The Last Smile in Sunder City (The Fetch Phillips Archives #1) - Luke Arnold Page 0,7
few more but it was just like she said: outdated invitations to Vampire meet-ups and sad articles about their homeland of Norgari.
“Any chance he left town?”
She shook her head. “He would have told me, and I can’t see how. It takes him an hour just to walk to the school, and a horse or carriage would shake him to pieces.”
I opened a solid wooden trunk at the end of the bed and found six identical leather satchels: Rye’s teaching files. Inside each bag were the appropriate documents for each subject: class lists, course outlines, reading materials, student evaluations. Every folder was titled, indexed and in perfect condition; a level of care that was not evident in the rest of his jumbled life.
The last satchel had no label and contained a set of colored folders with individual student reports.
“Tutoring,” the librarian explained. “Some kids who are interested in specific fields made time with Edmund to pick his brain. I don’t think they knew what they were in for. He’s very generous with his time but demands complete commitment in return. Sometimes he’s a little hard on them, but it’s only out of passion. He can’t understand why everyone doesn’t share his thirst for knowledge.” A small laugh started to escape her lips before fear hooked it and reeled it back in. “I think mortality has made him panic. He wants to absorb as much as he can, while he can, before it’s all over.”
I flicked through the files. Edmund was teaching a young Werewolf about the evolution of the Human-animal hybrids collectively known as Lycum. A teenage Siren wanted to be a singer, so Rye was subjecting her to the entire history of music. He had a number of students who were studying a course in “modern Human-Magic politics”. If I managed to find the Professor, I thought I might take a session in that myself.
“How’s his health?”
Her firmly held smile hit the floor.
“From the look of him, I thought the day he arrived was going to be his last. Somehow, he’s made it through the years, but these recent months have been the worst. His mind fights on but his body is failing.”
I took a last look around the light-filled room. Would anybody be surprised that Edmund Rye was dead? Of course not. The amazing thing was that he’d lasted as long as he had.
“I’ll see what I can find,” I said, “but it sounds like the lack of blood might have finally caught up with him.”
She tried to say something but couldn’t grasp the words. Instead, she turned her head towards the wide windows. I picked up the bag of tutoring files and a few other personal documents: notepad, passport, teaching certificate. At the bottom of the trunk, under the satchels, there was a thick stack of bound paper. I opened the blank cover and found the first of many handwritten pages, with a heading that read: An Examination of Change by Professor Edmund Albert Rye. It seemed that the Professor was writing a book of his own. I tucked it in with the tutoring files.
“I’ll take some of these, if that’s fine with you. I promise to bring them back when I’m finished.”
She just nodded, her body still facing the bright, afternoon sky. I pretended to busy myself around the room till she covered up her sadness and was ready to climb back down.
When we were back outside, I pulled a business card from the case in my jacket and passed it over.
“Sorry, I didn’t get your name.”
She pinned the card between her slender fingers and tucked it into her pocket.
“Eileen Tide.”
“Thanks for your help, Eileen. I noticed his wine collection upstairs. Was there a particular bar he liked to frequent?”
“Jimmy’s. Third Street, above the tanners.”
I nodded and smiled, trying to pretend that this case didn’t look so hopeless.
“He could still turn up,” I offered, with all the comfort of a storm-cloud.
“I hope so. If you need me, I’ll be here every day while we make some changes. People are printing again. The Human way. New stories are coming in from across the continent, and revised editions of old volumes to reflect the new world. We have to clear out most of the pre-Coda publications.”
“Surely you can’t just throw away history.”
She shrugged. “I’m going through them all and putting aside the ones that still make sense. But there’s no point trying to pretend that the world hasn’t changed.”