“Morning mass,” he’s saying, to whoever’s there. “I’ll be back.”
I thud down the rest of the stairs as the front door swings shut after Cal, so fast the last of the cool outside air washes over me.
“Gwenna?” Kingston, in the living room. Packed, ready, in a black pullover and jeans. He gets to his feet. “What’s?—”
“I’m, um, going to chapel too,” I say quickly. “I’ll be back.”
Before anyone he can react, let alone object, I grab my coat and slip out the front door.
Above me, the sky is a sickly lavender; the air is chilled but thick, humid, my breath barely showing. I don’t want to remember Caliburn this way. I don’t want toleaveCaliburn this way.
I glance left: Cal’s fairly distant by now, close enough that I could run to catch up, but not so close that he’ll hear me and turn around. Good.
I all butrunacross the quads, holding my unbuttoned coat to my chest to keep it from flapping off my arms. The lamps are glowing orange; no one is out except a few dark figures coming and going from the chapel. No one isrushingexcept me.
I am going to find Emrys. I am going to make him, makeme, make sense of all this. I can think, and as long as I can think, I can do something. Anything I’ve ever done in this world, good or bad, has been because of all my goddamnthinking.It’s the only thing I’m good for, really. The only thing I’m goodat.The only thing I can do, right now, or ever.
For some reason, my mind goes to Cal and his philosophy paper.I think, therefore I…can.I almost laugh at my own stupid joke.Eat your heart out, Descartes.
I fly up the stairs in the Classics building two at a time, breathing hard under my coat, the strange out-of-time feeling of being in a classroom building past instructional hours somehow just as energizing as it is eerie.That’s what this place is for, I think, boots pounding.What we do here. WhatIdo here. I am going to use what I know and what I can find out and I amgoing to solve a problem.
And I am not going to leave Caliburn for dead.
Finally, panting, I stumble onto the top-floor landing. It’s quiet, of course, save the soft flutter of some bulletin-boardflyers as I whoosh up at top speed. I pause at the top step, gripping the handrail, and catch my breath.
What am I going to say?
Dr. Emrys. It’s you. You were the one—you will be the one—to teach Vivian what she knows. To give her the magic that binds her to this place. When you’re older, in the past, you’ll meet her here and you’ll…make her your student. You already know what she knows because everything she knows she learned from you, even though you haven’t taught it to her yet. So whatever reason she’s asking me this, whatever magic is tied up in that riddle…you have to know it already.
Don’t you?
I press a hand to my forehead, where the skin is faintly damp with sweat. God, it’s so much. Like a sentence written on a Mobius strip. Like a Rubik’s cube printed in colors beyond the visual spectrum. Like something the stupidMichelangelo Matrixcould only dream of cooking up.But he’ll know what you mean, Gwenna, I tell myself.He’ll understand it.
He’ll help you think.
With my breathing slowed, I walk for the classroom in relative quiet. And I hear…something. A sound. Nothing loud or overt, nothing like voices or footsteps or even the clanking of that awful radiator.
A hum.
It gets louder, and louder still, as I get closer to the door. A space heater, I think, or a small fan, except it’s too strong for either of those, especially through wood panels. And it comes and goes, a soft crescendo up and down, a swell of sound back and forth, seemingly at random.
Something feels off.
And then the gears click.
Magic, I think.Of course.Who knows what Emrys gets up to on his own, especially when he’s not expecting intrusivestudents to stop by and bother him. If he can render me and Kingston fully mute with the wave of a hand, he can probably do much more, probablydoesdo much more to…keep in shape, or whatever. Hand poised to knock, I hesitate.
But no, I think.This is too important.
“Dr. Emrys?” I rap my knuckles, raising my voice just slightly as the hum intensifies. “Are you in there? It’s Gwenna.”
No answer. The sound lulls, buzzing down to a murmur. Then roars back to life.
I knock again. “Dr. Emrys?”
Still nothing.
I grab the doorknob.
