Re: The Academy Shows Interest...
Technically, Culann is still at the Academy while the others are on their way... but we can fix that and get everyone together.
Despite Lucimburic being a pleasant place to spend the holidays, there is work to be done. A week after the wedding, Syanthus rounds up Kyriel and Byron, and they return to the Academy with the news of what is to be done.
They also know that Raude Parisi, High Priestess of Venus, is on her way, and will be bringing along King Theoderic's other contributions to the Mestenon Rescue Mission: Rita and Riordeg.
Syanthus brings everyone back, including Byron, the way he brought them there: by teleportation. The spell takes a lot of out him, and he is forced to rest for a few days afterwards.
Of course, there is a happy reunion with Terrance and Kyriel. As Culann knows, Terrance is the young student wizard who, like her (but a few years younger) is something of a bookwormish genius prodigy. (Wizards tend to collect those kinds). The relationship between Kyriel and Terrance turned the social world of the student wizards upside down: Daring, adventurous rogue-girls simply did not fancy thin-armed, bookish awkward wizard-boys. That just didn't happen. Apparently, now it did. And the culture of the students at the academy has yet to recover.
The senior wizards realize that since the Academy is after all an academy of wizardry, and though Kyriel is an experienced and creative "agent" for missions like this, it's only proper that the Academy actually send a wizard.
As Gilamur the Alchemist puts it, "It's supposed to be what we do, isn't it?"
And one name comes up.
"Are you talking about Terrance," one of the other senior wizards asks. "He's smart as anything, I'll grant, but to send the boy out on something like this?"
"Actually," says the Lady Dromessa, "I was thinking of Culann."
The Lady Dromessa, once the Court Wizard of the late great King Clovis, seems to have manuevered herself into the position of "Dean Of Secret Missions". Her pronouncements carry the most weight. Culann indeed is well cut out for this. Not only can she turn into an Otter, but she was actually in the small village of Mestenon before. It is quickly settled.
And Kyriel is given the mission of inviting Culann along.
Byron, meanwhile, is the subject of instant curiosity, because there is nothing that intrigues wizards like Other Magic.