Chapter 15: Interesting Fact

Elodin arrives nearly an hour late to lecture, grass-stained and grinning, and demands “interesting facts” from the six remaining students. Brean and Fenton offer acceptable facts; Uresh’s infinity paradox earns a lewd assignment; Inyssa’s claim about Yllish writing is corrected; and Fela shares a Medica finding about newly sighted patients failing to visually identify shapes, which delights Elodin.

When Elodin dismisses Kvothe’s claim about the Adem’s secret Lethani as not a fact, he awards Fela a milkweed pod as a “prize” and uses it to stage a lesson. After the seeds refuse to float as expected, Elodin fills the air with fluff and frantically tries to catch them, growing increasingly desperate. He trips, bloodies his knee, erupts into a terrifying multilingual tirade, accidentally inhales a seed, then limps out without explanation.

After class, Kvothe eats at Anker’s, serves his Medica shift observing diagnoses, and crosses into Imre to look for Denna. He checks the Eolian, chats with Stanchion and Deoch, visits several inns, gardens, and instrument shops, and returns to the Eolian at night without luck.

As Kvothe heads back toward the University through lively evening crowds, he hears Denna’s laugh and spots her outside a café in blue velvet. He pauses when he realizes she is with Ambrose, who closes a carriage door, charms her, kisses her hand, and escorts her inside. Shocked and wounded, Kvothe watches them enter together, his rivalry with Ambrose now complicated by Denna.