into the laboratory, said tentatively, “My, living in a boys’ school has certainly changed your language.”
“I hate to shatter your innocence, sir,” she answered curtly, “but I didn’t utter any words I didn’t already know since I was twelve.”
She laid her elbows on the worktable and buried her face in her hands, as exhausted as she was furious. Was this it? After everything they had been through, he expected her to sit quietly and wait for The Delamer Observer to tell her when half the city’s population had been destroyed by death rain? And when his state funeral was held, assuming that Atlantis would even bother to return his body—did he expect her to learn that from the papers too?
“Iola, my dear—”
“Please leave me alone.” She hated to be rude to Master Haywood. But he was glad that she hadn’t gone, and she couldn’t face that gladness now.
“I’ll be happy to give you all the space you wish. But do please remember that we must decamp at some point, if only to the inn. You can’t stay here forever.”
She could, just to spite Titus. “I understand. Would you mind leaving me for a few minutes? You can take the paper if you want.”
The laboratory had a copy of The Delamer Observer, the contents of which refreshed every few hours—and sometimes even more frequently.
“That’s all right. I already read every article inside while you were sleeping. Some earlier visitor had left a copy of the Times in the parlor—I’ll have a look at that instead.”
Silence. Emptiness. The sound of her own trembling breaths. The hollow sensation of no longer being needed. Ever.
The rain of hearts and bunnies. The Sahara Desert, his long, lonely walk each night, watching over her. The lightning erupting from the ground up, white-hot and deadly. For you.
Anger, seething. The violence inside her, a dark cauldron. His hand as she pulled him into the lighthouse, so cold, so very, very cold. You and you alone. Live forever. I love you with every breath and I always will.
She clutched her head. She could not bear the upheaval. Peace, calm, tranquility—she needed something. If not, then at least a blessed numbness, a cessation of this vehement churn of emotions and memories.
The blankness she longed for came all of a sudden. But it was not peace, calm, or tranquility: her mind had seized onto something, forsaking all other thoughts in order to pull a phantom of an idea out of the chaos.
She sat up.
But what can possibly be worse than your being taken to the Bane’s crypt and sacrificed? Kashkari had demanded. And Master Haywood had gasped. She, naturally enough, had interpreted it to be a sound of dismay and distress.
What if she had been wrong?
“Iola!” Master Haywood set aside the Times and rose from his seat. “Are you feeling better?”
She had seldom felt worse.
At her silence, he fidgeted a little. Then he tapped the paper. “You will not believe what I just read: a funeral announcement for your friend, young Wintervale.”
That indeed wasn’t something she would have expected to find in a nonmage paper. Still she said nothing.
“Iola, are you all right?”
She wasn’t, but her mind was now working furiously. “Do you remember Professor Eventide?”
“Hippolyta Eventide? Of course.”
Professor Eventide had been an unforgettable personality, a big, loquacious woman with a head of bright-red hair, a wardrobe full of sequins and polka dots, and a mind as powerful as a blade wand. Her research specialty was the Dark Arts, which mage societies as a whole shunned. The in-depth understanding of the Dark Arts, however, was considered to be an unfortunate necessity, if only so that there were those who could recognize and help defend against such practices.
Most major centers of learning had a resident expert or two on the Dark Arts. It was Iolanthe’s understanding that they were usually awkward loners who eschewed the company of their fellow academics, even as the latter gave them the cold shoulder. Professor Eventide, by dint of her warmth and conviviality, was an exception. She was welcome everywhere and never lacked for invitations to social gatherings.
When Master Haywood had worked at the Conservatory, Professor Eventide had taken a maternal interest in him and was determined to find him a wife. That project never came to fruition, but the two had become great friends and would sometimes throw dinner parties jointly. On those occasions Iolanthe had loved to sit at the top of the staircase, out of sight, and listen to the grown-ups as they discussed