A device that let people talk from a distance. Oh, how useful that could have been needing to get messages from the Louvre to the garrison and back. Imagine if the musketeers had been able to get their orders in the voice of the one giving them instead of relying on a seal or hand which could be forged. On the other hand, just that sort of forgery had saved the queen's life once.

Enough. Thinking of home wasn't going to get Constance there. "It... is... what?" she asked carefully, but uncertainly, forming the words. If she was learning about new things, she might as well learn from the beginning what they were called in English. Hopefully easier than understanding how they worked, which would probably always seem like magic.