Legacies (Mercedes Lackey) - By Mercedes Lackey Page 0,96
I.”
Asking isn’t getting . . . Now, instead of Mom’s voice or even Dad’s, it was Phoenix’s voice Spirit heard in her mind, in the bratty sing-song Fee used to put on when she wanted to drive Spirit absolutely crazy. Ask-ing is-n’t get-ing, ask-ing is-n’t get-ing . . .
Ms. Corby followed them into Doctor Ambrosius’s office, instead of just ushering them in and shutting the door this time, as she had the day Spirit and Loch had come to Oakhurst. Spirit glanced quickly at the others, but Loch was the only one who looked unsettled by her presence.
There was no question of them being permitted to sit, even if there’d been enough chairs here for the five of them. In fact, today there were no guest chairs in the study at all. The five of them stood in front of the desk like errant children as Ms. Corby walked around behind the desk and stood beside Doctor Ambrosius.
“I’ve brought the five missing students, Doctor,” Ms. Corby said. “They walked right back in at dawn, after being gone all night.”
Doctor Ambrosius was sitting at his desk, looking over a folder of paperwork. It was nearly a minute before he looked up from the folder. His blue eyes were as piercing as they’d been that first day, and Spirit shivered as he locked eyes with her, but despite herself, she couldn’t look away.
“You have all disappointed me greatly,” he said at last. “Mr. Hallows, I had hoped for great things from you. Miss Lake, you were doing so very well in your studies. And you, Miss Shae. You had shown such great improvement. As for you, Mr. Spears, Miss White, certainly one’s transition to the larger reality represented by Oakhurst is a great shock, following as it necessarily does the loss of one’s family. But I had not yet been dissatisfied in either of you.”
There was another long silence as he continued to study them.
“I suppose you have an explanation for your behavior?” he said at last. “Miss White, you may begin.”
“I, um, I—” Spirit was utterly flustered at the thinly veiled demand that she explain her—explain their—actions. She saw Doctor Ambrosius frown at her panicked stammering, and a combination of anger and determination made her take a deep steadying breath. I faced down ghosts and killer elves and a demon tonight. I can face down one headmaster.
Who also happened to be a magician.
“It began when we realized that whatever had happened to Seth Morris, Camilla Patterson, and Nick Bilderback was related, and was magical in nature,” she said carefully.
It took the five of them over an hour to tell the story of the Wild Hunt. Of coming to realize that the Wild Hunt was riding through the hills around Oakhurst during the eight ancient Festivals, of researching its probable elements, of seeking out suitable weapons, of going out to stop it. Doctor Ambrosius let them tell the story in their own words and their own ways, only speaking when one of them hadn’t made something clear enough, or when he wanted to hear a portion of the story from someone else.
The one thing they all avoided, just as if they’d rehearsed what they were going to say ahead of time, was any mention of an “insider” at Oakhurst working with the Hunt. Ms. Corby was standing right there, and while she didn’t have any magic of her own, that was no proof she wasn’t working with someone who did.
Their story was plausible enough without bringing up the trip to the subbasement and their discovery of Camilla Patterson’s file. Loch told of sneaking in to visit Nick in the Infirmary, and Muirin confessed to manipulating Eddie Abbott into Scrying for her because she suspected Seth had been a victim of the same attacker. And as for Camilla’s disappearance . . . well, they only had Nick’s word to go on that she’d been on the grounds when she vanished.
“So you see, sir, we weren’t really sure whether the Hunt would come at all,” Loch said earnestly. “If it didn’t, well, we’d just hope to get back to our rooms with nobody being the wiser. And if it did, well, we just didn’t want anybody else to die.”
“I . . . see,” Doctor Ambrosius said. There was a long tense moment, then he smiled. “Miss Corby, I have to say that these five young persons have acted in the finest tradition of Oakhurst. Wouldn’t you agree?”