“Fine.” He sat on his bed and leaned toward her. “I’ll answer one a day.”
“Oh!” She was too pleased to pretend she wasn’t. Score one for her water-on-stone strategy.
“But I’ll do so only in your office, starting Monday. And if you ever come here without my express permission again, you forfeit all right to expect so much as a ‘good day’ from me.”
“Oh,” she said. An entirely different sort of “oh.”
“Take it or leave it. Do you accept?”
She thought about it. Guaranteed daily information about magic was better than the occasional magic show, especially since her strategy was more effective if he couldn’t avoid talking to her. But she’d seen his method of weaseling out of promises.
“You’ll answer my questions truthfully?”
He seemed insulted by the implication. “Of course. Have I ever lied to you?”
“Yes! Friday night, right outside that door!”
“Oh?”
“You said—”
What had he said? He’d heard her fall and had seen her on the ground. Well—that was true. Deplorably incomplete, but true.
She was forced to settle for a less-satisfying accusation: “You said you had a lot of work to do and were planning to overhaul my computer.”
“I never specified what sort of work. And I did give your computer an overhaul. Right after your trip to the clinic.”
She scowled at him. He didn’t even have the good grace to look abashed.
“Fine,” she said. “Fine, I’ll take your deal.”
He broke into a predatory grin. “Superb. Now—you have thirty seconds to get out before I consider you in violation of our agreement.”
“What!”
“Twenty-nine, twenty-eight ...”
“It must take practice, being so completely unbearable,” she snapped, racing for the exit.
“Not at all. You’re quite inspiring.”
She slammed the door in a satisfying manner and headed back to her office. Then she collected her grading and settled in on Bernie’s couch, because shivering over the work in her freezing rental was silly when she could sit here in the blissful warmth of his space heater.No wonder she’d accidentally fallen asleep the other night. She hadn’t been chilled to the bone.
She looked up from her pile of essays and stared at his couch.
She shouldn’t. She knew that. But what harm would it do? She hesitated, imagining another night on the woefully misnamed Grand Avenue. Then she scurried home to pack for an overnight stay in the basement that—this time—would be on purpose.
It waslovely. She slept straight through the night in luxuriant room temperature. The basement was such an ideal bedroom compared to her own that she shrugged off the potential downside of Hartgrave passing by while she was dead to the world on Bernie’s sofa. (Bernie, at least, wouldn’t catch her—not with her first class starting two hours before he got in.)
Monday morning brought the regular flurry of lectures, and at noon, she dashed back to her office to await her first answer. By three o’clock, she couldn’t concentrate on her lecture notes. What if he’d come by while she was out and considered his promise fulfilled?
“Nope,” Bernie said when she asked whether he’d seen Hartgrave. “But if you’re going to use your computer today, it’s just a matter of time.”
He meant it as a joke. She took it as a suggestion.
The PC worked flawlessly for a while, just to spite her. Finally a document disappeared mid-word. Triumphant, she hit 1 on speed-dial.
“What,” Hartgrave said when he arrived, shoulders rounded in his usual slouch. She once thought he was one of those too-tall people who wished they wereshorter, but now she saw it as an extension of his closed-off personality.
