stock-still and trembling, staring at the floor. She did not look up as Mirabilis strode casually toward her.
“My, don’t you look nice!” Mirabilis smiled. “And you’ve managed to give the strident Miss Pendennis the slip. You have excellent judgment.” His voice lowered an octave. “Miss Pendennis is an … exceptional woman. But your native common sense is more than equal to the challenges that face you. I do hate to see women swayed by advisers who may not have their best interests at heart.”
Emily curled her lips back from her teeth, but said nothing.
“Now,” Mirabilis continued, “tonight’s Grand Symposium will be preceded by a small dinner for the colleagues. If you could be downstairs by eleven to meet—”
“Fine,” Emily said curtly.
“Additionally, please understand that this Grand Symposium shall be a dangerous gathering. No great thing can be accomplished without a correspondingly great measure of risk. For your safety, I have not told all to all. Answer questions honestly if I ask them, but volunteer nothing. Allow me to do all the talking.”
“It’s your money,” Emily said, aware that her voice was trembling slightly. “You’re paying for my time.”
Mirabilis knit his brow. His face was inscribed with annoyance, as if her petulance was a personal affront.
“Miss Edwards, is there something wrong?”
She tried to say nothing. She tried to keep her mouth shut, but words burst from her lips in a sudden molten gush.
“Profound advantages?” She lifted her eyes, fixed Mirabilis with accusing venom. “How could you let him do it? How could you let him discard his life so stupidly? And then you added insult to injury by making it all meaningless. Subverting him. Undercutting him. Sending him to Lost Pine. You never wanted him to succeed. All you cared about was his father’s connections! You never had any faith in him. You wanted to make him a failure. I don’t know why … but it’s horrible. It’s horrible and it’s vicious and I despise you for it!”
Mirabilis was silent for a moment, obviously sorting through the particulars of the wild flood of accusation.
“I don’t know what Mr. Stanton has told you,” Mirabilis began.
“He told me …” She searched her memory, her voice breaking with despair. “He told me it was a defect. He told me it was an impairment. He made it seem like such a small thing.”
“All credomancers are liars,” Mirabilis interjected, smiling at what was probably a very old chestnut within these walls.
“Mr. Stanton isn’t a liar,” she spat, refusing to be jollied. Mirabilis frowned.
“Miss Edwards, get ahold of yourself,” he rumbled, and the words were like a hundred strong hands seizing her and giving her a shake. She lowered her head, breathing hard. Mirabilis was silent a moment before continuing.
“Mr. Stanton was burned long before he came to the Institute,” Mirabilis said. “He continued his studies here with full awareness of the implications it would have for his health. It was his decision, and he made it for good reasons.”
“There are no good reasons for suicide,” she hissed.
“That, Miss Edwards, is where you are wrong.”
Emily stared at him. His eyes glittered dangerously.
“What the hell do you mean by that?” Emily whispered.
“Credomancy isn’t the only thing he’s studied,” Mirabilis said. “And this isn’t the only place he trained.”
“The Erebus Academy,” she said, remembering Perun’s words in Chicago. Mirabilis nodded.
“It is an elite institution, the West Point of the Army’s magical divisions,” Mirabilis said. “Mr. Stanton was there for three years. That is where he studied sangrimancy, with the intention of becoming a Maelstrom.”
Emily felt as if the floor were falling from beneath her feet, but she stood stock-still.
“He did very well there, I understand.” Mirabilis clipped each word; it almost seemed that he took perverse pleasure in them. “Indeed, he was, by all accounts, exceptionally well suited to the practice of blood magic. His snobbishness, his impatience with human frailty, his rigid worldview …”
“Then how did he end up here?” Emily’s throat was dry.
“I approached him at a … fortuitous moment. I made arguments that helped him understand that studying at my Institute would be beneficial. That greater goals could be served.”
“What greater goals?”
“That’s really none of your business, is it?” Mirabilis said. “But you are correct in one regard. I never thought he’d amount to much as a credomancer. It is simply not his area of natural proficiency.”
“So you did subvert him. You did want him to be a failure,” Emily said, suddenly understanding, “because he was too dangerous any other way.”