by Hilari Bell
“Just … minute,” Fisk coughed. “I want to look… Ceiling’s still fine.”
He was actually resisting me, which made him crazier than the jeweler.
“You think the ceiling is fine?”
In fairness to him, the office ceiling hadn’t started to burn. So I dragged him into the hallway and pointed at the tiny tongues of light that rippled along the beams and planks above our only exit.
Fisk’s reddened eyes widened. He set off for the stairwell at the best speed he could manage, but he was coughing so hard it wasn’t very fast. I grabbed his arm and dragged him along at a run, despite the fact that he was doubled over and clutching his ribs.
He’d been in the smoke so long the harsh scent clung to his clothes and hair, tainting the air inside my bubble But it stayed breathable as we clattered down the stairs, down interminable hallways and more stairs — all of them now filled with smoke — and finally stumbled out into the firelit tumult outside the burning tower.
A number of people ran forward as I half-carried Fisk down the steps, but I assured them there was no one else in the building and we needed no aid. My bubble had disappeared as we emerged, and after brushing off our helpers I set off for the medical camp to see if they could do something about the coughs that shook Fisk’s body every time he tried to breathe.
Once I had time to look, I saw that while there were more people present, ’twas actually more orderly. A large part of the crowd was milling about, but the town’s fire brigade had arrived, and the scholars and some of the townsfolk had been organized into bucket lines.
The sodden grass squished beneath my boots, and a spike of fire nearly as tall as the tower now surged skyward, illuminating the scene for hundreds of yards around. ’Twas no wonder half the town had gathered to gawk, and get in the fire teams’ way. In fairness, they may have come to take a place in the bucket line when their fellows tired. But now they just stood, staring at the flames and forcing Fisk and me to move around them.
I almost walked past her before I recognized the older woman, with her graying hair in braid down her back, clad in a dressing gown instead of professorial black. Professor Dayless didn’t notice us, gazing up like the others. Her expression wavered between agony and something that looked like triumph.
“Professor! You shouldn’t be alone in this commotion. Let me help you to the healers.”
I gathered her into my free arm as I spoke, sweeping her along with us. Fisk was already leaning less heavily.
“I don’t need a healer.” She stiffened, and had she been less guilty she’d have pulled away. I could all but hear her wondering what she’d have done if innocent, and in her hesitation she was lost.
“Mayhap not,” I said agreeably. “But you’ve suffered a terrible shock. The loss of all your work! And there’s someone I think you should see.”
“Who? I don’t need a doctor.” But she must have decided ’twas better not to make a scene, and let me carry her along. Fortunately, the healers’ shelter was crowded with medical scholars, wrapping sprained wrists and examining thrown backs.
“Oh, I don’t see him.” The concern in my voice wasn’t feigned. If they’d taken Stint away for further treatment… Then I saw him, sitting up and talking to a mediciner who waved fingers before his eyes.
Unfortunately, Dayless saw him too. She spun in my tightening grasp, and I had to let go of Fisk to hold on to her. He swayed, but kept his feet.
“Let me go, you impertinent whelp!”
For all her formidable intellect, the professor’s strength was no match for mine — but she made me use it and our struggle was attracting attention. Indeed, several husky scholars were coming toward me, looking outraged and determined. It might all have gone awry, except that the people near us who weren’t prepared to intervene had backed away — and fallen silent, so Professor Stint’s voice was clearly audible.
“Wait a minute. I remember now … that tea… She drugged me!”
This stopped the scholars, who stared from one of their teachers to the other in confusion. A doctor, taking in the scene, said, “He was drugged. We’d best hold them both.”
This decided Professor Dayless. She stamped her heel on the bridge of my foot, nearly breaking it or so it felt, ripped out of my grasp and ran … right into Captain Chaldon’s arms.
“Forgive me, Professor,” he said calmly. “But the doctors summoned me here because they say Professor Stint has been drugged. And since he was pulled, unconscious, from that tower, it seems there may have been a crime committed.”
“Really? How did you guess?” Fisk muttered, between coughs. His breathing seemed to be settling, though he still clutched his ribs.
“That’s a bit far-fetched, isn’t it?” Professor Dayless had recovered her nerve. “If it’s true it would be very shocking, but I—”
“You brought me tea.” Stint’s voice was slurred, and his eyes didn’t quite track. “I got dizzy. Thought I was sick. I called, but you didn’t come. I was trying to go for help … when … when…” He listed to one side and an alert scholar grabbed him and propped him upright.
“The man is clearly intoxicated,” Professor Dayless said icily. “We had tea together two days ago, and he’s probably confusing that memory with whatever he took. Or drank.”
“He’s not drunk,” one of the doctors put in. “It looks like an opiate to me, though we’d have to test his urine to be sure.”
The scholars looked much interested in this.
“Then he took a sleeping draught,” said Dayless. “What has that to do with me? And why, as your theory seems to run, would I want to drug my colleague and set my own complex on fire? All my notes are ashes now, the rabbits dead, my work ruined. Ruined!”
“I expect you did it for the same reason you framed Professor Sevenson.” I spoke clearly, in a voice meant to carry. The more people who spread this rumor the better. “You feared Benton would come to recognize the rabbits well enough to realize you were switching them out, to make it look as if your experiment was getting better results than it did. As Lat Quicken had realized, though you didn’t learn that till he threatened to expose you unless you reduced his debt to the university. But when you did that, it made Stint suspicious. And he’d never agree to keep silent and vanish, as Quicken did.”
Chaldon’s gaze went to the flaming tower, and he may have been suspicious as well for he put it together very quickly.
“Professor Dayless, you’ll be held for questioning,” he said. “For attempted murder, arson, false testimony, and whatever else I need to keep you till Professor Stint sobers up, and we can get to the bottom of this. Or rather, prove it, because I think the truth is clear. The only thing I don’t understand is why you killed Hotchkiss.”
He’d been speaking to her, but his gaze slid to Fisk and me as he asked this. ’Twould have been quite flattering, if I’d only had the answer.
“I didn’t!” Professor Dayless said. “You have to understand, we may not quite have gotten the results we needed, but we were getting close. I know we were close! All we need is a little more time and I’m sure we’ll succeed. So I may have made my tea a bit strong. He said he’d been having trouble sleeping, and I thought—”
“No, I didn’t,” said Stint. “No trouble sleeping, and even if I had, why’d I want t’ sleep in the laboratory?”
“But I didn’t kill anyone,” the professor went on. “I might have left a lamp burning somewhere, but that’s merely an accident.”
She was still explaining why she’d take a lamp up to the fourth floor, which had been filled with flammable papers, when the deputies led her away. Captain Chaldon returned to assisting the fire marshal, and I turned Fisk toward the healers’ tent once more.
“Why did she kill Hotchkiss?” I asked. “And if she didn’t, who did?”
“I have no idea,” he said.
“She sounded like she didn’t do it.”
I’d had a lot of practice, listening to people denying they�
�d killed the librarian. Professor Dayless had sounded as innocent as the others. When she’d spoken of the fire, and drugging Professor Stint, she sounded guilty. I mentioned this to Fisk, who rolled his eyes.
“Attempted murder is a debt you can pay off, eventually,” he pointed out. “Committed murder you can’t. She has an excellent motive to lie about that.”
“Mayhap,” I admitted, though it still didn’t sound right. “But ’tis out of our hands. And I don’t think they’ve done that final interview, so Benton can get his job back. Though he’ll be sorry about the rabbits.”
“Why? He could probably keep them, if he wants.” Fisk gestured to a dim corner of the healers’ tent, which I’d not noticed. The jeweler sat on a cot, surrounded by rabbit cages. The scholars must have taken them from the yard and brought them here. A girl, mayhap one of the maids, sat beside him speaking soothingly. But the jeweler’s attention was on stroking the quivering lump of fur in his lap. The rabbit evidently regarded him as shelter from the lights and noise around it, for it snuggled against him.
“He’s forgiven them for lying,” said Fisk, which made no more sense now than it had when he first said it.
“Then mayhap he can keep them. We’d better get you something to settle that cough.”
“I’d have thought you’d have done that by now,” said Kathy’s voice behind me.
Fisk spun so fast he almost lost his balance. “Kath— I mean, Lady Katherine. What are you doing here? This isn’t…”
“What? A proper place for a lady? With half the campus going up in flames I knew you two would be in the thick of it, so I figured I’d better come help. Or bail you out of gaol. Again.”
She had been helping. She set down a pail of water, and handed Fisk a cup and a sopping wet cloth as she spoke.
“I knew there was a reason I … ah, thank you,” Fisk said. He drank deeply, then pressed the cloth to his eyes.
“Your hands are burned too,” Kathy observed. “How come you’re such a mess and Michael looks so tidy?”
’Twas not a question I was prepared to answer, even to my sister, but it reminded me of the question I’d not had time to ask.
“Fisk, what under two moons were you doing in Professor Dayless’ office? You cursed near went up with the tower!”
“Ah.” Fisk’s gaze darted to Kathy, then away. “I know scholars well enough that I was pretty sure she’d have another set of notes, with the true results of their experiment, tucked away somewhere. Getting rid of them, as well as Stint, was probably why she chose this way to do it. She could get rid of every threat in the same ‘accident.’ She’d been getting ‘results,’ so she might even be able to get more funding, and start over with a new partner.”
His voice was still rough but he’d stopped coughing. And since I’d now had time to think about how near we’d both come to dying in that inferno, I was all the more angry.
“We’d no need of any notes to prove her guilt! Stint’s testimony, and Quicken’s if we needed to track him down, would provide plenty of evidence. Why take such a foolish risk?”
“Well, she seemed to think her experiment could succeed. And if there was some value in those notes, someone who turned them over to the Heir might be able to request … to get a favor in return.”
This made no sense to me, but his gaze had strayed to Kathy once more. And her face lit with sudden fury.
“Fisk, you moron! Is that what you were thinking? That you had to get someone else’s permission? You idiot!”
She threw her arms around Fisk’s neck, and kissed him. ’Twas not a sisterly kiss, either. Fisk’s arms went around her, gently, but in a way that made it clear he intended to hold onto this woman forever.
Kathy and Fisk? I felt as if the fire had suddenly swept over me, sucking all the air away. Why hadn’t I noticed? Why hadn’t they said something?
For a moment I was outraged — not so much by the thought of them together, which was beginning to feel less strange by the minute — but by the fact that either one of them would keep something so important from me.
On the other hand, from what Kathy said, it sounded like they’d been keeping their feelings secret from each other, too. So I could hardly blame them.
Still, Kathy and Fisk…?
They stopped kissing, perhaps for want of breath, but instead of pulling apart Kathy lowered her head to Fisk’s shoulder. And in that moment, ’twas as clear as anything I’d ever seen that they were right for each other. Right together.
If anything, Fisk was holding her closer than when they’d kissed. As if he feared that, at any moment, she might be pulled from his arms.
As well he might! Father would disown Kathy, or lock her up in a tower, or marry her off to someone…
Unless he was stopped. And looking at the way my sister clung to Fisk, stopping him was a knight errant’s job. Father would never forgive any of us, but if it made Fisk and Kathy happy I didn’t care. I consider happiness more important in a marriage than rank or money — which was just as well, because Kathy wouldn’t inherit a cracked copper if she wed Fisk.
Without letting go of my sister, Fisk opened his eyes and looked at me. “I really hope you don’t have a problem with this.”
“Not at all.” In truth, I was pleased he didn’t ask my permission — a squire would have, but a friend didn’t have to. I returned the compliment, by not asking if his intentions were honorable. “But I advise you to get married now, before Father or anyone else hears about this. Kathy’s old enough to consent, but until she marries or turns twenty-five she’s Father’s legal ward.”
Fisk’s shoulders sagged in sudden relief, which amused me. He knew me too well to fear that I’d object, unless love of my sister had overset his reason. In fact, it had overset his reason so badly he’d almost gotten us both killed.
I resolved to keep a close eye on Fisk till he recovered his wits, and became more accustomed to being in love.
“Kathy’s actually the Liege’s ward,” was Fisk’s explanation for blatant insanity. “That’s why I needed to earn his favor. Or at least get on the Heir’s good side. But that idea’s in ashes now.”
His gaze went to the burning tower, still a bit wistful, and Kathy shivered.
“You really are crazy,” she told him. “Even if you’d found those notes, and they were worth something, we could still have gotten married now and you could have exchanged them for something more practical. Like a small estate.”
“You’re worth more than any estate,” Fisk told her. “There’s nothing worth more than love.”
This maudlin sentiment was so unlike my erstwhile squire, I almost asked what had become of the real Fisk. But it must have been the first time that word had passed between them, for they kissed again. And went on kissing, though I paid no attention, for something nagged at me. The worth of love, the price of love, no number for love… But there was a number for everything.
Motive bloomed in my mind, brighter than the flaming tower.
I gasped, but Fisk and Kathy ignored me. I glared at them, but they went on kissing. I finally had to shake Fisk’s shoulder, whereupon they both glared at me.
“I know, and I’m sorry, but I know who killed Hotchkiss! And I think I can prove it.”
Since he was babbling about Hotchkiss’ murder, I wasn’t too surprised when Michael led us to the library. I had requested, somewhat politely, that he either tell us who killed Hotchkiss or go away — and though I was deeply grateful to Michael for taking the news about Kathy and me so well, truthfully, I was hoping for the latter. But he said he had to check one more thing, and Kathy was beginning to be curious, so I pulled out Hotchkiss’ keys and let us into the dark building.
We could probably have gone from room to room using the moonlight that poured through the windows, but Michael took down one of the lamps beside the door — he had to pull it from its stand — and then kindled it.
I noted that his new ability to keep us alive in burning buildings didn’t
mean he could suddenly do everything with magic, and used the darkness while he fumbled around to steal a few more kisses — a sweet theft, that could make the rest of my life joyous … if I could only figure out some way to marry the wench.
At least, thank goodness, Michael was on our side — we’d need all the help we could get! It was very well for Kathy to say we that could get married legally right now — infuriating not only her powerful father, but the High Liege. Kathy seemed to think that if we were wed there was nothing they could do about it, which was nonsense. Even if they weren’t prepared to make her a widow — and I preferred not to bet my life on that — there were legal means to break up a marriage. It wasn’t easy, but it could be done — particularly if a well-dowered maiden entered into that marriage without her guardian’s consent. Mostly the guardian would just get the dowry back, but not always. I didn’t care about Kathy’s dowry, but the other legal possibilities went from bad to very bad in short order.
Convicting me of kidnapping, forcible marriage, and rape — no matter what either of us said — was one of the most likely.
Finding out who’d killed Hotchkiss might win us a bit of good will, from the local law, at least. So when Michael finally got the lamp lit, I followed him over to the directory with only moderate regret.
But he wasn’t looking at the directory, he was reading the numbered subject list beside it.
“Emotions, Thought, the Human Mind, 000 to 009,” he muttered. “That’s not enough. Where are they?”
“Far end of the hallway on the right,” Kathy told him, looking at the building map.
Michael set off without another word, striding briskly. With Kathy’s hand in mine, we trailed him at a more leisurely pace. By the time we reached the room, which had once been some lady’s parlor, Michael had already found the master sheet for that section, framed and hung on the wall beside the door.
“001,” he read. “Love of a child for a parent. 001.2, love of a child for a grandparent. 001.3, love of a child for a friend. 002 starts with romantic love, between man and woman.”