By Jove (27 page)

Marlowe willingly followed Theo out into the April sunshine. Students milled about on the greens, and windows in all the buildings were opened to admit the first warm spring air. Theo led Marlowe over to a cedar bench set in the ornamental plantings around the foundation of Hamilton Hall. Swelling azaleas and tiny purple scilla and crocuses clustered around their feet.

“Spring at last,” Marlowe said happily. “I always go a little crazy in the springtime. It’s what comes of being agriculturally connected, I suppose. All those shoots and tendrils straining toward the sun wreak havoc with your attention span. But I can’t say I regret it.”

A little crazy?
“Crazy how?” Theo asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. Restless. Impatient.”

“Rebellious?” she suggested.

“What do you mean?”

“Restless and impatient enough to leave anonymous notes in my mailbox warning me about Julian’s wine?” Theo watched him carefully.

Marlowe’s face became very still. “What about Julian’s wine?”

“Someone left a note signed “A Friend” in my mailbox a few days ago, warning me that Julian was lacing his wine with water from the river Lethe and giving it to me so that I would forget things. Like Grant.”

She was unprepared for his response. “What?” he nearly shouted, and jumped up.

“So it wasn’t you, I guess.” She slumped on the bench.

“Julian’s doing
what
to wine? Dammit, this is what I was talking about before. Messing with my creation. How dare he?” He glared at her for a moment, then sighed and threw himself back down beside her on the bench. “So that’s how he made you forget Grant, huh? I wish I’d known, so I
could
have warned you.”

“It’s okay, Marlowe.” She reached over and patted his hand. “We’d just like to know who is trying to help me, so we could talk to them.”

“So would I, my dear, so would I.”

Theo gasped and turned. Julian stood behind them, arms folded.

“You should really be more careful where you choose to hold confidential conversations, my dear Theodora. You never know whose windows might be open on such a lovely afternoon.” He gestured negligently behind him toward the brick façade of Hamilton. Looking up, she realized that their bench was precisely below his open office windows.

“So you wish that you could have warned Theodora, do you? Are you quite sure that you didn’t, my dear son? You always have been an incorrigible boy. I’m not sure that I don’t believe you did.” He slowly moved around to face them.

Beyond him, Theo could see students sunning on the grass, leaping through the soft air to catch a ball—being normal and human and mundane. Couldn’t they sense the towering, angry shadow that surrounded the handsome man standing by the bench?

She stole a glance at Marlowe and saw that he was all too aware of it: fear had made the face behind the luxuriant dark beard go pale.

“Of course,” Julian continued smoothly, stepping closer to her, “my Theodora should know better than to believe everything she reads in anonymous notes. Would you happen to have it with you so that I could see it?”

“No,” she said, eyes narrowed. “And as it was a private communication, I don’t think you have any right to ask for it anyway.”

He smiled a humorless smile. “You forget one thing, my dear, one thing that it would be good for you to learn now. I
do
have the right. I have the right to do more or less anything I choose to do. Like this.” He pointed at Marlowe and muttered “
Ampelos
!”

Theo jumped up, crying out and reaching for him, but it was too late. In Marlowe’s place a sturdy vine was shooting out of the earth, twining around the bench as she watched it, leafing out as it grew. In a moment it had occupied the space Marlowe had, grown over the bench in an eerily man-like shape.

“No!” She turned to Julian. “You—you—”

“Bastard? Is that what you were going to say? No, not technically, I’m afraid.” He looked down at the vine next to Theo, still writhing and sprouting leaves. “My, my. We are a little unkempt, aren’t we? I shall have to send the gardeners around to give him a trim.”

“Julian!”

“Oh, don’t worry. Marlowe only has to stay this way until Commencement. This is just to keep him from interfering until then.” He took her arm and turned her to face him. “I told you before, my dear. I
will
win. I won’t permit anything that might jeopardize that. Of course, I’d be happy to restore Marlowe to himself immediately if you would only yield now.”

Theo tried to twist out of his grasp. “No.”

“But poor Marlowe. And poor Grant, too. I don’t think he’s terribly comfortable in his present state. At least he didn’t seem that way at my last visit to him. Don’t you want to spare him the agony?”

“Agony?” Theo jerked away that time, but Julian’s hands shot out and pulled her back. She squirmed in his embrace. “This can’t look very good,” she panted as she fought him. “Faculty members forcing themselves on students.”

“Oh, no one can see us. I already made sure of that.” He tightened his arms slightly, and Theo found that she couldn’t move.

“I’m getting impatient, my dear. But it’s been so long since I’ve had anything to be impatient about that I’m rather enjoying the sensation. Fight me, if you must. It will make my victory all the sweeter.” He bent his head and kissed her slowly, still holding her immobilized against him.

“Why is Grant in agony?” she demanded when he finally ended the kiss and released her. “What have you done to him?” Involuntarily she wiped her mouth on her sleeve and was gratified to see him wince.

“Single-minded, aren’t we? I don’t choose to tell you right now, however.”

“If you’ve hurt him—”

“Did I say I had? There are more kinds of pain than just physical, remember. Often they’re even more effective.” Laughing, he neatly caught her balled fists and kissed each one. “I shouldn’t tease you this way, my poor darling. Oh, Theodora. Why can’t we go back to the way things were that golden week together?”

“Because,” she said icily, “they were never real to begin with.” She wrenched away from him, and with a sorrowful glance at the vine on the bench, went to find Olivia.

…

The following morning Theo stood in front of her class, dully assigning the day’s homework. Teaching had turned from joy to chore without Grant to compete with. Though her students still carried on the rivalry with his class, unaware of course of what had happened, all the fun had gone from it as far as Theo was concerned.

“Please complete the exercises at the end of the chapter on page 256, and read, er, chapter twenty in the
Gesta Romanorum
reader and be ready to discuss it on Friday.
Valete
.” She started to pack up her books as the class filed out, and wished she could go back to her room and sleep instead of go on to her rhetoric class with Dr. Waterman.

“Excuse me, Miss Fairchild?”

Theo looked up. It was one of her students, the perky one who always sat in the front row. “Yes, Kelly? Can I help you?”

The girl shook her head. “It’s not that. It’s just that I was the first one in class this morning, and I found something on the floor. It belongs to you, I guess, but I didn’t have a chance to give it to you before class started.” She held out a small white envelope.

Theo could see her name written on it in a familiar hand, and Kelly, the classroom, and worry about her next class vanished as she held her hand out for it. She heard herself thank the girl, watched herself scoop up her things and rush into the next classroom, saw Olivia look up in surprise as she shoved it under her nose.

“I think it’s from A Friend. Read it. I can’t,” she said, and collapsed into a seat to watch Olivia open it and concentrated on not levitating as she was prone to do these days in moments of excitement.

Olivia scanned the note, written on a small square of paper identical to the last note. “Ah,” she said with a smile. “Very interesting. All right, Theo. Go to class, and meet me—hmm—meet me for lunch as usual in the lounge.”

“But—” protested Theo, letting go of her seat and starting to rise. She hooked a foot under the desk and yanked herself back down. “But what does it say?”

“I think it best if I take care of this. You’ll know after lunch. It couldn’t be this easy, but we might find something useful.”

“
What
?” Olivia was being perfectly maddening.

“You’ll be late if you don’t go now. Trust me. I’d rather you didn’t get caught burgling the museum.” She handed Theo the note and swept out the door with a fiendish glint in her eye. Theo read:

You might find something of interest in the locked gem cabinets in the museum, third bank over, second from the bottom drawer.

A Friend

“And I’m supposed to sit in class for two hours while you sneak up there and rescue Grant?” she panted, catching up to Olivia in the hallway.

“Grant won’t be up there. And yes, you’ll go to class and be patient for two hours. You live in a different time scale now, Theo. To an immortal, two hours is less than nothing. Go. I’ll see you at lunch.”

Rhetoric and Composition had never taken so long, despite its being her favorite class. Dr. Waterman seemed to sense her mood and went out of his way to engage her, which made her feel worse, somehow. She knew that if Dr. Waterman could help her, he would. If only he could—but then an image of Marlowe’s horrified face as his feet took root came to mind. She had poured a bottle of water on him that morning with a whispered apology and was going to ask Olivia for some ambrosia to sprinkle on him as well, as extra protection against root rot and aphids. She wasn’t sure she could handle it if anything similar were to happen to Dr. Waterman.

Olivia was late, of course. Theo poked at her salad with a fork and stared hard at the door until she breezed through it with a broad grin on her face. Or rather, on Grant’s face. The dimples made Theo’s throat ache.

“Well, that was fun!” Olivia fell into a chair, still grinning.

“What was fun? Did you find whatever it was? Did anyone see you?” Theo pushed her salad aside and leaned forward expectantly.

“No, no one saw me. At least, not
me
. I’m afraid I did rather startle a couple of students in the library when I landed on the window sill—”

“‘Landed on the window sill,’” Theo repeated faintly.

Olivia held her arms out and flapped them. “Yes, landed on the window sill. I should have peeked in first but I didn’t think anyone would be there this time of day. But I took care of that and did my mouse trick next—it’s very strange going from owl to mouse, you know. Does funny things to your sense of perspective, going from predator to prey—”

“Olivia!”

“Oh, sorry. Anyway, the museum was deserted. Lights hadn’t even been turned on yet. A few students have supposedly been complaining about Kirby’s being up in the museum, so Dr. Bellow’s been spending more time downstairs. Getting to the gem drawers was no problem. And” —she held up a clenched fist and reached it over to Theo— “here we are.” She dropped something from it into Theo’s outstretched hand.

Theo looked into her hand and felt the blood rush into her face. “It’s Grant’s ring.”

The smoky-gray quartz gem gleamed in its red-gold setting, the carved torch still sharp and detailed. “He isn’t—?” she asked, with a hopeful look up at Olivia.

“No, he’s not inside it. I checked that first thing. I thought that would be too transparent for Julian. But there must be some reason he hid it, and some reason A Friend thought it would be good for you to have it.”

Theo slipped it on her right hand ring finger. “I don’t care why. I’m just glad to have something—something of his.”

“Yes” said Olivia slowly, her brow furrowed. “What day is it?” she asked abruptly.

“Wednesday,” Theo replied. “Why?”

“Wednesday. That means Julian will be in seminar till four. Hmm. Do you mind skipping class this afternoon? I’d like to try an experiment, and it would be best to try it when we know Julian will be busy. Eat, and let’s go over to the Great Room.”

…

Olivia had Theo put up a repelling circle around their usual seat in the Great Room. “It’s good practice for you, and will keep anyone from bothering us,” she explained. “It’s also not so obvious a bit of magic that anyone’s attention will be drawn to it right away. Everyone uses them all the time here, I’ve noticed, when they don’t want to be bothered by students outside of office hours.”

Theo stretched out on her favorite couch as Olivia directed, still fingering Grant’s ring and trying to ignore Julian’s on her other hand.

“Comfortable?” Olivia asked. She pulled up a chair and sat near her.

“Yes. What am I doing here?”

“You’re going to try to find Grant. You’re wearing his ring. It establishes a link between you. If you think about him hard enough and we’re lucky, you might be able to catch a glimpse of him or where he is—enough to give us some further leads.”

A shiver of excitement ran through Theo. “I might see him?”

“Maybe. Or see through his eyes. Maybe it won’t work at all, or will only work sometimes. But we haven’t gotten any other leads.”

“What do I do?”

“I don’t know. Whatever works for you. Close your eyes, maybe. Think about Grant. Reach out to him with your mind. Or maybe not thinking about him at all will do the trick. Try ’em both.” She sat back and looked at Theo expectantly.

“Right now?” Theo felt uncomfortable, with Olivia staring at her.

“That’s the general idea.”

“Could—could you move over a little? I don’t think I can do this when you’re—”

Olivia slid her chair back a few feet. “Better?”

Theo sighed and closed her eyes. “A little.” She tried to relax into the cushions, comforted by their familiar, slightly nubby texture, and turned Grant’s ring on her finger. The ward she had set around them dulled sounds from outside, so all she could hear was her own breathing, quiet and steady. She listened to its slow rhythm for a while, and thought about Grant. An evening from late last October came to mind, when they’d been here in the Great Room. He’d been sitting on the couch and she had leaned over his shoulder to look at a diagram in the article he’d been reading aloud to her. But instead she’d become engrossed in the feeling of his hair tickling her cheek, and his warm scent teasing her nose, and the sight of his hands holding the journal, strong and capable. She’d reached down and run her finger down the back of his hand, and he’d turned his head and smiled, she could
hear
the sound of his smile as he breathed….