"She returns," he says, smiling warmly. "My star pupil." He strolls over from his desk and claps a hand on my shoulder. "It is good to see you, Ms. Vale. It hasn't been the same without you around."
“Thank you,” I murmur. I glance over my shoulder, but it seems that Callahan has elected to stay out in the hall this time. Less weird here than in a girls’ dorm, I suppose. I turn back to Emrys.
“I…” I press a hand to my forehead.Should’ve eaten something, stupid."I'm sorry, I don't even know what's going on. I have a thousand questions and..."
"Of course you do," he says, gesturing for me to sit in the armchair that faces his desk and the chalkboard at the front of the room. "I can't promise clear answers, but...I am at your disposal."
I sink into the seat, pin my wrists between my knees. What do I even…
"So you…know about everything," I say, studying him.
"Oh, I don't thinkeverything," Dr. Emrys says, leaning back in his chair and steepling his fingers together with a chuckle. "I've always struggled with linear A. And I won't even attempt to do my own income taxes."
I smile in spite of my impatience. "You know what I mean," I say. "About the four of them, and Morgan being a?—"
"Yes, yes," Emrys interrupts me. "Indeed." He sits back up straight. "Perhaps I should reintroduce myself. Myrddin Emrys.Educator, scholar, linguist, reader of books, tutor of young minds, and mage."
"Mage," I repeat. Mage. Mage. The word echoes in my mind until it’s nearly meaningless, just sounds strung together. "So you practice magic?
“Of a sort,” he says. “Really, I study it more than practice it. A theoretical mage, if I can invent such a thing to be. I strive to know the rhythms of the world, the pulses of her heartbeat, and to know what it might take to channel and bend them for the benefit of all."
"I see," I say. I let out a long breath. "This...I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude. This sounds actually crazy.”
“Doesn't it?" Dr. Emrys says, agreeing. "And yet, on its face, no more ridiculous than anything prescribed in that chapel over there," he nods out the window, "or prayed for by the gentlemen of Camlann House."
I swallow. “Right. So, they said…”
“They said the truth," he says, "or the truth as they understand it. They know there is a source of great power in the world—of redemption, solace, healing, divine mystery revealed—and they seek it in their own way, with the full vigor, wealth, and force of the church behind them. Or," he amends, "abranchof the church." He shakes his head. "I confess I do not know too much about the inner workings of the Consistory. Not something I'm permitted to be privy to. My partnership with your fellow scholar Mr. Pendragon is something of an…unusual arrangement, but a useful one. A family with the worldly means to supply the texts that might contain the secrets both of us long to uncover, and me with a long lifetime's worth of knowledge and networks to obtain them."
At that, my stomach goes icy cold. The library. The manuscripts. Somehow, in the shuffle of revelations, of thechaos of the last day and change, I'd forgotten. I'd forgotten that everything was destroyed and lost.
"I never thought you'd burned the manuscripts," Dr. Emrys says, as though he can read my mind.
And maybe he can.Fuck, I think, then chase the thought away.
"If I'd have been here when it happened," he goes on, "I would have attested as much. No one has more reverence for those artifacts than you, Ms. Vale."
“I…” The simple statement, the absolution, is better than any forgiveness. It's implicit trust and understanding that no,of courseI wouldn't. Ever. Never in a thousand years.
I think back to Jessie the therapist just yesterday.
In my professional opinion, Gwenna’s at no significant risk to herself, or others. Frankly, I’m not sure she ever has been.
"But I see why perhaps everyone thinks you did," Emrys goes on, "because things have happened to you that you can't explain."
Now I freeze again, not from dread, but from shock. "How do you know about that?" I whisper.
Emrys goes very still. He studies me for a long moment, then sighs deeply—the sigh of someone who's been carrying a heavy secret.
"Because, Ms. Vale," he says slowly, "I remember it. Or rather, Iwillremember it.”
I stare at him. "What?"
“Ah, how to explain.” He walks to the window, gazing out at the snow-covered quad. "Most people experience time like reading a book from front to back. Birth to death. Cause to effect." He turns back to me. "I experience it more like...reading that same book backward. From the last page to the first. I know where the story ends because I've already been there. I'm simply moving away from it."
"You're saying you—" My throat goes dry. "You live backwards?"
"I don't," he admits. "Pure conjecture. But I had an inkling. There's something about you, Ms. Vale. Something intensely powerful. Special. Something marvelous. And I don't simply mean the quickness of your mind, although I will admit that's what caught my eye at first. And I'd say the same is true for Mr. Pendragon’s attentions as well.”
