Page 66 of The Devouring Time

“Thank you,” Helen says and heads in the direction the receptionist came from. I avoid the receptionist’s gaze as I follow, but I can sense her glare practically burning a hole in the back of my neck. She certainly doesn’t need magic to make me feel uneasy.

We find ourselves in a long hallway with doors along the right-hand side at regular intervals. A brass room number is affixed to the wall near each door frame, with a small plaque beneath listing the name of the professor within. Some of the doors are open; as we pass one of them, I catch the student inside pleading with a professor to change his grade.

Room 430’s door is open and waiting for us. Helen enters first, and I follow, with Adrian last.

Dr. Dane sits behind her desk: a thin, severe-looking woman in her middle years, her black hair swept back into a tight bun. Gold-rimmed glasses perch on her nose and she wears a sensible tweed suit. Bookshelves line the walls, packed with books, journals, and papers.

“Miss Rath,” she says severely. “I can’t say I’m pleased to see you again under these circumstances.”

“There’s been a misunderstanding,” Helen assures her. “This is Mr. Adrian Evans and Mr. Sterling Caine.”

“So I gather.” Dr. Dane turns cool gray eyes on Adrian. “Close the door, if you would.”

He does so. I swallow against the nervousness tightening my throat. “Dr. Dane, please give me a chance to explain.”

She opens her desk drawer, pulls out a small Colt automatic pistol, and levels it in our direction. “Start talking, Mr. Caine.”

44

Adrian goes tense beside me, and my stomach contracts into a ball. Helen seems unconcerned by the gun, and I wish I had her optimism.

I take a deep breath and try to ignore the gun in favor of focusing on Dr. Dane. “If you’re familiar with the Lettere Segrete, you know my name appears in it. I don’t know what the book says about me, but I can at least tell you why it’s in there.”

I’ve piqued her interest, judging by her expression. “Then please do so.”

I launch into my tale yet again, leaving out only the most personal details, which I doubt she’d be interested in anyway. It sounds just as insane as the first time I told it, but Dr. Dane seems intrigued rather than baffled. Does she know anything about what happened to me? She must if she’s read Giuliani’s book.

When I finish, she asks, “So you don’t know where the Key of Mithras is?”

Of all the things she could ask, why this? “I’m afraid not.”

“Blast. I’d kill to get my hands on a copy.” She considers. “Well, probably not literally.”

“So you believe us?” Adrian asks warily.

“I’d prefer not to, but your story makes too much sense.”

Not the way I’d have described anything that’s happened to me recently. “It does?”

“Oh yes.”

Adrian clears his throat. “Could you put the gun away, Dr. Dane?”

“Ah.” She seems to have forgotten she was holding it. “Of course. I’m glad not to have had to shoot you.”

“I’m glad not to have had to put a spark to the gunpowder and blown it up in your hand,” Helen replies coolly. No wonder she didn’t seem terribly worried about getting shot. “You were one of my favorite professors.”

“A sorceress? I should have guessed.” Dr. Dane tucks the gun back into the drawer. “You all might as well sit down.”

The chairs look hard, with unpadded wooden seats, and there are only two of them. I elect to stand, shaking my head when Adrian offers to let me sit instead of himself.

“Thank you,” Adrian says to Dr. Dane. “Can you tell us what Swarm-Sterling wanted from you? Was it the Lettere Segrete?”

“It was one of the things.” Her dark eyes fix briefly on my face. “He tried the library first, posing as James Olden, bookseller. When he learned I had it, he wrote to me in a most demanding fashion, ordering me to let him borrow it. He also had a long list of questions about my work, apparently expecting me to waste my valuable time answering them. A pity I didn’t know what he really was; I would have given him an audience if I had.”

I stare at her in shock. “You would have?”

“Of course! Can you imagine what I might have learned from a being that could project itself through time into a human body?” She shakes her head in frustration. “We could have made a satisfactory trade of knowledge.”