Bastille Chapter 4 (Patreon)

I wanted to make this world a better place.

“The letter blocks are all set up, I think. Here’s the bigger one you asked for.”

So far, I thought my impacts were… small, to say the least. Oh sure, I’d done better at it than I would have without my memories of my last life. But Emma would have made a better duchess than the mess six-year-old Katarina was growing up to be.

“Excellent, set that aside for the moment. Mary, what does the rest of the student council say about my proposal?”

‘Inventing’—more building on and instituting, really—water and textile mills and such were a step up, but most of the functions provided had been handled adequately by mages for generations. Really, the waterwheel had been around for a while before then, it’s just no one had really bothered with it before I put the clout of the Claes name behind it.

“It was accepted of course! President Sirius was a bit skeptical, but given you didn’t ask for much by the way of funds it was hardly a problem to start this new club!”

The problem, I’d realized, was that I’d been trying to recreate the advances of Earth Bet in miniature. Even setting aside that I had less than half an idea of how those things worked in the first place, Sorcier was not Bet, and it was better for it.

“All that’s left is the finishing touch, oh and setting up the drying lines. Here, pass me that spool, would you?”

Sorcier had its own problems, and I had more solutions than technology. Case in point, my bid to join the student council. It was about Rep, it was about PR…

I took the small block of clay Sophia had set aside for me. With a flex of my magic, thin, sturdy ridges formed a picture in its surface.

…And if there was one thing I understood, after running a city as a Warlord and spending the next two years trying to undo the PR nightmare of my own criminal record, it was Public Relations.

“Perfect.” I turned the clay tablet in my hands, sliding it into the top of the print board above the letters forming the story. “We’ll just have to redo it for the back page.”

Sophia smiled, clapping her hands next to me. “Oh this is exciting!” Her tiny smirk sent a flutter of nostalgia through me. Even if I’d been Katarina for essentially half my life at this point… I still missed doing nefarious ‘schemes’ with my friends.

I couldn’t stop an answering smile from forming on my own face. “Is the ink ready?”

“Yep!”

No awkward sponges or anything like that. With a wave of hand and a short chant, Mary coaxed the ink from its bottles and applied it to the letter blocks I’d formed with my own earth magic. Not a single drop was wasted.

“Would you care to do the honors, Kat?”

I chuckled, taking a hold of the lever on the side of my ad hoc printing press. Thank god my estate was so close to the school, else I wouldn’t have received it for several more days. “Don’t mind if I do.”

Like I’d said previously, Sorcier had plenty of magic for books. Copying books, dictating them, even pictures.

But why dictate a newspaper, employing all of these complex magics to make a single page and then copying it―things that required an incredible amount of control―when you could just form the letters with a simple flex of earth magic on a clay tablet, and print them off by the boatload?

“Air hand!” Sophia let out a burst of her own magic, carrying the sheet from the press to the twine I’d hung up to dry them, while the same gust of wind blew the next sheet of paper into place.

Was it necessarily faster than the tried and true methods the mages of this kingdom had used for generations? Maybe not.

But it took far less magic, and we didn’t have to waste time learning spells that would only be useful in a scriptorium. I felt my smile widen as I realized that this invention would allow earth mages a slice of the printing industry and cut out a significant amount of training time.

Allowing yet more mages to move onto other pursuits.

“Oh, it works!” Mary did a little dance, before hugging me from the side. “I never would have thought of having news from the kingdom held in a single paper! And it’s so quick too!”

Mages were in demand everywhere in Sorcier. It was kind of in the name. Second sons and third daughters of nobility, as well as byblows and common lineages all needed employment, and there was always something that could benefit from a mage doing it.

Instead of trying to replace them, I’d have a better impact by working with them.

And if I happened to make a name for myself along the way, so much the better.

“Of course it worked.” I flicked my hair. “I made it, didn’t I?”

“Katarina says that.” Sophia smiled up at me mischievously. “But we still remember the last time she blew herself up.”

“That--!” I huffed, looking away. Okay so trying to make gunpowder had been a stupid idea.

This world didn’t need guns anyway. Or so I’d thought.

“Still, I am glad it went off without a hitch.” I pulled off one of the drier copies of Sorcier’s first ‘newspaper.’ Why change such an evocative name? “There are still rumors swirling around the attack, from a few days ago, but it looks like we still have the most up to date information.”

Prince Jared and Allen knew, of course, but they’d agreed to remain silent for the time being. It wasn’t part of the Student Government’s remit to have an announcement about matters of state anyway. The rest of the school would learn about it when someone’s mother or father sent them a letter from the capital.

But for now, I still had time to solidify my rep.

Get that… mucho cred, as it were. I stifled a laugh.

“And for the back page?” Mary leaned forward. “Are you really going to tell people about yourself?”

I clicked my tongue. “I’m not sure just how I’ll put it together, but that’ll be one column.” I wasn’t sure if a personality section would sell, given the size of the school, but well, people had been badgering me in the halls for weeks about all sorts of inane things. I might as well try to capitalize on it. My tailor would be happy that I dropped the maker of my dress no doubt.

“Other than that we’re going to talk about all the clubs!” Sophia smiled. “Because all of them tried to recruit us, so I got a bunch of information about what they’re doing.”

Mary hummed. “That would be helpful… wouldn’t it?” She placed a hand on her cheek. “Why, if I wasn’t part of the student council, I’m not sure what club I’d end up joining. Is there a gardening club?”

“Yes, but you wouldn’t like it.” Sophia held up one of the newspapers proudly. “They don’t do very much actual gardening, instead they like to have outdoor tea parties!”

Mary frowned. “That’s hardly gardening.”

I gave a wry smile. “Yes, well. I’m sure they comment about the hedgerows every now and again.”

I held back a sigh as we switched to printing the back pages. The banter was nice, but I could still see the lines of tension in Mary’s face.

Of course, one didn’t have to look any farther than the image I’d made for the front page to see why. It wasn’t a real photograph, based instead on secondhand description.

But the picture of a burned-out village told a story all on its own.

“Still nothing from the capital?”

Mary shook her head. “Jared would tell you first, you know.”

I gave a small smile. “Mary.”

She blushed. “Oh, I know he’s your fiancé.”

“And you’re my closest friend.”

She sighed. “What about Keith?”

“He’s my brother.”

Sophia tittered. “Girl friends are better than boy friends anyway.”

I shot her a sharp look, but she just hid a smirk behind her hand. I gave her a quiet shove. “You’re the worst.”

She gave a coquettish little twirl, still using her wind magic to carry sheets of paper through the printing press.

“Still,” I said. “There’s nothing for it. Until we get new information, we just have to make do with what we have.”

Mary blinked once. “Is that why you have the things about you and the academy’s clubs on the back of the ‘newspaper’?”

“I thought it was to offset the news of the attack.”

I nodded to Sophia. “It’s mainly that.” I gave a laugh. “But we do need to find something to fill the pages.”

“What are you planning on writing about next time?”

I sighed. “If my gut instinct is correct, we won’t lack for material. But aside from that, well, there are plenty of things the nobility would like to be kept abreast of, even while we’re off at school.”

Mary tilted her head. “Are you sure you’ll be able to find out things to… ‘print’ though?” She bumped me with her shoulder. “After all, Kat, you’re stuck here at school with the rest of us.”

“Oh, Mary.” I shared her smile. “You of all people should know the power of a cute girl asking you for a favor.”

“I… that’s!”

I turned, willfully ignoring her blush as I pulled Sophia into a hug from behind. “And we have the cutest one in the entire school right here.”

Really, I used to think the power of cute was a joke, but that was before I looked up Vista’s sales figures on a bet with Golem one time.

Suffice it to say, I ended up doing his chores on base for a week because of that.

“I’m hardly that cute…” Sophia looked down, a light red dusting on her cheeks.

I laughed again, giving my diminutive little friend a squeeze before letting her go. Part of me wondered if it was alright to be so flippant, with a potential war on the horizon. But even to me, a simple raid over the border felt like a world away.

I was good at compartmentalizing like that.

“In any case, I already have someone picked out for the second interview. There’s another person on campus that everyone is dying to know about, even if they’re too polite or prideful to ask directly.

Mary’s eyes widened. “You mean the commoner girl?”

I bit back my instinctive response at that. Mary didn’t mean it like that.

Of course, that never helped the person on the receiving end, now did it?

Aloud, I only said, “Of course. Maria Campbell is the item of interest across the entire campus. If not for my own engagement falling so close to the start of term, I’m sure people would be more interested in her than me.”

“Hmph, preposterous!” Mary leaned forward, grabbing my hands. “No one can compete with Katarina in terms of charm or appeal!”

I chuckled, giving her hands a squeeze. “You flatter me.” Then I took a step back. It was such a line to walk. I didn’t want to lead my dear friend on, but I hardly wanted to push her away because of it! “The newspapers look about dry, we can distribute them in the great hall.”

“Are you sure she’ll want to be in the next ‘newspaper’?” Mary asked. “From what I’ve seen of the Campbell girl in the student council, she’s quite reserved, you know!”

“Is she?” I flicked a hand through my hair. “Or is she just shy, like another little wallflower I made friends with once upon a time?”

My words had no heat, so Mary just laughed and helped us with the newspapers.

But I knew what the answer to my question was. We’d hardly shared a word, Maria Campbell and I, but I still remember how she looked at me as we passed in the hall, back on the very first day.

She looked at me like I was water in the desert.

I knew a girl who thought that way about her friends…

Once upon a time.