The train had reached the countryside when the morning came. The big landscape had been replaced with a brick city with elegant houses and a big cathedral rising amongst the rooftops. The train had entered La Valle dei Purosangue.

Charles felt as if he had only closed his eyes for a second, yet when he opened them the compartment was filled with daylight. He felt utterly repulsive and went to wash up in one of the bathrooms. He combed his hair, brushed his teeth and made sure to thoroughly wash his face. In the mirror he re-tied the velvet tie around his neck to go with his uniform. The train was two hours away from the village station, the closest station to the school. Another year was about to begin.

Returning to the compartment he found the girl awake and hidden behind a book. Charles carefully placed his briefcase on top of the table so that he could shuffle the chess set back into it. He came to a halt when he realized that the chess pieces he had set up the previous day had been moved. The knight on his side of the board was missing and on the opposite side other pieces were missing too. The queen which he clearly remembered not being included in his latest scenario, was now placed in the center of the board. Feelings of fury slowly pierced Charles' heart. He had been stupid, he had left a whole set of irreplaceable chess pieces on top of the table, unattended. Yesterday he was certain that he would return to the compartment as he briefly left to feed his hunger, however, he had been gone all afternoon, dining with the strange woman. He had left his grandfather's collection unguarded and free for the girl to partake. Who knows, she could have gone through all of his belongings yesterday, she certainly had the time to. Charles' sudden movement towards his grandfather's box that held all the pieces, made the young lady jump, as it caused the whole table to rattle.

"Did you touch these?" he asked, picking up the box.

Even though she had jumped at his sudden movement, the young girl remained calm, not answering Charles' question despite his clear distress.

Charles sighed as he opened the box and pointed to the pieces inside. "Did you touch these?" he repeated, louder this time.

The young lady's expression remained unbothered as she closed her book and slowly shoved it in her bag. "Belle," she suddenly spoke.

"What?" he frowned. Charles was startled by the sound of her voice, soft and smooth.

The young lady leaned forward and pointed to the queen, "belle", she gently repeated.

Charles settled down and placed the box on the table. He then noticed that his missing knight and the other pieces were in fact all included within the box.

"Do you speak Italian?" he asked, suspecting otherwise.

The young lady wore a clueless expression.

He tried again, "Vous parlez Italien?"

The young lady then shook her head.

He chuckled, "She's French," he thought aloud. He remembered their first encounter, her ranting had distracted him from the fact that she had been speaking fluent french. Automatically he had switched to French when first speaking to her, like he did with his father.

"Do you play chess?" he asked, feeling slightly guilty over his previous outburst. To his surprise she nodded.

"You do?"

"Yes I do," she said.

"I apologize If I wasn't to touch your game, Your chess pieces..." she picked up the queen, "...looks so different".

"They're made into spanish figures, It's a very old set." Charles said, not minding her interest. "They belonged to my grandfather".

The young lady removed her chapeau placing it next to her. Her hair was short but not frizzy, slicked back with a bun.

"Where are you headed?'' he asked.

Timidly she played with her hands, too shy to answer him.

"I'm headed back to school, Scuola di Conoscenze. It's my last year." The way he said it annoyed him. He said it as if he was forced to revisit an old friend, which was partly the truth, he loved the school, but the last couple of years had been different.

"Strength, power, wisdom and luck" The girl mumbled. She was staring at the emblem on his blazer.

"You know about it?"

"It's the symbol for strength, power, wisdom and luck," she nodded, pointing to the dragon on his chest. "I've read all about It. It will be my first year attending,".

"You've read all about the school?" He frowned. "Why?"

"I had many choices, but SDC has the greatest educators."

"We do?"

The girl nodded.

"Who?" Charles snorted. He was not sure that what she was stating was the truth. He knew all of the teachers at SDC and he considered none of them as the "greatest educators".

"Madame Lombroso, fluent in seven languages including latin..." The young lady started to mechanically quote what she had read. "...Pascal Casquette, a music instructor who qualified to play piano at the national orchestra of Russia, but was denied, reason being, his national descent. Franco Meragio..."

Charles' subtle laugh made the young girl's ranting come to a halt. "Signor Casquette?" he said, struggling to contain his laughter. "He's an old fat bald headed man. When you meet him he won't seem as grand, I'm sure of It."

The young lady appeared insulted by Charles' sudden interruption. There was a short moment of silence, the only noise coming from people moving in the passage outside of their compartment.

"You look older than eleven, how can it be your first year?" Charles stated sarcastically. He was aware that she couldn't possibly be eleven years of age, her body was way too developed, he thought sinfully.

"I'm sixteen so I'm not a first year student. It's just my first year attending. There is no rule that says that you can't skip years. My father applied and I was accepted."

Charles found some of her French difficult to understand, an accent from an unfamiliar region. "Why did you center the queen?" He asked, recalling how he had found his chess board.

She shrugged her shoulders. "The queen takes all."

"Would you like to play?"

Charles was impressed, yet not convinced that the girl knew chess the way he did. The train would reach the station in less than an hour and he should probably put the game back into its briefcase, however Charles was eager to see what the girl could do.