounded and required no further explanation.
From inside the practice room he could hear Elara back at the drums she had returned to the arrangement she had been working on before the letter arrived, the one that was almost right. The almost-right problem had apparently been resolved, because the arrangement coming through the wall no longer had the specific quality of something being interrogated. It had the quality of something that had found what it was looking for.
Two months until the academy. Two months until Lucien came back into a daily radius, which was a different thing from letters and a different thing from absence and which all four of them had been managing the anticipation of in the specific way of people who did not say so directly.
In the linen storage room, Mira was almost certainly still slightly red. In the catalogue, Marianne had almost certainly written something in the margin that was not inventory-related. In the practice room, Elara was almost certainly thinking about the same thing Raviellis was thinking about while appearing to think only about the drums.
The estate hummed around him with the warmth of a place that had been lived in and loved in and built in by people who were still in it, and the afternoon was entirely ordinary, and everything was fine, and Lucien had called him mature in writing, and Raviellis was going to be insufferably satisfied about that for considerably longer than was reasonable.
He was allowed. Just this once.