wdym the pacing is slow? if you read it in one go, the story flows quite nicely. also there were a lot of important little details in this chapter. you can see the relationship between athy and claude is improving and his disdain for jeamette. this story is mostly about father-daughter love, so this was quite an important chapter contributing to the theme. also this chapter is transitioning to a magic arc (hopefully) since lucas is teaching her magic now. we can probably expect some more out of castle scenes, and hopefully some scenes in the magic tower, which is both connected to anastacius and lucas' prior family