"I am extraordinarily proud of you, both of you," he says. "I could not have done this alone, or perhaps even at all, but with the two of you..." He smiles. "A shining example."
He strides over to my desk, extends his hand. "I wish you the best of...luck against your opponents, Mr. Pendragon, though I have no doubt you will emerge victorious as usual."
I shake it. "Thank you."
"And Ms. Vale?" Gwenna lifts her head. "I bow to your scholarship." He presses his palms together. "We will reconvene upon your return, and perhaps then discover what you might…do with all of this.”
As he leaves, Gwenna gets up to start packing up her things, and I feel my heart pound. Not yet. I need her to stay just a moment.
"Gwenna," I say, "wait. There's something more I need to?—"
She waits, looks at my books. “I get the point," she says gently. "I really believe you did the work, Kingston. I'm impressed?—"
"No," I say. "It's not that. It's something else. If you could just?—"
She still waits. I take a deep breath.
“I’m assuming you probably still hate me,” I start—I’m speaking too quickly, and force myself to slow down—“and I just want you to know that I understand why you feel that way. I’ve made mistakes—I’ve made alotof mistakes, and poor choices, and bad judgements. And for all those, I am sorry. I’m very, very sorry. I don’t know how else to tell you or to prove it, but I am.”I draw in a breath. “But more than that, Gwenna, I’m sorry…I’m sorry it had to be you.”
At that, she frowns. “What do you mean?”
“I mean…” This is the part I haven’t thought through. I’m going to have to improvise. “I’m sorry that this—this power, or being, or whatever it may be, that it couldn’t be someone else. That itcan’tbe someone else. I’m…angrythat it has to be you.”
Angry. I don’t think I realized that was true until I said it just now.
Gwenna looks surprised. “Really?”
I nod. “Yes. You…” I exhale. “There’s so much you can do, Gwenna. So much you can interpret and solve and read and write, and so…well.Just—look at all this, for example.” I gesture at the piles and piles of text facsimiles, the stacks and stacks of books. “You shouldn’t have to do or be anything more than that.”
“You’re saying I’mtoospecial to have some kind of secret power?” Gwenna says steadily. “With all due respect, Kingston, that hardly makesanysense.”
“No, no.” I rub my forehead, frustrated that I’m not getting my point across. It’s so ambiguous, nuanced; I’m not used to parsing things out like this. “I’m saying…I’m saying you do have power, and that powerisn’ta secret. It wasnevera secret how brilliant you are.”
“Brilliant,” she repeats.
I nod. “You could do so much. You could…” My pulse is ticking uncomfortably in my throat. I swallow. “If it were up to me, I’d…I’d take all my father’s money and buy up a library and just give it to you so you could read forever.”
Gwenna’s lips twitch. “Wouldn’t he be…mad?”
I give a grim smile. “Probably. No, definitely.”
She considers. “And why isn’t it up to you, Kingston?”
I grip my fountain pen a little tighter. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, why don’t you just sayfuck itand give it all up? Why stick with this if it’s so…somuchfor you?”
“I’m obligated,” I say. “This is what I have to do.”
“Because of the vows? The Consistory? Kingston?—”
“No,” I say, interrupting her without even pausing to apologize. “Because I have to. BecauseIhave to. Since I was born. Since themomentof my birth, it has myobligationto…to…”
I’m holding the pen so tightly it’s spattering tiny drops of ink across the page.
“Sorry,” I mutter.
“You don’t have to apologize.” From the corner of my eye, I see Gwenna sit on the edge of her desk. “It’s your notebook, for one thing.” She pauses a moment. “Your mother.”
