Conspiracies (Mercedes Lackey) - By Mercedes Lackey Page 0,91
looked for a moment as if she was going to make one of her catty remarks, then shrugged. “He’s probably right. If Step died in a fire, I’d throw a party.”
“He needs—I don’t know, something I guess he figures he can’t get from any of us.” Loch sighed.
“Well I need some fun. Getting all emo isn’t going to help Burke. I’ve got a date,” Muirin announced.
“A date? You call watching a movie in the lounge with a guy a date?” Addie asked, amused.
“Au contraire, ma fond, this is a real date. Going out to a movie in Radial.” Muirin rolled her eyes a bit. “Okay, so it’s not bright lights, big city. But it’s off the campus. Madison’s dropping us off and picking us up. This was her idea.”
So now she’s aiding and abetting dates? Spirit thought. This was getting stranger all the time. Tell me it’s not Ovcharenko … because I think that might be illegal.
“Dylan Williams.” She made a face as all three of them stared at her as if she was crazy. “What? He’s okay. Besides, I think he’s on the short list for the Gatekeepers, and I know I am.”
Spirit felt completely appalled. Muirin wasn’t even considering that these Gatekeepers—or some of them anyway—might just be the Shadow Knights who had tried to kill them. Okay, maybe not them, specifically, but they’d certainly been trying to kill other students. And succeeding!
“Anyway, I have to get ready. Let me know if Captain Emo comes out of his room, maybe he’ll listen to one of us. If nothing else, I’m going to tell him he needs to see Doc Mac. That’s just sense.” Muirin got up, gave them all a twiddle of her fingers, and bounced out of the room.
“Lounge,” Addie said. Spirit and Loch nodded.
When they got there, the first thing that Loch asked was: “Did you talk to Doctor A.?” The looks on their faces must have given everything away, because his own face fell and he said, “Oh hell. That bad?”
“Worse,” Addie replied. “We eavesdropped. Ms. Corby was in there with him, getting him to sign papers, and he was talking about jam tarts and cricket pitches. As in, senile, demented, Alzheimer’s, or a stroke.”
“He was just rambling about absolutely nothing,” Spirit added. “It sounded like Ms. Corby was just in there to get his signature and wasn’t even bothering to listen to him.”
“Great. Just great.” Loch rubbed his forehead. “So effectively Rider and Company are in charge?”
“That would be our guess,” Addie told him. “We need to talk to someone. Right now, the only ones I can think of would be Doc Mac and Lily Groves.”
“Ugh,” Loch replied. “Both bad choices. Groves … she’s got a poker face I can’t read, and she’s been here since the beginning and she’s more than good enough a magician to have been the one to call the Wild Hunt. I can’t tell if she’s in favor of Breakthrough or against them. Doc Mac—I don’t trust shrinks. And since Muirin thinks Burke ought to be talking to him, I’m not sure where that places him. Maybe he’s another recruiter for the Breakthrough people and their Gatekeepers.”
All Spirit could think of was QUERCUS telling her to trust her instincts. It wasn’t as if they had anything else to go on right now.
“Doc Mac,” she said, finally. “I’ll go—he already said to come talk to him whenever I needed to.”
The other two nodded; Loch reluctantly, Addie with reserve.
“Good thing I have that free period every day,” she said with a grimace. “I’ll set it up for that. And don’t tell Muirin.”
“Not a chance,” Loch replied quickly. He shook his head. “Muirin and Dylan. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was mind controlled.”
Maybe she is, Spirit thought as they broke up. I can’t think of any other reason.
* * *
“Spirit,” Doc Mac greeted her, gesturing at the chair as she hesitated in the doorway. “Still having nightmares? Or do you want to know how you can talk Burke into coming here? Don’t worry about that, he already is.”
Spirit took the chair. “Actually … I guess I’ll come straight to the point. Doctor Ambrosius told me that the reason we’re all here is because we’re Legacies—that our parents graduated from Oakhurst, so when our parents died, part of the deal was that we got to come to Oakhurst until we were eighteen. That’s because we have magic. Nobody comes here