by wildbow
The top floor, however, was far quieter. She passed one pairing of grey-coated man and new Doctor as she walked down two hallways. She reached Professor Hayle’s office and knocked.
“Come in,” the Headmaster said.
Lillian did, closing the door behind her.
“Congratulations, Doctor,” Hayle said. His smile seemed more natural than it had on stage.
“Thank you,” she said. She put her hands into the pockets of her coat, enjoying the pull of it against her shoulders and neck.
“Have you had a chance to talk with your parents?”
“No,” she said. Then she realized how it might sound. “Perhaps after.”
“Perhaps after,” he said, nodding, digesting that.
He was standing behind his desk. He had taken off and hung up his black coat, and his sleeves were rolled up. Someone had brought him a tray of tea, which sat on the desk. One cup had already been filled and sat steaming in arm’s length of his chair.
“Am I here for good news or bad news, headmaster?” she asked.
“Neither, I think,” Hayle said. “It depends what you want to hear from me. Again, I’m sorry for what happened on stage. Lady Gloria invited herself. I think she sought you out.”
“Why?”
“You likely know more than I do. The politics of the Crown are a storm and I try to keep this ship on course in the midst of it.”
Lillian took in that statement, and turned it around in her head in light of what she’d learned about the nobles and the Block.
Was Hayle lying to her? Did he know?
That did a lot to set the underlying tone of this conversation.
“May I?” she asked, indicating the tray of tea.
“Please do. Help yourself to the cookies. I’d rather not partake than deal with the heartburn or the remedy for the heartburn.”
Lillian poured herself a cup, and she tried to formulate a response while she did so. “Would I sound petulant if I said I deserved accolades, Headmaster?”
“No,” Hayle said. He settled into his chair, and he took hold of his cup of tea in both hands. He didn’t elaborate. He seemed to leave it at that.
“Was it her interference? Or more politics that you couldn’t handle?”
“You didn’t capture Sylvester Lambsbridge, doctor,” Hayle said. “You were put in charge of a project, with the idea of keeping the team intact, and not a single one of the original members remain.”
“I think that’s unfair,” she said.
“Gordon is dead, Helen is dead, Jamie was rumored dead, and even if that rumor was false, there’s some reason to think he was caught in one of the black wood traps with his partner in crime. A casualty of the chaos other rebels created, if they weren’t the cause of the disasters in the first place. No word of the pair in months. How could I argue that case to a jury of professors?”
“Did you try?”
“No,” Hayle said. He leaned back, holding his tea. “As much as I’ve valued what you brought to the table, it wasn’t a sensible use of political capital.”
“I deserved for you to try,” Lillian said, not meeting his eyes. She pursed her lips for a second, and then ventured, quiet.
“Perhaps,” Hayle said. “I’ll see about making it up to you.”
Lillian wasn’t sure how to respond. She already felt too entitled for pressing things this far. She sipped the tea, testing the temperature, then took a more confident drink. The cookies were shortbread, and they were perfect.
“I brought you here to discuss transition, change, not good or bad news,” Hayle said. “In the interest of making things up to you… Mary is yours.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Take that in both senses it can be interpreted. Her loyalty belongs to you already. I am now formally handing you custody. The doctors I tasked with her care will remain at your disposal should you ask, but whatever path you take from here, so long as you’re with the Academy, she is a project under your name, not my own.”
Lillian opened her mouth, trying to think of what to say, and then closed it.
“As for Ashton, I’ve him to Duncan’s custody.”
“That makes a lot of sense,” she said. “And at the same time, I’m not sure if I should feel sorry for one of them, the other, both of them, or if it’s perfect.”
“A lot will depend on where he goes.”
“And my situation and Mary’s depend on where we go.”
“Yes. No changes in her health?”
“Growths. Largely benign, lower back and thighs mostly, some on the face and neck. Manageable so far.”
“Good,” Hayle said, nodding. “Good. I’m glad.”
“But to backtrack—you said paths?” Lillian asked. “What—I have paths? What happened to the current path?”
The old professor nodded. He leaned forward, elbows on the table, tea still clasped in both hands. “The Lambs project is… in ambiguous territory. You, Mary, and Ashton, you can be given a mission and I have confidence you could do a satisfactory job. But it scarcely resembles what I was aiming to accomplish in the beginning. There are the others that we used as bait… I pay for their upkeep and I plan to do so for the indefinite future, but again, in function and form they would scarcely resemble what I hoped to create.”
“You wanted a gestalt.”
“You could say that, yes,” Hayle said. He shook his head. “I won’t say the project is finished or that it was a failure, but I think tying you to it in its current state is a crueler thing than failing to give you accolades. I don’t foresee a resounding success that will launch your career forward.”
Lillian’s gaze dropped. She helped herself to more shortbread.
“There are paths,” Hayle said. “Right now you’re wearing that white coat with a student uniform, but that’s… a conceit for the evening, nothing more. Tomorrow you’ll wear civilian clothes with your coat. You might move on to work, interviews, or sign on for further study with the Academy. Many of your fellow Doctors are in talks this very moment, deciding where they go.”
“Yes,” Lillian said.
“I’m held in some esteem, and you’re held in some esteem by me. Some have floated interest in you for this reason. Others have floated interest in you purely because of your own merits.”
The professor reached over, and he pushed a stack of letters and papers toward her. Some were files, some were letters, and some were papers folded in threes and bound with cord.
“If you’d indulge me, I’d like to discuss the offers, and share my own perspective,” he said.
She put the shortbread down on the edge of her saucer and reached for the stack, sliding it closer to her.
“The letter that is on top… I put it there for a reason. I think you should read it first, after you leave. Calibrate expectations, digest it, be offended and insulted. But read it and use it as a barometer to measure the others.”
“What is it?” she asked. She lifted it up to better view it by the flickering voltaic lights. “Sir Cory Llend? I feel like I’ve heard that name.”
“A local aristocrat. One of notorious stature. He’s a boor and a pervert, he’s bad with the money he got by birthright, not effort. More to the point, it’s not even a secret that he has an abiding fondness for intelligent, stern women. Someone let slip that you were to be the sole female student to receive commendations at Radham this year. He wrote to me with a message to be passed on to you. He goes on at great length about the work Academy doctors have done on him, and his consequential… abilities.”
Lillian looked down at the letter and experienced a deep, almost existential kind of horror.
“Are my expectations being set this low? A love letter from an embarrassment of a man?”
“No. That wasn’t my aim in suggesting this,” Hayle said. “But… it’s a kind of offer you should think about. There are other letters in the pile that are from aristocratic fathers and mothers looking for respectable ladies for their sons. I
know you’ve talked about running your own Academy. Having backing would shortcut the process, and it would make a great many things possible.”
“No, professor,” Lillian said. “Headmaster. I’m sorry.”
“Give it some consideration,” he insisted. “As your mentor and advisor, I’m warning you that it’s exceptionally easy for a male doctor to miss out on the opportunity to forge a family and home and to fall into the trap that the Academy represents. For a young lady, who only has so many years to bear children—”
“Headmaster,” Lillian said, more firmly, shutting her eyes.
He fell silent.
She took a moment, waiting to see if he would say anything more, before she opened her eyes.
“It seems you’re not open to counsel on the topic,” Hayle said. “I understand.”
Lillian felt the warmth of the cup of tea in her hands. Her thumbnail throbbed. She turned the sentence over in her head several times before she decided she was safe to say, “I let you dictate my childhood and adolescence, headmaster. My relationships… I’d like to avoid that topic, past or future. Leave them untainted.”
The man nodded, but his words betrayed the nod. “I’m concerned I’ve already thoroughly damaged that part of you, throwing you to the wolves as I did, or to the wolf. I’d hoped to mend that damage with some guidance tonight.”
Lillian’s mouth was dry, and she’d already downed most of the tea. “I… if you don’t mind my saying so, I don’t think that’s for you to do.”
He could have taken it much harder than he did, but he hardly seemed to mind. He took a moment to think, finishing his tea before standing to pour himself a fresh cup.
Lillian reached out, picking through the letters.
“The first few are overtures of a similar if less lewd nature,” Hayle said. “The first one you might be interested in is from Professor Berger.”
Berger. She tried not to betray interest or excitement and searched for it, making her way down the stack.
It was an envelope, sealed with wax.
“I didn’t read that one,” Hayle said, “as it was sealed with the Duke of Francis’ mark.”
Lillian nodded, and she opened the envelope. Within were two bits of metal.
Commendations. Pins with leaves at the end. The leaves were marked with crowns.
“I reached out to him,” Hayle said. “I didn’t ask for this, specifically, I merely thought he could be a resource for you as you started out, opening paths.”
Before even examining the commendations in full or reading the contents of the letter, her eye scanned the letter itself. She saw the frayed marks at the edges of the paper. Two, then one, then three.
She put that aside for later, and she read the contents, which were relatively brief.
“One for me, and one for Duncan. A thank-you for his rescue.”
“He struck me as the kind of man who would do that.”
“He mentions Helen, and he talks about some things that he and I discussed while we traveled back to the city.”
“Excellent. If he’s your ally, that’s an immensely good ally to have.”
Lillian nodded, folding up the letter.
“The remainder are job offers. I put the one you might be most interested in at the top, near Professor Berger’s.”
The one she might be most interested in. She picked it up, holding it for a clearer view. The office wasn’t brightly lit, between the soft voltaic lights and the lamps on the desk, and the lines of the ink were spiderweb-fine.
“Professor Ferres? Is this Viola Ferres?”
“I do not know of any other professors by that last name,” Hayle said. He was smiling.
“She’s—I’ve gone on two trips just to hear her speak. She’s an excellent mind, but she’s also one of the most capable female professors in the Crown States, she runs Hackthorn Academy. She’s the only female professor that isn’t running an all-girl’s school.”
She almost crumpled the pages in her hurry to unfold them.
“Miss Lillian Garey, I’m writing to you because I’ve made a point of keeping my eye on the most exceptional young ladies in the Academies, and I can remember our brief but enthusiastic conversation in the summer of the year nineteen twenty-three. I know the tales they tell about me, they call me the Hag of Hackthorn, and it would be remiss of me to neglect a rare young lady like yourself that once put a smile on the face of a hag like me. I don’t remember making her smile.”
“If you did, you were the first person in decades to do it, by all reports,” Hayle said. “She’s not often described as being kind or easy to get along with.”
Bewildered, Lillian read on, “I put myself in direct competition with your Professor Hayle in reaching out and attempting to recruit your mind and your services. I want you for my Academy, Lillian Garey, to pursue a project that closely mirrors your Professor Hayle’s. I…”
Lillian read on.
The delight faded from her features.
“She wants to start her own version of the Lambs,” Lillian said. “She wants to take children, separate experiments, and to raise them as a unit.”
“Yes,” Hayle said. “On one level, the Lambs left their mark. Professor Ferres is the type to look at what others did poorly and attempt to do it better. I harbor concerns she dwells on the cosmetic and neglects the personal, but that’s entirely beside the point.”
“What is the point?” Lillian asked. She looked up at Hayle. “The—I’m not trying to sound weak or upset in a way I’m not, but this bothers me and I can’t articulate why.”
For reasons that went well beyond the fact that Hayle was the one listening to the articulation.
“Because you invested a lot of yourself into the Lambs, and it could be that this kind of project is something you’ll forever take personally. Someone who started out raising warbeasts from cub to weapon of war might forever have a soft spot for the things. Especially if they were eleven or twelve when they started.”
Lillian frowned.
“There are others,” Hayle said.
“Others? Others wanting to create Lambs of their own?”
“In varying ways and directions. I thought Professor Ferres would be most interesting to you.”
Almost, almost, Lillian had considered the offer. But the meeting with the noble on the stage weighed on her in a way she would likely be digesting for weeks to come, and then to hear that there were others? It was one thing to step in and have a hand in things from the beginning, she could see herself doing that, acting and taking a firmer hand, illustrating the key problems, but when this was only one drop in a bucket?
“There are other factors to consider,” Hayle said. “Come around to my side of the desk.”
Lillian did, bringing her tea with her.
Hayle moved papers and books aside. On his desk, held down against wood by a sheet of glass, there was a map of the Crown States. It was white parchment, of the kind an artist used, and the map had been drawn by a hand in a forceful, sketched out style that Lillian was almost certain was that of a stitched, a kind that drew reproductions.
That paper, stained slightly by age, had been painted with watercolor, possibly Hayle’s own hand.
There was red, and there was blue. She could infer from the placement of things what the colors represented.
“Very few people truly see the current state of things in the Crown States, Doctor Garey,” Hayle said.
Her fingers touched the glass, tracing it. The red watercolor started from the northeastern states and struck out, touching all of the dots and marring names that hadn’t been struck out with bold lines of Hayle’s pen. A full third of the Crown States were painted with the crimson of plague.
The blue, conversely, it took another form. It appeared almost at random, at the southwestern states, at the eastern coast, and in the English and French-speaking north. A compass and possibly a thin brush been used to draw out circles, going by the regularity and thickness of the lines
. Some of the circles had a succession of other circles or other more irregular shapes drawn out near them.
Black wood. It covered far more ground than she had been led to believe. Multiple states, in some cases.
“Multiple weapons of the Crown released and unleashed on the world. The black wood activated in seven locations. Pre-emptive burn circles—”
Hayle tapped one of the circles drawn with the compass.
“—failed on several occasions, leading to further attempts at controlling the spread. We think it was Fray. A play for power that failed, a greater gambit, I couldn’t guess what unfolded. But the rebels haven’t made a move or even shown their faces in months now. Only Mauer is still fighting his fight after having sustained heavy losses.”
Lillian stared down at the image, committing it to memory as best as she was able.
She would need to communicate this to Professor Berger, in case he didn’t know.
Again, by Hayle’s rhetoric and his easy lies, she was reminded of how precarious this was. That Hayle could look her in the eye and speculate about who was responsble, when Professor Berger and the Duke of Francis had confided that it was the Infante?
Either Hayle was keeping the truth from her in pursuit of the Crown’s agenda, or he was dangerously incompetent, and Hayle was not a man who lent himself to incompetence.
He continued, “Hackthorn, right here. They’re isolated by the black wood, and you’ll want to factor that into your decision. Getting in and out is difficult and dangerous, for a multitude of reasons.”
“I’m not going to Hackthorn,” she said.
Hayle nodded, as if this made an abundance of sense. “I won’t steer you too firmly, given our conversation earlier. There are other offers. Doors are open to you. Ask me if you need anything, if you’re curious about a name or an Academy.”
“And if I stay?” she asked. With the Lambs, here?
“Then you’ll be eminently welcome, and you’ll have a seat in any class you wish to take,” he said.
“I’ll—it’s a great deal to think about,” she said. “I’d like to take some time.”
“Please do. If you still seek your black coat—”