August 31st

Dear mom,
I have safely arrived at my destination, and I'm doing great. I'm sorry for not writing you any sooner - I have been here for five days, but today is the first time that I've had some time to spare to sit down and write. I hope you weren't too worried.

The journey went just fine, but not much happened while I was on the road, so I don't have much to write about it. Anyway, everything went as planned, and I arrived here last Monday, in the late afternoon. I was right about the sorcerer Valerion - he is a fun and cheerful person, and a great teacher, too. He is extremely knowledgeable, and his patience seems to be boundless. I am very glad to be working with him. The only thing that I wasn't expecting about him is that he's much younger than I would have ever thought. If I were to guess, I'd say he looks about 30. I would have never imagined that.

In any case, my apprenticeship is going very well; I'm already making progress, and I'm sure that today I know more than I did last week. I'm very pleased, I think I've done the right thing to come here. I won't bore you with the details, but I've been drawing lots of circles, enough to make my fingers hurt. No spells yet, but the sorcerer Valerion says that I should be able to move to working spells in the next couple of weeks, maybe even sooner. I don't want to jinx myself, but probably by my next letter I'll be there. At least, so I hope.

The place where I'm staying is a sort of tiny octagonal castle, complete with four little octagonal towers. And I have a whole tower as my private quarters! I'm still not sure how to thank my host for this. This whole place is amazing, mom; can you believe that in my bathroom there are enchanted laundry baskets that do the laundry for you? And that food is magically cooked in a kitchen underneath the main room and then teleported to the table? One day I'll learn how to do this sort of magic, too! I'll enchant our entire home, and then we'll never have to do chores again.

Overall, I am doing fine, and I am very happy. How are things there? What has happened in these days?
Oh, and - don't forget to give a hug to Giselle! I miss her very much.

With love,
Adrien