Scholar's Plot (31 page)

Fisk didn’t come.

It had likely been no more than a score of seconds since the jeweler emerged, but ’twas still too long. One of the firefighters grabbed at me as I ran back to the tower, but I shoved him off so hard he fell, and took the steps two at a time.

My bubble returned as I stepped through the door again, obedient as a dog called to heel, and I used the air inside it to shout Fisk’s name as I ran.

I went first to the jeweler’s room, fearing that in his madness he might have done Fisk some injury or trapped him there. But the strange room, with its hanging scarves and odd shadows, showed no sign of another person. I went back down the corridor, flinging open doors as I went. It occurred to me that he might have needed to breathe, for the air outside my bubble was scorching now, and I crossed one room to look into the yard, but there was no one there.

Why would he go upstairs again? Fisk, of all people, never took risks without good reason.

There was nowhere else he could have gone, so I dashed up the stairs to the second floor. Firelight now flickered on the stairs at the hallway’s end, but ’twas far from where I stood, and I realized that a building designed to slow invaders as they climbed might also slow the fire on its way down.

I threw open doors on my way to the laboratory, finding nothing, and smoke was beginning to billow down the stairs. I burst into the laboratory and ’twas as empty as we’d left it. Panicked, baffled, beginning to despair, I bellowed Fisk’s name as loud as I could — then stood and listened. And this time I was answered, not by a shout, but by the sound of footsteps on the ceiling above my head.

He was in Dayless’ office! The
idiot
. But whatever the reason he’d gone up there, calling him names wouldn’t change it.

My bubble was visible without magic now, a patch of clear space in the thickening smoke, as I ran for the stairs to the third floor. Looking up I could see tiny flames licking between the planks of the ceiling — which clearly might come down at any moment — so I wasted no time darting up. Beyond the stair there was no fire in sight, but the smoke was thick and I could hear Fisk’s coughing though the open door of Professor Dayless’ office.

Fisk was searching for something; the desk was pulled apart, its drawers tumbled on the floor, and all the books tossed from their shelves. He had rolled up the rug and was tapping the floor beneath, and didn’t even notice me till my bubble swept over him. When the fresh air hit his lungs he started coughing harder.

Curses crowded my brain, but I wasted time on only two words as I dragged him to his feet. “Out. Now.”

“Just … minute,” Fisk coughed. “I want to look… Ceiling’s still fine.”

He was actually resisting me, which made him crazier than the jeweler.

“You think the ceiling is fine?”

In fairness to him, the office ceiling hadn’t started to burn. So I dragged him into the hallway and pointed at the tiny tongues of light that rippled along the beams and planks above our only exit.

Fisk’s reddened eyes widened. He set off for the stairwell at the best speed he could manage, but he was coughing so hard it wasn’t very fast. I grabbed his arm and dragged him along at a run, despite the fact that he was doubled over and clutching his ribs.

He’d been in the smoke so long the harsh scent clung to his clothes and hair, tainting the air inside my bubble But it stayed breathable as we clattered down the stairs, down interminable hallways and more stairs — all of them now filled with smoke — and finally stumbled out into the firelit tumult outside the burning tower.

A number of people ran forward as I half-carried Fisk down the steps, but I assured them there was no one else in the building and we needed no aid. My bubble had disappeared as we emerged, and after brushing off our helpers I set off for the medical camp to see if they could do something about the coughs that shook Fisk’s body every time he tried to breathe.

Once I had time to look, I saw that while there were more people present, ’twas actually more orderly. A large part of the crowd was milling about, but the town’s fire brigade had arrived, and the scholars and some of the townsfolk had been organized into bucket lines.

The sodden grass squished beneath my boots, and a spike of fire nearly as tall as the tower now surged skyward, illuminating the scene for hundreds of yards around. ’Twas no wonder half the town had gathered to gawk, and get in the fire teams’ way. In fairness, they may have come to take a place in the bucket line when their fellows tired. But now they just stood, staring at the flames and forcing Fisk and me to move around them.

I almost walked past her before I recognized the older woman, with her graying hair in braid down her back, clad in a dressing gown instead of professorial black. Professor Dayless didn’t notice us, gazing up like the others. Her expression wavered between agony and something that looked like triumph.

“Professor! You shouldn’t be alone in this commotion. Let me help you to the healers.”

I gathered her into my free arm as I spoke, sweeping her along with us. Fisk was already leaning less heavily.

“I don’t need a healer.” She stiffened, and had she been less guilty she’d have pulled away. I could all but hear her wondering what she’d have done if innocent, and in her hesitation she was lost.

“Mayhap not,” I said agreeably. “But you’ve suffered a terrible shock. The loss of all your work! And there’s someone I think you should see.”

“Who? I don’t need a doctor.” But she must have decided ’twas better not to make a scene, and let me carry her along. Fortunately, the healers’ shelter was crowded with medical scholars, wrapping sprained wrists and examining thrown backs.

“Oh, I don’t see him.” The concern in my voice wasn’t feigned. If they’d taken Stint away for further treatment… Then I saw him, sitting up and talking to a mediciner who waved fingers before his eyes.

Unfortunately, Dayless saw him too. She spun in my tightening grasp, and I had to let go of Fisk to hold on to her. He swayed, but kept his feet.

“Let me go, you impertinent whelp!”

For all her formidable intellect, the professor’s strength was no match for mine — but she made me use it and our struggle was attracting attention. Indeed, several husky scholars were coming toward me, looking outraged and determined. It might all have gone awry, except that the people near us who weren’t prepared to intervene had backed away — and fallen silent, so Professor Stint’s voice was clearly audible.

“Wait a minute. I remember now … that tea… She drugged me!”

This stopped the scholars, who stared from one of their teachers to the other in confusion. A doctor, taking in the scene, said, “He was drugged. We’d best hold them both.”

This decided Professor Dayless. She stamped her heel on the bridge of my foot, nearly breaking it or so it felt, ripped out of my grasp and ran … right into Captain Chaldon’s arms.

“Forgive me, Professor,” he said calmly. “But the doctors summoned me here because they say Professor Stint has been drugged. And since he was pulled, unconscious, from that tower, it seems there may have been a crime committed.”

“Really? How did you guess?” Fisk muttered, between coughs. His breathing seemed to be settling, though he still clutched his ribs.

“That’s a bit far-fetched, isn’t it?” Professor Dayless had recovered her nerve. “If it’s true it would be very shocking, but I—”

“You brought me tea.” Stint’s voice was slurred, and his eyes didn’t quite track. “I got dizzy. Thought I was sick. I called, but you didn’t come. I was trying to go for help … when … when…” He listed to one side and an alert scholar grabbed him and propped him upright.

“The man is clearly intoxicated,” Professor Dayless said icily. “We had tea together two days ago, and he’s probably confusing that memory with whatever he took. Or drank.”

“He’s not drunk,” one of the doctors put in. “It looks like an opiate to me, though we’d have to test his urine to be sure.”

The scholars looked much interested in this.

“Then he took a sleeping draught,” said Dayless. “What has that to do with me? And why, as your theory seems to run, would I want to drug my colleague and set my own complex on fire? All my notes are ashes now, the rabbits dead, my work ruined. Ruined!”

“I expect you did it for the same reason you framed Professor Sevenson.” I spoke clearly, in a voice meant to carry. The more people who spread this rumor the better. “You feared Benton would come to recognize the rabbits well enough to realize you were switching them out, to make it look as if your experiment was getting better results than it did. As Lat Quicken had realized, though you didn’t learn that till he threatened to expose you unless you reduced his debt to the university. But when you did that, it made Stint suspicious. And he’d never agree to keep silent and vanish, as Quicken did.”

Chaldon’s gaze went to the flaming tower, and he may have been suspicious as well for he put it together very quickly.

“Professor Dayless, you’ll be held for questioning,” he said. “For attempted murder, arson, false testimony, and whatever else I need to keep you till Professor Stint sobers up, and we can get to the bottom of this. Or rather, prove it, because I think the truth is clear. The only thing I don’t understand is why you killed Hotchkiss.”

He’d been speaking to her, but his gaze slid to Fisk and me as he asked this. ’Twould have been quite flattering, if I’d only had the answer.

“I didn’t!” Professor Dayless said. “You have to understand, we may not quite have gotten the results we needed, but we were getting close. I know we were close! All we need is a little more time and I’m sure we’ll succeed. So I may have made my tea a bit strong. He said he’d been having trouble sleeping, and I thought—”

“No, I didn’t,” said Stint. “No trouble sleeping, and even if I had, why’d I want t’ sleep in the laboratory?”

“But I didn’t kill anyone,” the professor went on. “I might have left a lamp burning somewhere, but that’s merely an accident.”

She was still explaining why she’d take a lamp up to the fourth floor, which had been filled with flammable papers, when the deputies led her away. Captain Chaldon returned to assisting the fire marshal, and I turned Fisk toward the healers’ tent once more.

“Why did she kill Hotchkiss?” I asked. “And if she didn’t, who did?”

“I have no idea,” he said.

“She sounded like she didn’t do it.”

I’d had a lot of practice, listening to people denying they’d killed the librarian. Professor Dayless had sounded as innocent as the others. When she’d spoken of the fire, and drugging Professor Stint, she sounded guilty. I mentioned this to Fisk, who rolled his eyes.

“Attempted murder is a debt you can pay off, eventually,” he pointed out. “Committed murder you can’t. She has an excellent motive to lie about that.”

“Mayhap,” I admitted, though it still didn’t sound right. “But ’tis out of our hands. And I don’t think they’ve done that final interview, so Benton can get his job back. Though he’ll be sorry about the rabbits.”

“Why? He could probably keep them, if he wants.” Fisk gestured to a dim corner of the healers’ tent, which I’d not noticed. The jeweler sat on a cot, surrounded by rabbit cages. The scholars must have taken them from the yard and brought them here. A girl, mayhap one of the maids, sat beside him speaking soothingly. But the jeweler’s attention was on stroking the quivering lump of fur in his lap. The rabbit evidently regarded him 
as shelter from the lights and noise around it, for it snuggled against him.

“He’s forgiven them for lying,” said Fisk, which made no more sense now than it had when he first said it.

“Then mayhap he can keep them. We’d better get you something to settle that cough.”

“I’d have thought you’d have done that by now,” said Kathy’s voice behind me.

Fisk spun so fast he almost lost his balance. “Kath— I mean, Lady Katherine. What are you doing here? This isn’t…”

“What? A proper place for a lady? With half the campus going up in flames I knew you two would be in the thick of it, so I figured I’d better come help. Or bail you out of gaol. Again.”

She had been helping. She set down a pail of water, and handed Fisk a cup and a sopping wet cloth as she spoke.

“I knew there was a reason I … ah, thank you,” Fisk said. He drank deeply, then pressed the cloth to his eyes.

“Your hands are burned too,” Kathy observed. “How come you’re such a mess and Michael looks so tidy?”

’Twas not a question I was prepared to answer, even to my sister, but it reminded me of the question I’d not had time to ask.

“Fisk, what under two moons were you doing in Professor Dayless’ office? You cursed near went up with the tower!”

“Ah.” Fisk’s gaze darted to Kathy, then away. “I know scholars well enough that I was pretty sure she’d have another set of notes, with the true results of their experiment, tucked away somewhere. Getting rid of them, as well as Stint, was probably why she chose this way to do it. She could get rid of every threat in the same ‘accident.’ She’d been getting ‘results,’ so she might even be able to get more funding, and start over with a new partner.”

His voice was still rough but he’d stopped coughing. And since I’d now had time to think about how near we’d both come to dying in that inferno, I was all the more angry.