Read Online Scholar's Plot by Hilari Bell - Free Book Online Page B

for?” But she’d turned back to listen.
    “I’m … an acquaintance of his,” Fisk said. “I want to see that he’s well-treated. I know better than to hope he’s happy.”
    “Acquaintance,” she repeated. “Not a friend?”
    “I don’t think he has friends,” said Fisk. “But it was Michael and I who got him taken from Roseman … and no gods look after man. No insult intended, but it’s our duty to see he’s being cared for.”
    She didn’t appear to be offended, which I took as a mark in her favor, but she shook her head. “He’s not really involved with the project. In fact, I don’t know what they thought we’d do with someone who has magic, when our project only involves Gifts. But he’s housed in the tower, and I can’t—”
    “Captain Chaldon would agree ’tis our duty to check on him,” I said. “Since the guard brought him to you, ’tis a charge on their honor as well.”
    Mention of the captain made her hesitate.
    “I don’t suppose it does any harm,” she said. “It might please him to see someone he knows. But if I let you in—” her stern gaze turned to Fisk “—no more trying to break into the tower. Agreed?”
    “Agreed.” Fisk could have been lying, but I didn’t think he was. Which put something of a crimp in my backup plan.
    “Very well,” the professor said. “You can come in.”
     

I brushed past Michael and made my way up the steps. The guard looked nervous about letting me past, and even more uncertain about whether his job was to follow me or keep watch on Michael — who wasn’t coming in, but looks a lot tougher than I do. He was still looking back and forth when I followed the lady into the tower, and shut the door behind us.
    “Thank you, Professor…?”
    “Dayless. And I’m in charge of the project’s operations, so don’t think you can go over my head.”
    “I have no doubt that you’re in charge.”
    It made her stern lips twitch, in a way that reminded me of my sister Judith. As Judith would be in thirty years, if she’d been given authority. I had no doubt this woman was in charge. But…
    “He won’t give up.” I gestured to the door, where Michael waited. “He thinks his brother is innocent, and he’s going to find the truth one way or another.”
    Michael fought for what he believed in.
    “If Professor Sevenson was framed, I hope he does,” she said. “In fact, I hope the truth is revealed even if he wasn’t. But he can’t have access to the project.”
    Inside the tower, one hallway ran along the front of the building, and another down the center, in a T shape. The bottom of a narrow staircase rose at the far end of the central hallway. They built them that way in the bad old days, to force an attacking army to march down the hall before they could start up. The professor led me down the central hall, and I counted three doors on one side and two on the side that held the staircase.
    “Benton told us about his brother,” she said. “How he’d gone off to do the craziest thing he could think of, mostly to annoy his father, but then … Benton said it sounds like he’s actually become a knight errant. He said it was the best example he’s ever seen, of illusion becoming truth.”
    It seemed that Kathy shared my letters, too.
    “‘Illusion becomes truth, when men believe it,’” I quoted Phisterian. “I suppose it depends on your position on the nature of truth.”
    The professor looked at me with new interest, which was what I’d intended. “You don’t believe there’s only one reality, unchanging, except in our perception of it?”
    “Not even close.” I could tell which room was the jeweler’s — it was the only door with a lock.
    She must have seen my expression change. “What else can we do? He can’t go wandering about, not with the abilities he has.” She was pulling out keys as she spoke. “He gave one of the maids a stone, a simple bit of quartz. It made every man she saw fall in love with her.